A Man's Worth

I adapted this monologue by Joseph L. Mankiewicz from the screenplay for All About Eve. I was listening to it and realized the fundamental truths in it applied to men as well as women, and could be used specifically to highlight the desperate need to separate the potency and viability of a man- and the validity of his manhood- from his career and professional accomplishments. For that is but one aspect of a man's life, but it is so far from the whole source or definition of his manhood....

Funny business, a man's career. The things you drop on your way up the ladder—so you can move faster—you forget you'll need them when you go back to being a man. That's one career all males have in common whether we like it or not. Being a man. Sooner or later, we've got to work at it, no matter what other careers we've had or wanted. And in the last analysis nothing is any good unless you can look up before dinner—or turn in bed—and there she or he is. Without that you're not a man. You're someone with a art deco office—or a book full of clippings. But you're not a man. Slow curtain. The end.

~C.B.