Joseph L. Mankiewicz

The AFI's page on All About Eve keeps a record for Joseph L. Mankiewicz: the year before, with A Letter to Three Wives, he had taken the Oscars for writing and for directing, which made him the only person to win both categories two years running. That letter is the engine of the earlier film too; by the summary, three women receive a single letter from Addie Ross, the polite flirt of the town, saying she has run off with one of their husbands. All About Eve drew fourteen Oscar nominations, and by the AFI that number stood unbroken until 1998, when it was equalled by Titanic, which in our catalogue is James Cameron's. The film won six: best picture, writing, director, supporting actor, sound recording and black-and-white costume. Every one of the twenty entries in the catalogue carries Mankiewicz's directing credit, from 1946 to 1972.