Daniel P Mannix - Those About to Die

Daniel P. Mannix IV

Daniel Pratt Mannix IV (Oct 27, 1911 January 29, 1997) became best known as an American author and journalist. Mannixs works include the 1958 book Those About to Die , which remained in continuous print for three decades, and the 1967 novel The Fox and the Hound which was adapted into an animated film by Walt Disney Productions. His novel Drifter was a Newberry Medal Nominee.

Childhood

Daniel Pratt Mannix 4ths early life might have come right out of True Adventure magazine, and it still would have been hard to believe. 2/2/1997, Philadelphia Inquirer

As a child and young man, Daniel P. Mannix spent a lot of time at his grandparents farm outside Philadelphia while his naval father was away on postings accompanied by his wife, Jule Junker Mannix. Daniel began to keep and raise various wild animals. The cost of feeding these animals led Daniel to write his first book, The Back-Yard Zoo .

Career

Mannix life was filled with many and exciting chapters; it was remarkably different from other writers of his generation. His career included times as a side show performer, magician, trainer of eagles and film maker. His life became not what his family planned when he was born in Bryn Mawr. The son, grandson and great-grandson of Navy men, he was assumed to have saltwater in his veins, and duly enrolled at the Naval Academy at Annapolis, Md., in 1930. But he quickly moved in 1931 to the University of Pennsylvania, while postponing his interest in zoology for a degree in journalism. During World War II, Navy lieutenant Mannix was with the Photo-Science Laboratory in Washington, D. C.

The Great Zadma was a stage name Mannix used as a magician. He also entertained as a sword swallower and fire eater in a traveling carnival sideshow. Magazine articles about these experiences, co-written with his wife, became very popular in 1944 and 1945 and these accounts of carnival life are to be found in the book, Step Right Up , reprinted in 1964 as Memoirs of a Sword Swallower . At times Mannix was a professional hunter, a collector of wildlife for zoos and circuses, and a bird trainer. In 1956 Mannix showed his many talents by writing, producing, directing, acting in, training birds and photographing for a short film Universal Color Parade: Parrot Jungle .

An an author Mannix covered a wide variety of subject matter. His more than 25 books ranged from fictional animal stories for children, the natural history of animals, and adventurous accounts about hunting big game to sensational adult non-fiction topics such as a biography of the occultist Aleister Crowley, sympathetic accounts of carnival performers and sideshow freaks, and works describing, among other things, the Hellfire Club, the Atlantic slave trade, the history of torture, and the Roman games. His output of essays and articles was extensive. In 1983, Mannix edited The Old Navy: The Glorious Heritage of the U. S. Navy , which is his fathers (Rear Admiral Daniel P Mannix III) autobiographical account of his life and naval career from the Spanish-American War of 1898 until his retirement in 1928.

An interest in magic led Mannix to become a skilled stage magician, magic historian, and collector of illusions and apparatus. In 1957, he was one of the 16 members who co-founded the Munchkin Convention of the International Wizard of Oz Club. He contributed numerous articles to The Baum Bugle , including one on the subject of the 1902 musical extravaganza, The Wizard of Oz .

Personal Life

Travel and the raising of exotic animals led to an adventurous life for Mannix and his wife as they traveled around the world until 1950. They had a son, Daniel Pratt Mannix, V, and a daughter, Julie Mannix Von Zernick. From 1950 on they lived in Pennsylvania. Mannix died at the age of 85 and was survived by his son and daughter, three grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

Literary Influence

According to Martin M Winklers book, Gladiator: Film and History , Mannixs 1958 non-fiction book Those About to Die (reprinted in 2001 as The Way of the Gladiator ) was the inspiration for David Franzonis screenplay for the 2000 movie Gladiator .

Bibliography

Books

1934 The Back-Yard Zoo

1936 More Back-Yard Zoo

1953 King of the Sky

1958 The Wildest Game (by Peter Ryhiner as told to Daiel P. Mannix)

1958 Those About to Die , or The way of the Gladiator

1959 The Hellfire Club

1959 The Beast: The Scandalous Life of Aleister Crowley

1959 Kiboko

1962 Black Cargoes; A History of the Atlantic Slave Trade 1518-1865 ( with Malcolm Cowley)

1963 All Creatures Great and Small (autobiography)

1963 The History of Torture

1964 The Father of the Wizard of Oz

1965 The Outcasts

1967 A Sporting Chance: Unusual Methods of Hunting

1967 The Fox and the Hound (with illustrator John Schoenherr)

1967 The Last Eagle (with illustrator Russell Peterson)

1968 The Killers, The Story of a Fighting Cock and Wild Hawk

1969 Troubled Waters: The Story of a Fish, a Stream and a Pond (with illustrator Patricia Collins)

1971 The Healer

1974 Drifter

1975 The Secret of the Elms

1976 Freaks: We Who Are Not As Others

1978 The Wolves of Paris

1983 The Old Navy: The Glorious Heritage of the U. S. Navy , Recounted through the Journals of an American Patriot by Rear Admiral Daniel P. Mannix, 3rd, as edited by Daniel P. Mannix 4th

Magazine Articles

(Some of these were co-written with Jule Junker Mannix)

Raiders of the Night in St. Nicholas Magazine , August, 1930

Two Texas Goblins in St. Nicholas Magazine, June, 1933)

Gladiators of the Gods in The Saturday Evening Post , May 25, 1935

Hunting Dragons with an Eagle in The Saturday Evening Post , January 18, 1941

Death on Swift Wings in The Saturday Evening Post , November 8, 1941

Were in the Money in The Saturday Evening Post , January 16, 1943

How to Swallow a Sword by The Great Zadma as told to Jule Junker Mannix in Colliers Magazine, July 22, 1994; reprinted in Colliers December 2, 1944; reprinted in Readers Digest , March 1945

Fire-eating is Fun by The Great Zadma in Pocket Book Weekly , February 3, 1945

Tracked by Bloodhounds in The Saturday Evening Post , April 9, 1949

The Father of The Wizard of Oz in American Heritage , December, 1964

Filmography

1953 King of the Sky (documentary short)

1958 Universal Color Parade: Parrot Jungle

1959 Killers of Kilimanjaro

So many sources were used in preparing this volume that it would be impossible to name them all. In many cases, only a single reference was taken from a book. However, some of the main works dealing with the games are listed in the Bibliography. Some of the sequences, especially in the description of the shows at the time of Carpophorus, are a compendium of many sources. In describing how Carpophorous trained the animals that had relations with women, I used Apuleius and also the technique employed by a Mexican gentleman I met in Tia Juana who was making 16mm. stag films on the subject.