Ben Hecht Biography and List of Works

American screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, novelist, who received screen credits, alone, or in collaboration, for the stories or screenplays of some 70 films. As a prolific storyteller, Ben Hecht authored 35 books and created some of the most entertaining screenplays or plays, among them THE FRONT PAGE with Charlie MacArthur (also filmed as HIS GIRL FRIDAY), TWENTIETH CENTURY, UNDERWORLD, NOTORIOUS, THE SCOUNDREL (as play ALL HE EVER LOVED), SOME LIKE IT HOT etc.

  "... But Sarastro was the true charlatan and one forgave him this. One even demanded it of him.
   Often, while listening his Mother Goose mysticism, his Munchausen adventures, his garbled and pompous chatter of genii, sylphs, and undines, I have grown annoyed at my own skepticism. How much more marvelous was the Marvelous Sarastro if one believed him? How much more entertaining this Arabian Night in which he lived, could one accept it with the heart of a child rather than the dull incredulity of a modern author."
(from 'The Shadow' in The Collected Stories of Ben Hecht, 1945)

Hecht was born in New York as the son of Russian-Jewish immigrants. His family later moved to Racine, Wisconsin, where he attended high school. At the age of 12 he was for a short time a circus acrobat, and after a brief period at the University of Wisconsin, he moved to Chicago, where he worked as a reporter for Chicago Journal and Chicago Daily News. He also contributed to literary magazines including the Little Review. After World War I he was sent by Chicago Daily News to Berlin to witness the revolutionary movements, which gave him the material for his first novel, ERIK DORN (1921).

A daily column, 101 Afternoons in Chicago, later collected in a book, brought Hecht fame. By the early 1920s, he had established his reputation on the literary scene as a reporter, columnist, short story writer, and novelist. Hecht left the News and founded in 1923 his own newspaper The Chicago Literary Times. Investment left him penniless after two years, and he moved to New York City. A telegram from writer Herman Mankiewicz brought him to Hollywood and later Hecht divided his time between movie assignments and New York.

"Writing a good movie brings a writer about as much fame as steering a bicycle. It gets him, however, more jobs. If his movie is bad it will attract only critical tut-tut for him. The producer, director and stars are the geniuses who get the hosannas when it's a hit. Theirs are also the heads that are mounted on spears when it's a flop."
(Hecht in 'Let's Make the Hero a MacArthur,' The Penguin Book of Hollywood, ed. by Christopher Silvester, 1998)

In Hollywood Hecht wrote scripts in the 1930s and 1940s, often with his favourite collaborator Charles MacArthur. Their collaboration led among others to the musical JUMBO (with music by Richard Rogers and lyrics by Lorenz Hart), LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, FUN TO BE FREE, and SWAN SONG. The pair received an Academy Award nomination for THE SCOUNDREL (1935). Hecht himself won an Academy Award for Underworld (1927). In 1957 appeared Hecht's biography of his friend Charles MacArthur, entitled CHARLIE.

"The only place I felt at home was in your heart. You were the only light that didn't go out on me."
(from Angels Over Broadway, 1940)

In ANGELS OVER BROADWAY (1940) Hecht added his view about the war in Europe. Douglas Fairbanks Jr asks in his speech: 'What happened to the Poles, the Finns, the Dutch? They're little guys. They didn't win...' Rita Hayworth replies, 'They will, some day.' Hecht's co-operation with Alfred Hitchcock started in Foreign Correspondent (1940), although Hecht's additions were un-credited. When Hitchcock was asked about the anti-Nazi and pro-Britain message of the film - United States was still 18 months away from the war - the director said that it was all the doing of Walter Wanger and Ben Hecht.

JONES: Keep those lights burning, cover them with steel, build them in with guns, build a canopy of battleships and bombing planes around them and, hello, America, hang on to your lights, they're the only lights in the world.
(from Foreign Correspondent)

Spellbound (1945) was based on the novel The House of Dr. Edwardes by Francis Beeding. In the process of scripting, almost nothing of the novel was left except, remotely, the idea of the villain turning out to be the asylum director, who is of course mad. The eccentric Spanish painter Salvador Dali designed the famous dream sequences. The next film, Notorious (1946), was made with almost exactly the same team - David O. Selznick producing, Ben Hecht scripting, and Ingrid Bergman starring. The film was based on a Saturday Evening Post story called 'The Song of the Flame', which was further developed by Hitch and Hecht. When the script for The Paradine Case (1947) needed rewriting, old faithful Hecht was then called in, but his additions were un-credited. Hitchcock would have liked Hecht to do script for Strangers on a Train (1951), but the author was otherwise occupied, and the director did get one of Hecht's assistants, Czenzi Ormonde to work with Raymond Chandler.

Hecht's criticism of British policies in Palestine and his support of the Jewish resistance movement resulted in his credits being removed from all films shown in England for some years. In his honour an illegal immigrant ship was named "Ben Hecht". A passionate believer in an independent Jewish state, Hecht advocated violent and swift action to attain this. In A GUIDE FOR THE BEDEVILLED (1944) Hecht energetically explained his views and gained many enemies. Later, in his book entitled PERFIDY, Hecht acknowledged the death of his Zionist dream - the worked dealt with the events of the 'Dr Rudolf Kastner trial' in which the accused had left the members of his community in the hands of the Nazis because he felt that rescuing those Jews would interfere with establishment of the state of Israel.

Hecht was married twice, first in 1915 and after divorce in 1925. His daughter Jenny from his second marriage achieved success as an actress from the age of eight. Hecht died in 1964 while working on the script of Casino Royale (1967), receiving no screen credits. Also among productions credited to other writers are Queen Christina, Gone With the Wind, Foreign Correspondent, The Outlaw, Lifeboat, Gilda, The Paradine Case, Rope, and Roman Holiday. Hawks bought the story for The Outlaw from Hecht, and worked on the script with Jules Furthman. Howard Hughes took over the production and directed the film, starring Jane Russell and Jack Beutel.

The Front Page (1928). Comedy-drama set in Chicago. Hildy Johnson is a newspaper reporter. He has left his work, he is going to marry and move to New York. He visits the pressroom of Chicago Criminal Courts Building to bid his friends good-bye. Earl Williams, an escaped murderer, falls in through the window. Earl's stay of execution has been ignored by corrupt officials. Hildy plans to hide Williams with the help of Walter Burns, his managing editor, and expose the civic corruption. They are caught by the sheriff, but Hildy avoids arrest and prepares to leave for the railroad station. Walter presents him with his watch as a wedding gift. To keep Hildy on his staff, Walter wires New York claiming that Hildy stole the watch. (Produced New York, Times Square Theatre, August 14, 1928) - Several film adaptations, among them The Front Page (1931), dir. by Lewis Milestone; His Girl Friday (1940), dir. by Howard Hawks; The Front Page (1974), dir. by Billy Wilder.

For further reading: The Mechanical Angel by by D. Friede (1948); Between You and Me by L. Nizer (1948); Hanging on in Paradise by F. Guiles (1975); The Five Lives of Ben Hecht by Doug Fetherling (1977); Ben Hecht by J.B. Martin (1985); Writers in Hollywood by I. Hamilton (1990); Ben Hecht by William MacAdams (1990); Rediscovering Ben Hecht: Selling the Celluloid Serpent, ed. by Florine Whyte Kovan (1999) - See: Howard Hawks with whom Hecht also collaborated in several films - See also: other writers working in Hollywood: Raymond Chandler in the 1940s, William Faulkner from the 1930s to the 1950s - For further information: Snickersnee Press.

THE WONDER HAT, (1916)
, (1001)