“The movies are an eruption of trash that has lamed the American mind and retarded Americans from becoming cultured people.”
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Ben Hecht
Ben Hecht was an American screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, journalist, and novelist. A journalist in his youth, he went on to write 35 books and some of the most enjoyed screenplays and plays in America. He received screen credits, alone or in collaboration, for the stories or screenplays of some seventy films, including six Academy Award nominations and two wins.
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culture · American writer, director, and producer (1894–1964) · screenwriter · novelist · playwright · writer · journalist · film producer · film director · producer · also Ben Hecht, Hecht
Born 28 February 1894 · Died 18 April 1964 · Q267441
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2026· 5 entries
“A movie is never any better than the stupidest man connected with it.”
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“never had more fun writing a movie”
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“there is something about the way they (films) are made and the way they disappear that gives you ... the feeling that you are mysteriously wasting your time—and not using your real talents.”
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“I haunted streets, whorehouses, police stations, courtrooms, theater stages, jails, saloons, slums, madhouses, fires, murders, riots, banquet halls, and bookshops. I ran everywhere in the city like a fly buzzing in the works of a clock, tasted more than any fit belly could hold, learned not to sleep, and buried myself in a tick-tock of whirling hours that still echo in me”
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2011· 1 entry
Richard Corliss, announced the Time editorial board named Hecht's autobiography to the Time 100 best non-fiction books list (books published since the founding of the magazine in 1923)
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2000· 1 entry
By Cooper Square Press, correctly credits Hecht as an author, ending a period of almost fifty years in which Hecht's role was denied
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1999· 1 entry
The film was deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress
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1983· 1 entry
19 years after his death, Ben Hecht was posthumously inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame
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1981· 1 entry
Awarded Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement (1981).
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1973· 1 entry
Hecht 'was never a writer to tell the truth when a concoction could put life in his prose
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1971· 1 entry
At the age of 27, shortly after completing her third movie appearance
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1967· 1 entry
“s first novel, Casino Royale. Although the final screenplay and film was made into a comedy spoof, Hecht”
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1964· 3 entries
Died 1964-04-18.
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At Hecht's funeral service at Temple Rodeph Shalom in New York City, among the eulogists was Menachem Begin
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He married Caylor that same year, and they remained married until Hecht's death in 1964.
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1954· 2 entries
Hecht published his autobiography, A Child of the Century, which, according to literary critic Robert Schmuhl, "received such extensive critical acclaim that his literary reputation improved markedly during the last deca
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Hecht published his highly regarded autobiography, A Child of the Century
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1948· 1 entry
Awarded Locarno International Film Festival Awards for Kiss of Death (1948).
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1947· 1 entry
Teamed up with Charles Lederer, and co-wrote three films: Her Husband's Affairs, Kiss of Death, and Ride the Pink Horse
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1946· 1 entry
“s production of A Flag is Born, which opened on September 5, 1946, at the Alvin Playhouse in New York City. The play, which compared the Zionist underground”
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1943· 3 entries
Ben and Rose had a daughter, Jenny Hecht, who became an actress at the age of 8
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"out of frustration over American policy, and outrage at Hollywood's fear of offending its European markets", he organized and wrote a pageant, We Will Never Die, which was produced by Billy Rose and Ernst Lubitsch, with
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During the midst of the Holocaust, he predicted, in a widely published article in Reader's Digest magazine,
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1940· 2 entries
Wrote, produced, and directed Angels Over Broadway, which was nominated for Best Screenplay
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“His Girl Friday remains not just the fastest-talking romantic comedy ever made, but a very tricky inquiry into love's need for a chase (or a dream) and the sharpest pointer to uncertain gender roles.”
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1939· 1 entry
Co-wrote (with Charles MacArthur) an adaptation of Emily Brontë's novel, Wuthering Heights
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1937· 1 entry
Lyricist Hecht collaborated with composer Louis Armstrong on "Red Cap", a song about the hard life of a railway porter
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1936· 2 entries
Awarded Academy Award for Best Story for The Scoundrel (1936).
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Awarded New York Film Critics Circle Awards (1936).
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1931· 4 entries
Managed to convince Hecht that a young oil tycoon in Texas named Howard Hughes wanted him to write the screenplay to his first book
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With his writing partner Charles MacArthur, he "knocked out The Unholy Garden in twelve hours
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It was turned into a successful film, which was nominated for three Oscars
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Published a novel, A Jew in Love, for which he was called, a "self-hating Jew", and which has been analysed as a product of a generation of Jewish writers seeking to escape their parent's immigrant past
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1929· 1 entry
Awarded Academy Award for Best Story for Underworld (1929).
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1927· 1 entry
Were yelled into existence in conferences that kept going in saloons, brothels, and all-night poker games
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1926· 1 entry
Received a telegram from screenwriter friend Herman J
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1923· 1 entry
Started his own newspaper, The Chicago Literary Times
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1921· 1 entry
Hecht inaugurated a Daily News column, One Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago
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1915· 1 entry
When he was 21, and they had a daughter, Edwina (1916–1991), who would grow up to be an actress
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1910· 2 entries
Hecht attended the University of Wisconsin for three days before leaving for Chicago at the age of 16 or 17
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Hecht ran away from Racine, Wisconsin to Chicago, where, in his own words, he "haunted streets, whorehouses, police stations, courtrooms, theater stages, jails, saloons, slums, madhouses, fires, murders, riots, banquet
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1894· 2 entries
The son of Russian-Jewish immigrants Joseph Hecht, a worker in the garment industry, and his wife Sarah (née Swernofsky)
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Born 1894-02-28.
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