 |
Ben HechtAmerican screenwriter, director, producer, playwright and novelist.
Date of Birth: 28.02.1894
Country:  USA |
Content:
Biography of Ben Hecht
Ben Hecht was an American screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, and writer. Known as the "Shakespeare of Hollywood," Hecht was praised for his prolific and inventive work. He wrote around 70 screenplays and authored 35 books, creating some of the most captivating films in American cinema history and several remarkable plays. According to film historian Richard Corliss, Ben Hecht embodied Hollywood.
Early Life
Ben Hecht was born on February 28, 1894, in New York City, into a Jewish family that spoke Yiddish. His father was a tailor who immigrated to New York from Minsk, which was then part of the Russian Empire. The family later moved to Racine, Wisconsin, where Ben attended high school. As a teenager, he often spent his summers in Chicago with his uncle. His father was often traveling, and his mother managed a department store, so they couldn't devote much time to him. Despite this, young Ben was considered a prodigy, and his parents hoped he would become a violinist. However, within two years, he was performing as a circus acrobat. After graduating from high school in 1910, Hecht moved to Chicago, where he lived with relatives and found work as a reporter, first for the Chicago Journal and later for the Chicago Daily News. He established a reputation as an excellent journalist and, after World War I, he traveled to Berlin, where he wrote his first and most successful novel, "Erik Dorn." The novel was published in 1921 and was a sensational debut for the young writer.
Career in Hollywood
In 1969, the film "Gaily, Gaily" was released, featuring Beau Bridges in the lead role. The film was based on Hecht's early years, as depicted in his autobiography, "A Child of the Century," published in 1954. The film was nominated for an Oscar in three categories.
Living in New York City, Hecht received a telegram from his friend and screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz, who had recently moved to Los Angeles. Mankiewicz encouraged Hecht to join him in Hollywood, claiming he would earn millions and face competition from idiots. Although Hollywood attracted many talents during the early days of sound cinema, Mankiewicz was right – Hecht was truly made for the film industry. He was the first screenwriter to win an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for the film "Underworld" at the first Academy Awards ceremony in 1929. Hecht's impressive body of work includes classics such as "Scarface" (1932), "The Front Page" (1934), "Twentieth Century" (1934), "Barbary Coast" (1935), "Nothing Sacred" (1937), "Stagecoach," "Some Like It Hot," "Gone with the Wind," "Gunga Din," "Wuthering Heights" (all in 1939), "His Girl Friday" (1940), "Spellbound" (1945), "Notorious" (1946), "Monkey Business" (1957), "A Farewell to Arms" (1957), "Mutiny on the Bounty" (1962), and "Casino Royale," which was released after Hecht's death in 1967. In 1940, he wrote, directed, and produced the film "Angels Over Broadway," for which he was also nominated for an Oscar.
Later Life and Legacy
Shortly before the start of the Holocaust in Germany, Hecht became an active participant in the Jewish national movement of Zionism. He wrote articles and plays about the plight of Jews in Europe, such as "We Will Never Die" in 1943 and "A Flag is Born" in 1946. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, he even had to write some of his screenplays anonymously because the British authorities boycotted his films due to what they considered excessive support for the Zionist movement in Palestine.
Hecht worked quickly and spent an average of two to eight weeks on each screenplay. Despite his speed, his scripts were rich in events, well-structured, and witty. He worked in almost every film genre, including musicals, romantic and social comedies, adventure films, westerns, dramas, and melodramas. However, his crime thrillers and eccentric comedies brought him fame. Despite his success, Hecht disliked the influence that cinema had on theater, American cultural standards, and his own creativity.
Ben Hecht was married twice. He married Marie Armstrong in 1915, and they had a daughter named Edwina. They divorced in 1925. Soon after, Hecht married Rose Caylor, who shared all his interests and was a reporter, writer, and playwright. They remained together for the rest of his life. Their daughter Jenny, born in 1943 when her parents were already mature, became an actress but tragically died from a drug overdose at the age of 27 in 1971. Hecht passed away on April 18, 1964, in New York City at the age of 70.
