Joseph Edgar Allen John "Eddie" Mannix was an American filmstudio executive and producer. He is remembered for his work protecting Hollywood stars as a "fixer", a person paid to disguise details of the stars' often colorful private lives to maintain their public image. Among his most lasting contributions to Hollywood was a ledger he maintained that lists the costs and revenues of every MGM film produced between 1924 and 1962, an important reference for film historians.
Early life
Mannix was born in Fort Lee, New Jersey, the son of John and Lizzie Mannix. Christened Joseph Edgar Allen John Mannix, he used Edgar Joseph Mannix as his official name, but was known to most associates as Eddie.
Mannix was married twice and had no children. He married Bernice Fitzmaurice in 1916. Mannix had numerous affairs during the marriage but the couple remained married due to their Catholicism. However, in late 1937, Bernice petitioned for divorce claiming that Mannix physically abused her and also cited the affairs. Before the divorce was officially filed, Bernice died in a car accident outside Palm Springs, California on November 18, 1937. After Bernice's death, Mannix began living with actress and Ziegfeld Follies dancer Toni Lanier with whom he had been having an affair. They married in May 1951 and remained married until Mannix's death in 1963. Mannix was tangentially associated with the death of actor George Reeves, the star of the Adventures of Superman television series. Reeves had begun having an affair with Mannix's wife Toni in 1951. Mannix reportedly approved of the affair, which was considered an open secret in Hollywood, as he was involved in a long-time affair with a Japanese woman. As Mannix and his wife were Catholics who did not believe in divorce, the arrangement continued for the next several years. Reeves ended the affair in early 1959 and soon became engaged to socialite Leonore Lemmon, which devastated Toni. Reeves died of a gunshot wound to the head at his home on June 16, 1959. His death was ruled a suicide, but controversy surrounding that ruling and the circumstances of his death began. Rumors arose that Mannix, who was also rumored to have had mafia connections, had Reeves killed for seeing his wife. Kashner and Schoenberger's partially fictionalized biography Hollywood Kryptonite states as unsourced fact that Lanier, via Eddie Mannix's criminal connections, ordered Reeves murdered. This theory was endorsed by publicist Edward Lozzi, who stated in 1999 that he had witnessed Toni's deathbed confession. During his career at MGM Mannix apparently also left a trail of forced abortions, sham marriages and several other unsolved murders in his wake.
portrayed Mannix in the 2006 biographical filmHollywoodland, based on the life and death of Adventures of Superman actor George Reeves, who is played in the film by Ben Affleck. In June 2014, Universal Pictures announced they had acquired the rights to distribute Hail, Caesar!, a heavily fictionalized comedic film very loosely based on Mannix's career. Hail, Caesar! was released on February 5, 2016. Joel and Ethan Coen wrote and directed the film, and Josh Brolin portrayed Mannix. The film contains several references to real-life Hollywood history, but the Mannix character depicted is patriarch of a quiet family with two children and a doting housemaker wife, and his office door reveals his first name to be Edward. Eddie Mannix is a minor character in the Gore Vidal novel Myron. Eddie Mannix is Louis B. Mayer's right hand man in "When Garbo Talks!" a 2010 world premiere musical at Long BeachPerforming Arts Center where LB and Eddie trick Swedish director Mauritz Stiller into bringing Greta Garbo to Hollywood as a contract player for MGM.
