Photographer unknown; work-for-hire on behalf of 20th Century Fox. · Public domain

Joseph L. Mankiewicz won two Academy Awards in each of two consecutive years, for writing and directing both A Letter to Three Wives and All About Eve. Actors wanted to work with him: he drew career-defining performances from Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart and Elizabeth Taylor, built on dialogue as sharp as anything else in American film. He began as a translator and dialogue writer in 1920s Berlin before Paramount brought him to Hollywood as a screenwriter.