Wolf Mankowitz - Biography

Cyril Wolf Mankowitz (7 November 1924 – 20 May 1998) was an English writer, playwright and screenwriter of Russian Jewish descent.

Early life

Mankowitz was born in Fashion Street in Spitalfields in the East End of London, the heart of London's Jewish community. He was educated at Downing College, Cambridge.

Career

His background provided Mankowitz with the material for his most successful book A Kid for Two Farthings (1953). This was adapted as a film by the director Carol Reed in 1955. Mankowitz himself wrote the screenplay. In 1958 he wrote the book for the West End musical Expresso Bongo which was made into a film starring Cliff Richard and Laurence Harvey the following year. Harvey arranged a couple of lunches with the unsuspecting Mankowitz to study the writer at close hand, so the character Johnny Jackson in the film version of Expresso Bongo sounds something like Mankowitz.

Mankowitz's 1960 film, The Millionairess, starring Sophia Loren and Peter Sellers, was nominated for a BAFTA Award. Another of his screenplays at this time was a collaboration with director Val Guest on the science fiction film The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961).

In 1962, Mankowitz offered to introduce his friend Cubby Broccoli to Harry Saltzman, holder of the film rights to James Bond, when Broccoli mentioned he desired to make the Bond series his next film project. The two men formed a partnership and began co-producing the first Bond film, Doctor No, for which Mankowitz was hired as one of the screenwriters. After viewing early rushes, Mankowitz feared that the film would be a disaster and damage his reputation and insisted on having his name removed from the film's credits. He later also collaborated on the screenplay for the 'unofficial' Bond movie, Casino Royale. He wrote the script for Yorkshire Television's 1976 miniseries Dickens of London and the book of the same name based on his research when writing the series.

During the late 1960s, Mankowitz was part-owner of the Pickwick Club, in Gt Newport St, off Charing Cross Road, Soho, London W1, where the Peddlers group, led by Roy Phillips, were resident. Mankowitz's wife Ann was a psychoanalyst; the couple met at Cambridge University. They had four sons; the eldest of whom, Gered, is a noted photographer. His sister was Barbara Mankowitz (12 April 1927 - 25 August 2002).

Death

Wolf Mankowitz died of cancer in 1998 in County Cork, Ireland, aged 73. His ashes are at the Golders Green Crematorium.

Other

Files placed in the public domain during August 2010 revealed that Mankowitz was suspected of being a communist agent by security service MI5 for a decade after the Second World War. According to an article in The Guardian, the investigation was dropped after he cancelled a visit to Russia in 1957.

External links

• November 2008 report on Anthony Dunn's lecture to the Society for Theatre Research
• Profile
• Wolf Mankowitz IMDb profile