Program Description
Event Details
Award winning journalist and author, Sydney Ladensohn Stern, will discuss THE BROTHERS MANKIEWICZ: Hope, Heartbreak, and Hollywood Classics, her dual biography of Herman (1897-1953) and Joseph L. Mankiewicz (1909-1993) on January 29 at 7:30 PM on a Zoom presentation sponsored by the Scarsdale Library. In addition to her book, she will discuss David Fincher’s new biopic about Herman, Mank, which is available on Netflix. Herman co-authored Citizen Kane with Orson Welles and they shared its only Academy Award for best screenplay of 1941. Joseph earned the second pair of his four Oscars for writing and directing All About Eve, which also won Best Picture. The Brothers Mankiewicz examines the brilliantly successful but deeply dissatisfied brothers through their lives and loves, triumphs and disappointments. From the antics of the Marx Brothers through the star-crossed making of Cleopatra, their story is also the story of Hollywood, from silent movies to talkies to the studio system’s ultimate demise.
Turner Classic Movies (TCM) featured Sydney Stern for a Mankiewicz Family Weekend of Mankiewicz movies, and recently she has been a frequent source in the press for distinguishing fact from fiction in Mank. Her award-winning biography was excerpted in Commentary and glowing reviewed in the Wall St. Journal, New York Review of Books and many others. The freelance writer and former Scarsdale Inquirer editor and columnist (“Suburban Exposure”) is also the author of Gloria Steinem: Her Passions, Politics and Mystique, and Toyland: The High-Stakes Game of the Toy Industry. Bronx River Books is offering signed copies of her books for sale.
You will receive an email with the Zoom link approximately one hour before the start of this program.