Tom Mankiewicz, a screenwriter died Saturday at his home in Los Angeles after a brief illness, reports today's LA Times. He was 68 years old.

The man was a very important popular writer. He wrote screen plays. Movies are the premier popular medium and movies don't move with writers. His work is in the James Bond films --"Diamonds Are Forever," "Live and Let Die," "The Man With the Golden Gun,." "The Spy Who Loved Me," and "Moonraker.". His work is in the Superman films: The 1978 film " Superman" and its 1980 sequel. Yes, his work is in the 1976 film "Mother, Jugs & Speed," but even a popular and entertaining writer stumbles now and then.

Director Richard Donner who did the Superman film said of Tom Mankiewicz, "He brought a sense of reality to this comic book world. He created personalities, emotion and life" and gave the characters "a wonderful sense of humor. He did that in just about everything he did."

I remember the rave over the 1978 "Superman" film. Critics wrote that the comics had grown up. In that film, as entertaining as it is, the key characters of Lois Lane and Superman are fully developed. The trend,(which has paid off in big box office dollars), to approach comics as films with three D characters, probably owes a debt to that 1978 film. Think of Batman (1989), The Dark Knight (2008). Think of Robert Downey Jr's Iron Man series,  and what Edward Norton did with "The Incredible Hulk," for a proper appreciation of Mr. Mankiewicz's work.

Thomas Frank Mankiewicz, R.I..P.