Movies with Mary: 'Mank' all talk, very little action Mary Cox The Telegraph FacebookTwitterEmail 3of3 I couldn’t wait to see “Mank” on Netflix for several reasons. Academy Award-winner Herman Mankiewicz wrote “Citizen Kane,” which is a loosely veiled story based on the life of William Randolph Hearst, founder of Hearst Communications, for which I work. And second, I am a screenwriter, and I love stories about other film writers. Hollywood studio RKO Pictures hired Orson Welles when he 24, under a contract that gave him full creative control of his movies. For his first film, he hired Mankiewicz, to write the screenplay for the film that became “Citizen Kane.” Mankiewicz was once the highest paid screenwriter in Hollywood, but he was an alcoholic whose his life and career was on the skids.