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Cyril Wolf Mankowitz (7 November 1924 — 20 May 1998) was an English writer, playwright and screenwriter of Russian Jewish descent. He was born in Fashion Street in Spitalfields in the East End of London, the heart of London's Jewish community. He was educated at Downing College, Cambridge.

His background provided Mankowitz with the material for his most successful book A Kid for Two Farthings (1953). This was adapted as a film by the director Carol Reed in 1955. Mankowitz himself wrote the screenplay. In 1958 he wrote the book for the West End musical Expresso Bongo which was made into a film starring Cliff Richard the following year. His 1960 film The Millionairess, starring Sophia Loren and Peter Sellers, was nominated for a BAFTA award. Another of his screenplays at this time was a collaboration with director Val Guest on the science fiction film The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961).

In 1962, Mankowitz offered to introduce friend Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, holder of the film rights to James Bond, when Broccoli mentioned he desired to make the Bond series his next film project. The two men formed a partnership and began co-producing the first Bond film, Doctor No, for which Mankowitz was hired as one of the screenwriters. After viewing early rushes, Mankowitz feared that the film would be a disaster and damage his reputation and insisted on having his name removed from the film's credits. He later also collaborated on the screenplay for the 'unofficial' Bond movie Casino Royale. He wrote the script for Yorkshire Television's 1976 miniseries Dickens of London and the book of the same name based on his research when writing the series.

During the late 1960s, Wolf Mankowitz was part-owner of the Pickwick Club, in Gt Newport St, off Charing Cross Road, Soho, London W1, where the Peddlers group, led by Roy Phillips, were resident. Mankowitz's wife Ann was a psychoanalyst; the couple met at Cambridge University. They had four sons; the eldest, Gered Mankowitz, is a noted photographer.

Mankowitz died of cancer in 1998, in County Cork, Ireland, aged 73. His ashes are at the Golders Green Crematorium.

Files placed in the public domain during August 2010 revealed that Mankowitz was suspected of being a communist agent by security service MI5 for a decade after the second world war. According to a Guardian article, the investigation was dropped after he canceled a visit to Russia in 1957.

This author page uses material from the Wikipedia article "Wolf Mankowitz", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0