Writer Loring Mandel was born in Chicago on May 5, 1928 to Julius I. and Frieda (née Okun) Mandel. He graduated from Senn High School in Chicago in 1945 and received a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Wisconsin in 1949. The following year he married Dorothy Bernstein which whom he had two sons. From 1952 to 1954 he served in the United States Army in Korea. Upon his return Mandel briefly worked for Perspectives Inc., a group which attempted to advance academic subject matter for commercial television consumption. Soon, however, he began writing plays for television and many of his works were produced during television's “Golden Age” on anthologies such as Armstrong Circle Theatre, The Bob Hope Chrysler Theatre, DuPont Show of the Week, Kaiser Aluminum Hour, Lux Video Theatre, Playhouse 90, Prudential on Stage, and Studio One. Other television works includethe mini-series The Lives of Benjamin FranklinSandburg's Lincoln; made for TV movies The Coming Asunder of Jimmy Bright, The Trial of Chaplain JensenBreaking Up, Tom and Joan, The Lost Honor of Kathryn Beck, and Conspiracy; and the soap opera Love of Life. He received a Sylvania Award and Emmy nomination in 1959 for “Project Immortality” (Playhouse 90) and in 1968 won the Emmy for Best Dramatic Writing for “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” (CBS Playhouse). For Conspiracy, Mandel won an Emmy, a Peabody, a BAFTA, and a Writers Guild of America award. He also received Emmy nominations for his scripts for The Lives of Benjamin Franklin and Breaking Up and was honored by the Writers Guild of America in 2004 with its Laurel Award for TV Writing Achievement.
Mandel also wrote for theatre. He expanded his teleplay “Project Immortality” into a full-length play which premiered January 1966 at the Arena Theatre in Washington, D.C. He adapted for the stage Allen Drury's novel Advise and Consent. His motion picture credits include Countdown, The Little Drummer Girl, and the 1960 remake of The Children's Hour although the final script and credit belonged to Lillian Hellman.
Mandel died in Lenox, Massachusetts on March 24, 2020 of cancer at the age of 91.
