Benjamin Frederick Mankiewicz (born March 25, 1967) is an American television personality, political commentator, and film critic. He is a host on
Turner Classic Movies
Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is an American movie-oriented pay-TV network owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. Launched in 1994, Turner Classic Movies is headquartered at Turner's Techwood broadcasting campus in the Midtown business district of At ...
and has been a commentator on ''
The Young Turks
''The Young Turks'' (TYT) is an American progressive news commentary show on YouTube that additionally appears on selected television channels. TYT serves as the flagship program of the TYT Network, a multi-channel network of associated web s ...
'' and ''What the Flick?!''
Early life
Mankiewicz was born in Washington, D.C., to press secretary
Frank Mankiewicz
Frank Fabian Mankiewicz II (May 16, 1924 – October 23, 2014) was an American journalist, political adviser, president of National Public Radio, and public relations executive.
Life and career
Frank Mankiewicz was born in New York City ...
and Holly Mankiewicz (née Jolley) of
German–Jewish descent. He is the cousin of screenwriter
Tom Mankiewicz
Thomas Frank Mankiewicz (June 1, 1942 – July 31, 2010) was an American screenwriter, director, and producer of motion pictures and television whose credits included ''James Bond'' films and his contributions to '' Superman: The Movie'' (1978) a ...
and filmmaker/television producer
Nick Davis,
the grandson of screenwriter
Herman J. Mankiewicz, the grand-nephew of screenwriter, producer, and director
Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Joseph Leo Mankiewicz (; February 11, 1909 – February 5, 1993) was an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. Mankiewicz had a long Hollywood career, and won both the Academy Award for Best Director and the Academy Award for Best A ...
,
and the brother of
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...
News reporter
Josh Mankiewicz.
He attended
Georgetown Day School
Georgetown Day School (GDS) is an independent coeducational PK-12 school located in Washington, D.C. The school educates 1,075 elementary, middle, and high school students in northwestern Washington, D.C. Russell Shaw is the current Head of Sc ...
for his primary and secondary education,
Tufts University
Tufts University is a private research university on the border of Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1852 as Tufts College by Christian universalists who sought to provide a nonsectarian institution of higher learning. ...
for undergraduate studies, and
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
for graduate studies.
Career
Mankiewicz began his career as a reporter and an anchor for
WCSC-TV
WCSC-TV (channel 5) is a television station in Charleston, South Carolina, United States, affiliated with CBS and owned by Gray Television. The station's studios are located in the West Ashley section of Charleston, and its transmitter is loca ...
(a CBS affiliate) in
Charleston, South Carolina. He joined
WAMI in
Miami
Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at ...
, Florida, in 1998, where he served as anchor of ''The Times'', a daily news magazine show and the station's highlight program.
Since 2003, Mankiewicz has been a host of ''Turner Classic Movies''. When he made his debut
on TCM, he became the second host hired in the network's history (
Robert Osborne
Robert Jolin Osborne (; May 3, 1932 – March 6, 2017) was an American film historian, television presenter, author, actor and the primary host for more than 20 years of the cable channel Turner Classic Movies (TCM). Prior to hosting at TCM, Os ...
being the first). As a film critic, Mankiewicz co-hosted the nationally syndicated television series ''
At the Movies'' from 2008 to 2009 and co-hosted the online film review show ''What the Flick?!'' on The Young Turks Network. He launched TCM original podcast (April 2020), "The Plot Thickens" in which he interviews renowned director
Peter Bogdanovich
Peter Bogdanovich (July 30, 1939 – January 6, 2022) was an American director, writer, actor, producer, critic, and film historian.
One of the " New Hollywood" directors, Bogdanovich started as a film journalist until he was hired to work on ...
(''
The Last Picture Show
''The Last Picture Show'' is a 1971 American coming-of-age drama film directed and co-written by Peter Bogdanovich, adapted from the semi-autobiographical 1966 novel ''The Last Picture Show'' by Larry McMurtry. The film's ensemble cast includes ...
,'' ''
Paper Moon,'' etc.) who chronicles his life in and out of film. The podcast is scheduled to have others connected to film interviewed in subsequent podcasts.
Mankiewicz has made
cameo appearance
A cameo role, also called a cameo appearance and often shortened to just cameo (), is a brief appearance of a well-known person in a work of the performing arts. These roles are generally small, many of them non-speaking ones, and are commonly ei ...
s in the
Lifetime television movie ''The Bling Ring'' (2011) and the action film ''
White House Down
''White House Down'' is a 2013 American political action thriller film directed by Roland Emmerich and written by James Vanderbilt. In the film, a divorced US Capitol Police officer attempts to rescue both his daughter and the President of ...
'' (2013). Mankiewicz also appears regularly on other shows as a political and media commentator, including ''The Michael Brooks Show'' in 2017,
and hosts a segment on the CBS Sunday morning show called ''Screen Time''. He was among the people interviewed for the documentary film ''
Memory: The Origins of Alien'' (2019).
Filmography
Film
Television
References
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mankiewicz, Ben
1967 births
20th-century American journalists
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American journalists
21st-century American male writers
American film critics
American male journalists
American male non-fiction writers
American people of German-Jewish descent
American podcasters
American radio personalities
American television hosts
California Democrats
Columbia University alumni
Georgetown Day School alumni
Journalists from Washington, D.C.
Living people
Mankiewicz family
The Young Turks people
Tufts University alumni