Editing Ben Hecht (section)

==Writing career==

===Journalist===
[[File:Hecht Earlyportrait.JPG|thumb|{{center|Hecht in 1919}}]]
From 1918 to 1919, Hecht served as war correspondent in [[Berlin]] for the ''[[Chicago Daily News]]''. According to [[Scott Siegel|Barbara and Scott Siegel]], "Besides being a war reporter, he was noted for being a tough crime reporter<ref>Jobb, Dean (2015). ''Empire of Deception: The Incredible Story of a Master Swindler who Seduced a City and Captivated the Nation''. New York: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill.</ref> while also becoming known in Chicago literary circles".<ref name=Siegel/>

In 1921, Hecht inaugurated a ''Daily News'' column, ''One Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago''. While it lasted, the column was enormously influential. His editor, Henry Justin Smith, later said it represented a new concept in journalism: 
{{blockquote|the idea that just under the edge of the news as commonly understood, the news often flatly unimaginatively told, lay life; that in this urban life there dwelt the stuff of literature, not hidden in remote places, either, but walking the downtown streets, peering from the windows of sky scrapers, sunning itself in parks and boulevards. He was going to be its interpreter. His was to be the lens throwing city life into new colors, his the microscope revealing its contortions in life and death.<ref name=Kerrane>Kerrane, Kevin, Yagoda, and Ben. ''The Art of Fact: A Historical Anthology of Literary Journalism'', Simon and Schuster (1998)</ref>}}

While at the ''Chicago Daily News'', Hecht famously broke the 1921 "Ragged Stranger Murder Case" story, about the murder of [[Carl Wanderer]]'s wife, which led to the trial and execution of war hero Carl Wanderer. In Chicago, he also met and befriended [[Maxwell Bodenheim]], an American poet and novelist, later known as the King of [[Greenwich Village]] [[Bohemianism|Bohemians]], and with whom he became a lifelong friend.

After concluding ''One Thousand and One Afternoons'', Hecht went on to produce novels, plays, screenplays, and memoirs, but for him, none of these eclipsed his early success in finding the stuff of literature in city life. Recalling that period, Hecht wrote, "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".<ref name=Eszterhas/>

===Novelist and short-story writer===

Besides working as reporter in Chicago, "he also contributed to  literary magazines including the [his friend, [[Margaret C. Anderson]]'s] ''[[Little Review]]''. After [[World War I]] he was sent by the ''Chicago Daily News'' to [[Berlin]] to witness the revolutionary movements, which gave him the material for his first novel, ''Erik Dorn'' (1921).<ref name="gutenberg.org"/>&nbsp;... A daily column he wrote, ''1001 Afternoons in Chicago'', was later collected into a book, and brought Hecht fame". These works enhanced his reputation in the literary scene as a reporter, columnist, short story writer, and novelist. After leaving the ''News'' in 1923, he started his own newspaper, The ''Chicago Literary Times''.<ref>Kovan, Florice Whyte, ''Rediscovering Ben Hecht'', (2000) Volume 2: ''Art & Architecture on 1001 Afternoons'' Snickersnee Press [http://benhechtbooks.net/ben_hecht__human_rights]</ref>

<!-- Deleted image removed: [[File:Hecht at home.jpg|thumb|{{center|Hecht at home, 1950}}]] -->
According to biographer Eddy Applegate, "Hecht read voraciously the works of [[Théophile Gautier|Gautier]], [[Baudelaire]], [[Stéphane Mallarmé|Mallarmé]], and [[Verlaine]], and developed a style that was extraordinary and imaginative. The use of [[metaphor]], [[imagery]], and vivid phrases made his writing distinct&nbsp;... again and again Hecht showed an uncanny ability to picture the strange jumble of events in strokes as vivid and touching as the brushmarks of a novelist".<ref name=Applegate/>

"Ben Hecht was the enfant terrible of American letters in the first half of the twentieth century", wrote author Sanford Sternlicht. "If Hecht was consistently opposed to anything, it was to censorship of literature, art, and film by either the government or self-appointed guardians of public morality". He adds, "Even though he never attended college, Hecht became a successful novelist, playwright, journalist, and screenwriter. His star has sunk below the horizon now, but in his own lifetime Hecht became one of the most famous American literary and entertainment figures".<ref name=Sternlicht/>{{rp|107}}

Eventually Hecht became associated with the writers [[Sherwood Anderson]], [[Theodore Dreiser]], [[Maxwell Bodenheim]], [[Carl Sandburg]], and [[Pascal Covici]]. He knew [[Margaret C. Anderson|Margaret Anderson]], and contributed to her ''Little Review'', the magazine of the [[Chicago literature|Chicago "literary renaissance"]], and to ''Smart Set''.<ref name=Applegate>Applegate, Eddy. ''Literary Journalism: A Biographical Dictionary of Writers and Editors'', Greenwood Publishing Group (1996)</ref>

;''A Child of the Century''
In 1954, 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 decade of his life&nbsp;... Hecht's vibrant and candid memoir of more than six hundred pages restored him to the stature of a serious and significant [[American literature|American writer]]".<ref>Schmuhl, Robert. "History, Fantasy, Memory", ''Illinois Historical Journal'', Vol 83, Autumn 1990</ref> Novelist [[Saul Bellow]] reviewed the book for ''[[The New York Times]]'': "His manners are not always nice, but then nice manners do not always make interesting autobiographies, and this autobiography has the merit of being intensely interesting&nbsp;... If he is occasionally slick, he is also independent, forthright, and original. Among the pussycats who write of social issues today, he roars like an old-fashioned lion."<ref>[[Saul Bellow|Bellow, Saul]]. ''[[New York Times Review of Books]]'', June 13, 1954</ref>  In 2011, [[Richard Corliss]], announced the ''[[Time (magazine)|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).<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Corliss |first=Richard |date=August 17, 2011 |title=Is A Child of the Century one of the All-Time 100 Best Nonfiction Books? Time thinks so. Check it out. |url=https://entertainment.time.com/2011/08/30/all-time-100-best-nonfiction-books/slide/a-child-of-the-century-by-ben-hecht/ |access-date=January 27, 2022 |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]}}</ref>

''[[The New Yorker|New Yorker]]'' film critic [[David Denby]] begins a discussion of Hecht's screenwriting by recounting a long story from his autobiography. He then asks, "How many of these details are true? It's impossible to say, but truth, in this case, may not be the point. As Norman Mailer noted in 1973, Hecht 'was never a writer to tell the truth when a concoction could put life in his prose.{{'"}} Denby calls this Hecht's "gift for confabulated anecdote". Near the end of the article, Denby returns to ''A Child of the Century'', "that vast compendium of period evocation, juiced anecdotes, and dubious philosophy".<ref>[[Denby, David]], "Nothing Sacred", ''The New Yorker'', February 11, 2019, pp. 62, 67</ref>

;Ghostwriting Marilyn Monroe's biography
Besides working on novels and short stories, he has been credited with [[ghostwriting]] books, including [[Marilyn Monroe]]'s autobiography ''My Story''. "The reprint of Marilyn Monroe's memoir, ''My Story'', in 2000, by Cooper Square Press, correctly credits Hecht as an author, ending a period of almost fifty years in which Hecht's role was denied&nbsp;... Hecht himself, however, kept denying it publicly".<ref>Kovan, Florice Whyte, ''A Ghost Materialized – Ben Hecht Finally Credited on Marilyn Monroe's Memoir'', (2001) Snickersnee Press [http://benhechtbooks.net/ben_hecht__marilyn_monroe] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110316061558/http://benhechtbooks.net/ben_hecht__marilyn_monroe|date=March 16, 2011}}</ref>

According to her biographer, [[Sarah Churchwell]], Monroe was "persuaded to capitalize on her newfound celebrity by beginning an autobiography. It was born out of a collaboration with journalist and screenwriter Ben Hecht, hired as a ghostwriter".<ref name=Churchwell>Churchwell, Sarah. "The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe", Macmillan (2005)</ref> {{rp|77}} Churchwell adds that the facts in her story were highly selective. "Hecht reported to his editor during the interviews that he was sometimes sure Marilyn was fabricating. He explained, 'When I say lying, I mean she isn't telling the truth. I don't think so much that she is trying to deceive me as that she is a fantasizer.{{'"}}<ref name=Churchwell/>{{rp|106}}

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

===Screenwriter===
[[File:Caricature of Ben Hecht by Gene Markey.jpg|thumb|Caricature of Ben Hecht in 1923, drawn by fellow Chicago reporter (and later screenwriter) [[Gene Markey]]]]
Film historian [[Richard Corliss]] writes, "Ben Hecht was ''the'' Hollywood screenwriter&nbsp;... [and] it can be said without too much exaggeration that Hecht personifies Hollywood itself." Movie columnist [[Pauline Kael]] says, "between them, Hecht and [[Jules Furthman]] wrote most of the best American talkies".<ref name=Corliss>Corliss, Richard, ''Talking Pictures'', (1974) Overlook Press</ref>{{rp|5}} His movie career can be defined by about twenty credited screenplays he wrote for Hawks, Hitchcock, Hathaway, Lubitsch, Wellman, Sternberg, and himself. He wrote many of those with his two regular collaborators, [[Charles MacArthur]] and [[Charles Lederer]].

While living in New York in 1926, he received a telegram from screenwriter friend [[Herman J. Mankiewicz]], who had recently moved to Los Angeles. "Will you accept three hundred per week to work for Paramount Pictures. All expenses paid. The three hundred is peanuts. 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.<ref name=Siegel/>

;Working in Hollywood
He arrived in Los Angeles and began his career at the beginning of the sound era by writing the story for [[Josef von Sternberg]]'s gangster movie [[Underworld (1927 film)|''Underworld'']] in 1927. For that first screenplay and story, he won an [[Academy Award]] for [[Best Original Screenplay]] in Hollywood's first Academy award ceremony.<ref name=Siegel/><ref name="Chicago">"Eugenie Leontovich, 93; actress, writer, director", ''[[Chicago Tribune]]'', April 4, 1993, pg. 6.</ref> Soon afterward, he became the "most prolific and highest paid screenwriter in Hollywood".<ref name=McCarthy>McCarthy, Todd. ''Howard Hawks: The Grey Fox of Hollywood'', Grove Press (1997) p. 132</ref>

Hecht spent from two to twelve weeks in Hollywood each year, "during which he earned enough money (his record was $100,000 in one month, for two screenplays) to live on for the rest of the year in New York, where he did what he considered his serious writing", writes film historian Carol Easton.<ref name=Easton>Easton, Carol, ''The Search for Sam Goldwyn'', (1976) William Morrow and Company</ref>{{rp|173}} Nonetheless, later in his career, "he was a writer who liked to think that his genius had been stifled by Hollywood and by its dreadful habit of giving him so much money".<ref name=Thomson1/>{{rp|267}}

Yet his income was as much a result of his skill as a writer as well as his early jobs with newspapers. As film historians Mast and Kawin wrote, "The newspaper reporters often seemed like gangsters who had accidentally ended up behind a typewriter rather than a tommy gun; they talked and acted as rough as the crooks their assignments forced them to cover&nbsp;... It is no accident that Ben Hecht, the greatest screenwriter of rapid-fire, flavorful tough talk, as well as a major comic playwright, wrote gangster pictures, prison pictures, and newspaper pictures."<ref name=Mast>Mast, Gerald, and Kawin, Bruce, ''A Short History of the Movies'', (2006) Pearson Longman</ref>

Hecht became one of Hollywood's most prolific screenwriters, able to write a full screenplay in two to eight weeks. According to [[Samuel Goldwyn]] biographer, Carol Easton, in 1931, with his writing partner [[Charles MacArthur]], he "knocked out ''[[The Unholy Garden]]'' in twelve hours. Hecht subsequently received a fan letter from producer Arthur Hornblow, Jr.:

{{blockquote|After reading your magnificent script, Mr. Goldwyn and I both wish to go on record with the statement that if ''The Unholy Garden'' isn't the finest motion picture Samuel Goldwyn has ever produced, the fault will be entirely ours. You have done your part superbly.}}

It was produced exactly as written, and 'became one of the biggest, yet funniest, bombs ever made by a studio'."<ref name=Easton/>{{rp|174}}

;Censorship, profit, and art
Despite his monetary success, however, Hecht always kept Hollywood at arms' length. According to film historian Gregory Black, "he did not consider his work for the movies serious art; it was more a means of replenishing his bank account. When his work was finished, he retreated to New York."<ref name=Black/>

At least part of the reason for this was due to the industry's system of censorship. Black writes, "as Mankiewicz, Selznick, and Hecht knew all too well, much of the blame for the failure of the movies to deal more frankly and honestly with life, lay with a rigid censorship imposed on the industry&nbsp;... [and] on the content of films during its golden era of studio production." Because the costs of production and distribution were so high, the primary "goal of the studios was profit, not art&nbsp;... [and] fearful of losing any segment of their audiences, the studios either carefully avoided controversial topics or presented them in a way that evaded larger issues", thereby creating only "harmless entertainment".<ref name=Black>Black, Gregory D. ''Hollywood Censored: Morality Codes, Catholics, and the Movies'', Cambridge University Press (1996) pg. 5</ref>

According to historian David Thomson, "to their own minds, Herman Mankiewicz and Ben Hecht both died morose and frustrated. Neither of them had written the great books they believed possible."<ref name=Thomson1>Thomson, David, ''The Whole Equation – A History of Hollywood'', (2005) Alfred A. Knopf</ref>{{rp|170}}

;with Howard Hawks
In an interview with director [[Howard Hawks]], with whom Hecht worked on many films, Scott Breivold elicited comments on the way they often worked:

{{blockquote|Breivold. Could you explain how the day-to-day writing goes on a script?

Hawks. Well, when Hecht and MacArthur and I used to work on a script, we'd sit in a room and work for two hours and then we'd play backgammon for an hour. Then we'd start again and one of us would be one character and one would be another character. We'd read our lines of dialogue and the whole idea was to try to stump the other people, to see if they could think of something crazier than you could.<ref name=Hawks>Hawks; Howard, Breivold, Scott. ''Howard Hawks – Interviews'', University Press of Mississippi (2006)</ref>}}

;with David O. Selznick
According to film historian Virginia Wexman,

{{blockquote|David Selznick had a flair for the dramatic, and no one knew that better than Ben Hecht. The two collaborated on some of Hollywood's biggest hits – movies like ''Gone With the Wind'' and ''Notorious'' and ''Duel in the Sun'' – and often enough, the making of those films was as rife with conflict as the films themselves<ref name=Wexman>Wexman, Virginia Wright. "Film and Authorship", Rutgers University Press (2003)</ref>{{rp|89}}}}

''[[Nothing Sacred (film)|Nothing Sacred]]'' is probably the "most famous of all the [[Carole Lombard]] films next to ''[[My Man Godfrey]]''", wrote movie historian James Harvey. And it impressed people at the time with its evident ambition "and Selznick determined to make the classiest of all screwball comedies, turned to Lombard as a necessity, but also to Ben Hecht, nearly the hottest screenwriter in Hollywood at the time, especially for comedy.&nbsp;... it was also the first screwball comedy to lay apparent claim to larger satiric meanings, to make scathing observations about American life and society."<ref name=Harvey>Harvey, James. ''Romantic Comedy in Hollywood from Lubitsch to Sturges'', Da Capo Press (1998)</ref>{{rp|219}}

In an interview with [[Irene Selznick]], ex-wife of producer [[David O. Selznick]], she discussed the other leading screenwriters of that time:

{{blockquote|They all aspired to be Ben. The resourcefulness of his mind, his vitality were so enormous. His knowledge. His talent and ambition. He could tear through things, and he tore through life. They'd see this prodigious output of Ben's, and they'd think, "Oh, hell, I'm a bum." I think it must have been devastating. Ben did it to [[Charles MacArthur|MacArthur]], who died in time to save his reputation. And I'd hate to have been Herman [Mankiewicz], caught between [[George S. Kaufman|Kaufman]] and Hecht.<ref name=Meryman>[[Meryman, Richard]], ''Mank: The Wit, World, and Life of Herman Mankiewicz'' (1978), William Morrow</ref>{{rp|160}}}}

;with Ernst Lubitsch
According to James Harvey, [[Ernst Lubitsch]] felt uneasy in the world of playwright [[Noël Coward]].

{{blockquote|"If Coward could write his play for three particular actors, he reasoned to an interviewer, why couldn't it be rewritten for three others? It was at this point&nbsp;... that he turned to Ben Hecht&nbsp;... to work with him on the screenplay for ''[[Design for Living (film)|Design for Living]]''." It was the only Lubitsch-Hecht collaboration. Harvey adds, "Though Lubitsch must have been reassured by Hecht's taking the job. No writer in Hollywood had better credentials in the tough, slangy, specifically American style that Lubitsch wanted to impart to the Coward play. And together, they transformed it."<ref name=Harvey/>{{rp|57}}}}

===Styles of writing===
According to Siegel, "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 outrageous stories successfully with credible, fast-paced plots."<ref name=Siegel/> Hecht, his friend [[Budd Schulberg]] wrote many years ago, "seemed the personification of the writer at the top of his game, the top of his world, not gnawing at doubting himself as great writers were said to do, but with every word and every gesture indicating the animal pleasure he took in writing well".<ref name=Eszterhas>Eszterhas, Joe. ''The Devil's Guide to Hollywood: The Screenwriter as God'', Macmillan (2006)</ref>

"Movies", Hecht was to recall, "were seldom written. In 1927, they were yelled into existence in conferences that kept going in saloons, brothels, and all-night poker games. Movie sets roared with arguments and organ music."<ref name=Wilk/>

He was best known for two specific and contrasting types of film: crime thrillers and [[screwball comedies]].<ref name=Siegel/> Among crime thrillers, Hecht was responsible for such films as ''[[The Unholy Night]]'' (1929), the classic ''[[Scarface (1932 film)|Scarface]]'' (1932), and Hitchcock's ''[[Notorious (1946 film)|Notorious]]''. Among his comedies, there were ''[[The Front Page (1931 film)|The Front Page]]'', which led to many remakes, [[Noël Coward]]'s ''[[Design for Living (film)|Design for Living]]'' (1933), ''[[Twentieth Century (film)|Twentieth Century]]'', ''[[Nothing Sacred (film)|Nothing Sacred]]'', and [[Howard Hawks]]'s ''[[Monkey Business (1952 film)|Monkey Business]]'' (1952).

Film historian Richard Corliss wrote, "it is his crisp, frenetic, sensational prose and dialogue style that elevates his work above that of the dozens of other reporters who streamed west to cover and exploit Hollywood's biggest 'story': the talkie revolution."<ref name=Corliss/>{{rp|6}}