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Ben Hecht
Spouse	Mary Armstrong (1916-1926) Rose Caylor (1926-1964)

Ben Hecht (February 28, 1894 – April 18, 1964), was an American playwright, novelist and prolific Hollywood screenwriter. He was considered "the" Hollywood screenwriter, someone who "personified Hollywood itself." The Dictionary of Literary Biography refers to him as "one of the most successful screenwriters in the history of motion pictures."

During his 40-year career he wrote screenplays or stories for more than 70 films (20 of which he received no credit for, such as Gone with the Wind and Monkey Business). His best work was done in collaboration with other writers, including Charles MacArthur and Charles Lederer, although the one film which he produced, directed, and wrote himself, Angels Over Broadway (1940), was Oscar nominated for Best Screenplay. Today, many of his movie screenplays are considered "classics", such as The Front Page (1931) and Scarface (1932), and his movies have been nominated six times for the Academy Award, winning twice.

He could produce a screenplay in two weeks and, according to his autobiography, never spent more than eight weeks on a script, yet was still able to produce mostly rich, well-plotted, and witty screenplays. His scripts included virtually every movie genre: adventures, musicals, or impassioned romances such as Wuthering Heights (1939). But ultimately, he was best known for two specific types of film: crime thrillers and screwball comedies.

Although he was more interested in writing plays and novels, he wrote screenplays for part of the year to "replenish his bank account." He lived mostly in New York, and traveled to Hollywood only to work on films. Despite his success, however, he scorned most of the films on which he worked, and disliked the effect that movies were having on the theater, American cultural standards, and on his own creativity.

Early years

Hecht was born in New York City, the son of Russian-Jewish immigrants. "He was considered a child prodigy at age 10, seemingly on his way to a career as a concert violinist, but two years later he was performing as a circus acrobat." . The family later moved to Racine, Wisconsin, and when Hecht was in his early teens he would spend his summers with an uncle in Chicago. At sixteen, he ran away to live permanently in Chicago, and found work as a reporter, first for the Chicago Journal, and later with the Chicago Daily News.

A 1969 movie, directed by Norman Jewison, Gaily, Gaily, was based on the life of his early years working as a reporter in Chicago, and was nominated for three Oscars. The story was taken from a portion of his autobiograhy, A Child of the Century.

Married life

He married Marie Armstrong in 1915, when he was 21 years of age; they had a daughter, Edwina. He got divorced ten years later, in 1925, and married Rose Caylor that same year. They had a daughter, Jenny.

Journalist

From 1918 to 1919 Hecht served as foreign war correspondent in Berlin for the Chicago Daily News. Besides being a war reporter, he was noted for being "a tough crime reporter while also becoming known in Chicago literary circles." He published the sensational column 1001 Afternoons in Chicago during his work as reporter.

While at the Chicago Daily News, Hecht famously broke the "Ragged Stranger Murder Case" story. Army war hero Carl Wanderer and his wife had been assaulted by a "ragged stranger". His wife and the stranger were killed in the struggle. Hecht's investigation revealed that the stranger was actually a drifter named Al Watson whom Wanderer had hired to stage a holdup. Wanderer admitted he was a homosexual and had planned the murder of his pregnant wife. He was sentenced to death by hanging and was executed on March 19, 1921.

During this time period in Chicago, he met and befriended Maxwell Bodenheim, an American poet and novelist who was known as the King of Greenwich Village Bohemians and who became a lifelong friend.

Playwright

He began writing plays beginning with a series of one-acts in 1914. His first full-length play was The Egotist, and was produced in New York in 1922. While living in Chicago, he met fellow reporter Charles MacArthur and they together moved to New York permanently in order to collaborate on a play. The Front Page was widely acclaimed and had a successful run on Broadway of 281 performances, which began in August, 1928. In 1931 it was turned into a successful film which was nominated for three Oscars.

Screenwriting career

While in New York in 1926, he received a telegram from screenwriter friend Herman J. Mankiewicz, who had recently arrived in Los Angeles. "Millions are to be grabbed out here and your only competition is idiots", it read. "Don't let this get around." As a writer in need of money, he traveled to Hollywood as Mankiewicz suggested.

He arrived in Los Angeles and began his remarkable career at the very beginning of the sound era by writing the story for Josef von Sternberg's gangster movie, Underworld, in 1927. For that first screenplay and story he won Hollywood's first Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. Soon afterward, he became the highest paid screenwriter in Hollywood, earning from $50,000 to $125,000 per script. He spent half the year in New York, working on plays and novels, and the other half in Hollywood, writing screenplays.

Writing styles

"The talkie era put writers like Hecht at a premium because they could write dialogue in the quirky, idiosyncratic style of the common man. Hecht, in particular, was wonderful with slang, and he peppered his films with the argot of the streets. He also had a lively sense of humor and an uncanny ability to ground even the most outrageious stories sucessfully with credible, fast-paced plots."

He was best known for two specific types of film: crime thrillers and screwball comedies. Among crime thrillers, Hecht was responsible for such films as The Unholy Night (1929), the classic Scarface (1932), and Hitchcock's Notorious. Among his comedies, there were The Front Page, with led to many remakes, Noel Coward's Design for Living (1933), Twentieth Century, Nothing Sacred, and the Marx Brothers' Monkey Business (1952).

Blacklisted in England

From 1948 to 1951, Hecht was blacklisted in England because of his criticism of British policies in Palestine. His films were banned in England, and of the ones shown, his name was removed from the credits.

Notable screenplays

Underworld (1927)

Underworld, was the story of a petty hoodlum with political pull; it was based on a real Chicago gangster Hecht knew. "The film began the gangster film genre that became popular in the early 1930s." Hecht was noted for confronting producers and directors when he wasn't satisfied with the way they used his scripts. For this film, at one point he demanded that its director, Josef von Sternberg remove his name from the credits since Sternberg unilaterally changed one scene. Afterwards, however, he relented and took credit for the film's story, and went on to win the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay - the first year the awards were presented.

The Front Page (1931)

After contributing to the original stories for a number of films, he worked without credit on the first film version of his original 1928 play The Front Page.

Scarface (1932)

After ushering in the beginning of the gangster film with Underworld, his next film became one of the best films of that genre. Scarface was directed by Howard Hawks, who became "one of the few directors with whom Hecht enjoyed workding." It starred Paul Muni playing the role of an Al Capone-like gangster.

Twentieth Century (1934)

For his next film, Twentieth Century, he wrote the screenplay in collaboration with Charles MacArthur and was an adaptation of their original play from 1932. It was also directed by Howard Hawks, and starred John Barrymore and Carole Lombard. It's a comedy about a Broadway producer whose losing his leading lady to the seductive Hollywood film industry, and will do anything to win her back.

It's "a fast-paced, witty film that contains the rapid-fire dialogue for which Hecht became famous. It is one of the first, and finest, of the screwball comedies of the 1930s."

Viva Villa! (1934)

This was the story about Mexican rebel Pancho Villa, who takes to the hills after killing an overseer in revenge for his father's death. It was directed by Howard Hawks and starred Wallace Beery. Although the movie took liberties with the facts, it became a great success, and Hecht received an Academy award nomination for his screenplay adaptation.

Barbary Coast (1935)

Barbary Coast was also directed by Howard Hawks and starred Miriam Hopkins and Edward G. Robinson. The film takes place in late nineteenth century San Franciso with Hopkins playing the role of a dance-hall girl up against Robinson, who runs the town.

Nothing Sacred (1938)

Nothing Sacred became Hecht's first project after he and Charles MacArthur closed down their failing film company which they opened in 1934. The film was adapted from his play, Hazel Flagg, and starred Carole Lombard as a small-town girl diagnosed with radium poisoning. "A reporter makes her case a cause for his newspaper. The story "allowed Hecht to work with one of his favorite themes, hypocrisy (especialy among journalists); he took the themes of lying, decadence, and immorality and made them into a sophisticated screwball comedy."

Gunga Din (1939)

Gunga Din was cowritten with Charles MacArthur and became "one of Hollywood's greatest action-adventure films." The screenplay was based on the poem by [[Rudyard Kipling], directed by George Stevens and starred Cary Grant and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.. In 1999 the film was deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress.

Wuthering Heights (1939)

After working without credit on Gone with the Wind in 1939, he cowrote, with Charles MacArthur, an adaptation of Emily Bronte's novel,Wuthering Heights. Although the screenplay was actually cut off at the story's half-way point, being considered too long for a movie, it went on to be nominated for an Academy award.

Angels Over Broadway (1940)

Angels Over Broadway became the only movie he directed, produced, and wrote originally for film. It starred Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and Rita Hayworth and was nominated for an Academy award.

Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945) and Notorious (1946)

For Alfred Hitchcock he wrote a number of his best psycho-dramas and received his final Academy award nomination for Notorious. He also worked without credit on Hitchcock's Paradine Case (1947).

Screenplays with Charles Lederer

In 1947 he teamed up with Charles Lederer and cowrote three films: Her Husband's Affairs, Kiss of Death, and Ride the Pink Horse. In 1950 he cowrote The Thing without credit. They again teamed up to write the 1952 screwball comedy Monkey Business, and became Hectht's last true success as a screenwriter.

Partial list of uncredited films

The Shop Around the Corner, Foreign Correspondent, His Girl Friday, (the second film version of his play The Front Page), Mutiny on the Bounty (1962), and the James Bond spoof, Casino Royale (1967).

Personal life

Jewish activism

Hecht's activism began when he met Peter Bergson (né Hillel Kook) - an ETZEL emissary to America. Hecht wrote in his book Perfidy that he used to be a scriptwriter until his meeting with Bergson, when he accidentally bumped into history - i.e. the burning need to do anything possible to save the doomed Jews of Europe (paraphrase from Perfidy). After meeting Kook, Hecht dedicated himself to working with Kook's rescue group and after the war ended he continued to work with Kook on establishment of the State of Israel.

Kook's rescue group purchased ad space in major US newspapers and Hecht wrote most of the ads, which were designed to call for immediate rescue action. In Perfidy and other writings, Hecht wrote that he was saddened by the negative reaction of mainstream American Jewish leaders toward rescue. He perceived them as pompous and more involved with petty aspects of Jewish politics and post-war Zionist issues than investing their talents, time and connections into rescue of their doomed brethren across the Atlantic.

Together with Kurt Weill and other top-level Broadway and Hollywood contacts, Hecht produced the pageant We Shall Never Die, which was shown in Madison Square Garden and in numerous cities across America. In Washington, Eleanor Roosevelt and many government leaders saw it. The pageant was strongly opposed by major Jewish leaders such as Stephen Wise, and they tried to ensure that it was not shown. Despite considerable obstruction the Bergson Group's activism bore fruit, although much less and much later than Kook, Hecht and their colleagues expected. The Bergson Group had generated considerable support in Washington, and after long delay their activism resulted in President Roosevelt's establishment of the War Refugee Board (WRB), which ultimately supported the Wallenberg mission to Budapest. According to history books by David Wyman and Rafael Medoff, over 200,000 people were rescued as a result of the Bergson Group - probably mostly in Hungary.

After the war ended Hecht and Weill produced another major pageant, this time about establishment of the State of Israel, called A Flag is Born. It raised more than $400,000 for the revisionist-supporting American League For a Free Palestine, and was bitterly opposed by Haganah supporters.

Hecht became a great supporter of Zeev Jabotinsky and the Revisionist Zionism movement led by Menachem Begin. He opposed the social-democratic policies of Israel's first two prime ministers David Ben-Gurion and Moshe Sharett, and of the Jewish Agency for what he regarded as their complicit silence and co-operation with the British during World War II in not doing more to rescue Jews and open the doors of Palestine to Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany and occupied Europe. He spoke out against the lack of interest in saving the Jews trapped in Europe during the Holocaust. He purchased newspaper advertising in New York's newspapers to publicize the fate of Hitler's victims. In one such "advertisement" with the headline: "FOR SALE: 70,000 JEWS AT $50 APIECE GUARANTEED HUMAN BEINGS" explaining that three and a half million dollars would rescue the then-trapped Romanian Jews (quoted in his work Perfidy, pp. 191-192). However, Stephen Wise made a public statement in the name of the American Jewish Congress denying the "confirmation" of the offer from the Romanian government.

It was during this time that Hecht wrote his book A Guide For The Bedeviled, which explains the thoughts and forces that drove him to this radical change of life and work.

He subsequently wrote Perfidy, dramatizing the failure to rescue Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust, and the roles of the Zionist leader Rudolf Kastner and others in leadership positions in the Hungarian Jewish community. This issue was the subject of a famous libel trial, in which the Israeli government sued an amateur pamphleteer who accused Kastner, at the time a spokesman of the Ministry of Trade and Industry, of having collaborated with the Nazis during the Holocaust. Although the court initially held that these accusations were not libelous, on appeal the verdict was reversed by a split 3-2 decision in the Supreme Court. By then, however, Kastner had been assassinated.

Legacy

His writing has influenced many of Hollywood's most loved movies, including, Rouben Mamoulian's Queen Christina (1933), John Ford's The Hurricane (1937), David O. Selznick's Gone with the Wind (1939), and several Hitchcock films, including Lifeboat (1944), The Paradine Case (1948), and Rope (1948). He received no screen credits for his work on those films.

Quotes

How My Egoism Died from: A Child in the Century:

“ A simple fact entered my head one day and put an end to my revolt against the Deity. It occurred to me that God was not engaged in corrupting the mind of man but in creating it. This may sound like no fact at all, or like the most childish of quibbles. But whatever it is, it brought me a sigh of relief, a slightly bitter sigh. I was relieved because instead of beholding a man as a finished and obviously worthless product, unable to bring sanity into human affairs, I looked on him (in my conversion) as a creature in the making. And lo, I was aware that like my stooped and furry brothers, the apes, I am God's incomplete child. My groping brain, no less than my little toe, is a mechanism in His evolution-busy hands. ”

Remember us from: The Reader's Digest, February 1943:

“ Outside the borders of Russia, there will not be enough Jews left in Europe to profit by representation were it given to them. They will have been reduced from a minority to a phantom. There will be no representatives of the 3,000,000 Jews who once lived in Poland, or of the 900.000 who once lived in Rumania, or of the 900,000 who once lived in Germany, or of the 750,000 who once lived in Czechoslovakia, or of the 400,000 who once lived in France, Holland and Belgium. Of these 6,000,000 Jews almost a third have already been massacred by the Germans, Rumanians and Hungarians, and the most conservative of the scorekeepers estimate that before the war ends at least another third will have been done to death. . ”

Other quotes:

• In Hollywood, a starlet is the name for any woman under thirty who is not actively employed in a brothel.
• The honors Hollywood has for the writer are as dubious as tissue-paper cuff links.
• People's sex habits are as well known in Hollywood as their political opinions, and much less criticized.
• When asked by his new wife's discomfited parents "Why didn't you tell us you were a Jew?", Hecht responded "I was afraid you would think I was bragging."
• Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock.
• There is nothing as dull as an intellectual ally after a certain age. (A Guide for the Bedevilled)
• The only practical way yet discovered by the world for curing its ills is to forget about them. (Perfidy)

Academy Award nominations

• 20th Academy Awards Nominated Notorious
• 14th Academy Awards Nominated Angels Over Broadway
• 13th Academy Awards Nominated Wuthering Heights
• 9th Academy Awards Won The Scoundrel
• 8th Academy Awards Nominated Viva Villa!
• 1st Academy Awards - Won Underworld

Writing filmography

• Kiss of Death
• Casino Royale (uncredited)
• Circus World
• 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (uncredited)
• Cleopatra (uncredited)
• Billy Rose's Jumbo
• Mutiny on the Bounty (uncredited)
• A Walk on the Wild Side (uncredited)
• North to Alaska (uncredited)
• John Paul Jones (uncredited)
• The Gun Runners (uncredited)
• Queen of Outer Space
• Legend of the Lost
• A Farewell to Arms
• Miracle in the Rain
• The Iron Petticoat
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame (uncredited)
• Trapeze (uncredited)
• The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell (uncredited)
• The Indian Fighter
• The Man with the Golden Arm (uncredited)
• Guys and Dolls (uncredited)
• Living It Up
• Ulisse
• Light's Diamond Jubilee (television)
• Terminal Station (uncredited)
• Angel Face (uncredited)
• Hans Christian Andersen (uncredited)
• Monkey Business
• Actors and Sin (also directed and produced)
• The Wild Heart (uncredited)
• The Thing from Another World (uncredited)
• The Secret of Convict Lake (uncredited)
• Strangers on a Train (uncredited)
• September Affair (uncredited)
• Where the Sidewalk Ends
• Edge of Doom (uncredited)
• Perfect Strangers
• Love Happy (uncredited)
• The Inspector General (uncredited)
• Whirlpool
• Roseanna McCoy (uncredited)
• Big Jack (uncredited)
• Portrait of Jennie (uncredited)
• Cry of the City (uncredited)
• Rope (uncredited)
• The Miracle of the Bells
• Dishonored Lady (uncredited)
• Her Husband's Affairs
• The Paradine Case (uncredited)
• Ride the Pink Horse
• Kiss of Death
• Duel in the Sun (uncredited)
• Notorious
• Specter of the Rose (also directed and produced)
• Gilda (uncredited)
• Cornered (uncredited)
• Spellbound
• Watchtower Over Tomorrow
• Lifeboat (uncredited)
• The Outlaw (uncredited)
• China Girl
• Journey Into Fear (uncredited)
• The Black Swan

• Ten Gentlemen from West Point (uncredited)
• Roxie Hart (uncredited)
• Lydia
• The Mad Doctor (uncredited)
• Comrade X
• Second Chorus (uncredited)
• Angels Over Broadway (also directed and produced)
• Foreign Correspondent (final scene-uncredited)
• The Shop Around the Corner (uncredited)
• His Girl Friday
• I Take This Woman (uncredited)
• Gone with the Wind (uncredited)
• At the Circus (uncredited)
• Lady of the Tropics
• It's a Wonderful World
• Wuthering Heights
• Let Freedom Ring
• Stagecoach (uncredited)
• Gunga Din
• Angels with Dirty Faces (uncredited)
• The Goldwyn Follies
• Nothing Sacred
• The Hurricane (uncredited)
• The Prisoner of Zenda (uncredited)
• Woman Chases Man (uncredited)
• King of Gamblers (uncredited)
• A Star Is Born (uncredited)
• Soak the Rich (also directed)
• The Scoundrel (also directed)
• Spring Tonic
• Barbary Coast
• Once in a Blue Moon (also directed)
• The Florentine Dagger
• The President Vanishes (uncredited)
• Crime without Passion (also directed)
• Shoot the Works
• Twentieth Century (uncredited)
• Upperworld
• Viva Villa!
• Riptide (uncredited)
• Queen Christina (uncredited)
• Design for Living
• Turn Back the Clock
• Topaze
• Hallelujah, I'm a Bum
• Back Street (uncredited)
• Rasputin and the Empress (uncredited)
• Million Dollar Legs (uncredited)
• Scarface
• The Beast of the City (uncredited)
• The Unholy Garden
• The Sin of Madelon Claudet (uncredited)
• Monkey Business (uncredited)
• Homicide Squad (uncredited)
• Quick Millions (uncredited)
• Le Spectre vert
• Roadhouse Nights
• Street of Chance (uncredited)
• The Unholy Night
• The Great Gabbo
• The Big Noise
• American Beauty (uncredited)
• Underworld
• The New Klondike (uncredited)

Books (partial list)

• 1001 Afternoons in Chicago, McGee/Covici, (1922)
• Fantazius Mallare, a Mysterious Oath, 174 pp., Pascal Covici (1922)
• The Florentine Dagger: A Novel for Amateur Detectives w/ illustrations by Wallace Smith, 256 pp. Boni & Liveright (1923)
• Kingdom of Evil, 211pp., Pascal Covici (1924)
• Broken Necks { Containing More 1001 Afternoons }, 344pp., Pascal Covici (1926)
• Count Bruga, 319 pp., Boni & Liveright (1926)
• The Book of Miracles, 465 pp., Viking Press (1939)
• 1001 Afternoons in Chicago, 370 pp., Viking Press (1941) ASIN B0007E7X9K
• A Guide for the Bedevilled, 276 pages, Charles Scribner's Sons (1944), 216 pp. Milah Press Incorporated (September 1, 1999) ISBN 096468862X
• The Collected Stories of Ben Hecht, 524 pp., Crown (1945)
• Perfidy (with critical supplements), 281 pp. (plus 29 pp.), Julian Messner (1962)
  • Perfidy 288 pp. Milah Press (1961), Inc. (April 1, 1997) ISBN 0964688638
• Concerning a Woman of Sin, 222 pp., Mayflower (1964)
• Gaily, Gaily, Signet (1963) (November 1, 1969) ISBN
• A Child of the Century 672 pp. Plume (1954) (May 30, 1985) ISBN
• The Front Page, Samuel French Inc Plays (January 1, 1998) ISBN

• The Champion From Far Away (1931)
• Actor's Blood (1936)
• A Treasury Of Ben Hecht: Collected Stories And Other Writings (1959, anthology)
• Erik Dorn
• A Jew in Love
• I Hate Actors!
• 1001 Afternoons in New York
• The Sensualists
• Winkelberg
• Miracle in the Rain
• Letters From Bohemia
• Gargoyles
• The Egoist

See also

• Rudolf Vrba
• Rudolf Kastner
• Stanislav Szukalski
• Irgun
• History of the Jews in Hungary
• Fortean Society

References

• Bleiler, Everett (1948). The Checklist of Fantastic Literature. Chicago: Shasta Publishers. p. 146.

External links

• Ben Hecht at IMDb
• Ben Hecht at the Internet Broadway Database
• Ben Hecht: Biography with credits for many other works
• Summary: Perfidy and the Kastner Trial
• "Perfidy" Written by Ben Hecht: Reviewed by Michael Jacobs
• "Nirvana" by Ben Hecht
• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum - Ben Hecht
• Fantazius Mallare, the Complete Volume online
• Works by Ben Hecht at Project Gutenberg