Wolf Mankowitz
| Wolf Mankowitz | |
|---|---|
| Born | Cyril Wolf Mankowitz 7 November 1924 Spitalfields, London, England, United Kingdom |
| Died | 20 May 1998 (aged 73) County Cork, Ireland |
| Resting place | Golders Green Crematorium |
| Occupation | Writer, playwright, screenwriter |
| Language | English |
| Alma mater | Downing College, Cambridge |
| Genre | Screenwriting, theatre |
Cyril Wolf Mankowitz (7 November 1924 – 20 May 1998) was an English writer, playwright and screenwriter.
Mankowitz was born in Fashion Street in Spitalfields in the East End of London, the heart of London's Jewish community, of Russian Jewish descent. He was educated at Downing College, Cambridge.
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. Its director Val Guest suggested to Harvey that it might be a good idea to model his film role of Johnny Jackson on Mankowitz's own character, and so Harvey arranged a couple of lunches with the unsuspecting writer to study him at close hand, resulting in the character on film sounding something like Mankowitz. Mankowitz himself appears in the film's opening credit sequence, wearing a sandwich-board bearing his writer credit.
Mankowitz's script for Anthony Asquith's film The Millionairess (1960), based on the 1936 play by George Bernard Shaw and starring Sophia Loren and Peter Sellers, was nominated for a BAFTA Award for best screenplay. Another screenplay at this time was a further collaboration with Val Guest for the science fiction film The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961).
...
Wikipedia