Mank: The true story behind the characters of Netflix’s new film

A run-down of the core players in David Fincher’s Old Hollywood biopic

Mank, the latest project from acclaimed Se7en director David Fincher, is arriving on Netflix on 4 December.

The film tells the story of Herman Mankiewicz, the Hollywood screenwriter who was involved in developing the script for Orson Welles’ seminal 1941 film Citizen Kane.

Mank tracks the story of Citizen Kane’s creation, and also delves into Mankiewicz’s personal foibles. In the film, he is portrayed by Oscar-winner Gary Oldman.

Shot in black-and-white, the film is being tipped by some as a likely awards contender, with a strong cast that also features Amanda Seyfried, Lily Collins and Charles Dance.

Mank’s subject matter, however, may raise questions for some viewers who are unfamiliar with the story of Citizen Kane’s troubled inception, and the characters involved.

Read more: Did the making of Citizen Kane happen as shown in Mank?

Here is a quick run-down of the main characters in Mank and the real-life people who inspired them…

Herman J Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman)

The central character of the film, Herman “Mank” Mankiewicz was a New York-born screenwriter who rose to prominence in the 1920s working for Paramount.

Mankiewicz was known for writing with cutting humour, and for his prolific output, with nearly 100 writing credits to his name, most of which are comprised of films from the late 1920s and 1930s. His later career was affected by a reputation for difficulties in his personal life, which included an alcohol abuse problem.

The writer won an Academy Award, alongside Welles, for the screenplay to Citizen Kane, although the exact nature of the script’s authorship, including the extent and exact nature of Mankiewicz’s contribution, has long been the subject of academic debate.

Marion Davies (Amanda Seyfried)

Amanda Seyfried (Mamma Mia!) plays Marion Davies, the actor, producer, and writer who was the #1 female box office star in Hollywood in the early 1920s.

Davies started out as a stage actor, meeting her future lover, the newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst, while performing in a version of Follies.

Hearst served as the inspiration for Charles Foster Kane in Citizen Kane, and the character Susan Alexander Kane was based on Davies. She remained forever associated with the character until her death in 1961.

Rita Alexander (Lily Collins)

Lily Collins plays the role of Rita Alexander, Mankiewicz’s personal secretary. The Emily in Paris star said she struggled to research the real-life Alexander thoroughly, as she was not a person of any celebrity.

However, it has been reported that Alexander served as the inspiration for the name of Charles Kane’s wife, Susan Alexander Kane, in Citizen Kane.

Film critic Pauline Kael’s infamous (and largely discredited) essay on the authorship of Citizen Kane, 1971’s “Raising Kane”, argued that Mankiewicz’s contributions had been deliberately diminished by Welles throughout the promotion of the film. Alexander was interviewed and cited in the piece.

Louis B Mayer (Arliss Howard)

In Mank, Arliss Howard (Full Metal Jacket; Natural Born Killers) plays Louis B Mayer, the film producer who co-founded the famous Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio in 1924. 

One of the film industry’s early power players, Mayer helped grow MGM to become Hollywood’s foremost movie studio.  

Mayer has been portrayed many times on film before, including by Stanley DeSantis in Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator, by Richard Portnow in Trumbo, and by Richard Cordery in Judy.

Joseph L Mankiewicz (Tom Pelphrey)

Herman Mankiewicz’s younger brother Joseph also worked in the film industry as a director, writer and producer of great acclaim.

Over the course of his four-decade-long career, Mankiewicz wrote 48 screenplays and produced more than 20 films. His most enduring success is The Philadelphia Story, though he also won consecutive Best Writing and Best Director Oscars for A Letter to Three Wives and All About Eve.

Joseph Mankiewicz died in 1993 at the age of 83, a full four decades after the death of his brother Herman. In Mank, he is portrayed by Tom Pelphey, the actor best known for his roles in Banshee, Iron Fist and Ozark. 

Orson Welles (Tom Burke)

The Musketeers’ Tom Burke plays the role of Orson Welles, the revolutionary film director whose films, including Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons and Touch of Evil, helped launch the concept of filmmaking as an auteurist pursuit.

As well as his work behind the camera, Welles was also a revered actor, starring in many of his own films – Citizen Kane included – as well as in esteemed works by other filmmakers, such as Carol Reed’s The Third Man.

Netflix was responsible for completing, editing and posthumously releasing Welles’ final film The Other Side of the Wind in 2018.