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down the hospital corridor, a voice suddenly spoke up from behind him: “M-A-N-K-I-E-W-I-C-Z.” It was Natalie. He hadn't seen her since the film. She winked. Years later, no matter where we were, I could turn to Natalie and say, “Spell Mankiewicz,” and she would rattle it off as if it were indelibly imprinted in her brain, which it was.
    All About Eve (1950)
    A classic film. Dad's high water mark. Among its many virtues was a wonderful supporting performance from a young Marilyn Monroe. Dad told me this story about her, which I've never forgotten: Right after the film had wrapped, Dad was browsing at the magazine stand outside Martindale's Book Store in Beverly Hills. Exiting the store came Marilyn, carrying a paper bag with what she'd bought. He was surprised to see her leaving a bookstore, which he hardly thought would be her natural habitat. They hugged. Pointing at the bag, Dad said, “What've you got there, Marilyn?”
    She pulled out the book. It was a volume of nineteenth-century poetry by Heinrich Heine.
    Dad was shocked. “You're a fan of Heine?’
    â€œI don't know who he is,” she said. “Sometimes I come in here to look around and I try to find a book that seems lonely, like no one's ever going to buy it, and I take it home with me.” I've always found that story so touching and so indicative of what I imagine to have been her real personality.
    Certainly, the towering performance in the film was given by Bette Davis as Margo Channing. Some forty years later I was having dinner with her at Robert Wagner's house. I asked her who her favorite director had been. She replied: “My favorite was my dear Willy Wyler, what a charming, wonderful man. The most talented director I ever worked with was your father, but of course, he was a prick.”
    I called Dad to tell him what she'd said, and he roared with laughter. “I'd have expected nothing less from her,” he said.
    There was a hit Broadway musical based on the film called Applause. It opened decades later and starred Lauren Bacall as Margo. Weeks before the opening, Bacall (“Betty”) called Dad and asked him to please attend on opening night. She wanted to bring him out onstage during her solo curtain call. Dad had been friends with Betty (and Bogart) for years. He told her how flattered he was by the gesture, then said: “I wish you all kinds of luck, Betty, but I'm never going to see it. I think it was a pretty good film and I'll never understand why anybody thought it was a good idea to stop it a dozen times for songs.” The show was a hit. Betty won the Tony. Dad never saw it.

3
    The 1950s
    Developing a Character
    In movies today, if you steal a scene from another writer, line for line, it's still called plagiarism. If you steal a scene from another director, shot for shot, it's called an homage.
    â€”Joseph L. Mankiewicz
    New York City
    Needless to say, moving from laid-back southern California (the late comedian Fred Allen called it “a great place to live if you're an orange”) to the cacophony of taxi horns and bustling pedestrians that was and still is New York City was a culture shock to a nine-year-old. Everyone on the street seemed to walk with a sense of purpose, as if he or she had a mission to accomplish, and right now.
    We moved into a large apartment (the entire ninth floor) at 730 Park Avenue, on the corner of Seventy-First Street. It wasn't easy getting in. First, the family had to pass muster with the Admissions Board of the building. Luckily for us, Dad had won four Oscars in the last two years, and both the great composer Richard Rodgers (who lived on the floor below) and the celebrated novelist Edna Ferber were residents who were happy to vouch for us. Also on the board was John Loeb, cofounder of the noted brokerage house of Loeb, Rhoades, later to become Shearson Loeb Rhoades. He was apparently so picky that he'd denied occupancy to V. K. Krishna Menon,