- Hecht, Ben
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born Feb. 28, 1894, New York, N.Y., U.S.died April 18, 1964, New York CityU.S. journalist, novelist, playwright, and film writer.He worked for Chicago newspapers 1910–22; at the Daily News he perfected a type of human-interest sketch that was widely emulated. Later he divided his time between New York and Hollywood. With Charles MacArthur he wrote the plays The Front Page (1928), which influenced both the public's and the newspaper industry's ideas about the newspaper world; Twentieth Century (produced 1932); and Ladies and Gentlemen (produced 1939). His film scripts, often written with MacArthur, include Gunga Din (1938), Wuthering Heights (1939), Spellbound (1945), and Notorious (1946).
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▪ American writerborn Feb. 28, 1894, New York Citydied April 18, 1964, New York CityAmerican novelist, playwright, and film writer who, as a newspaperman in the 1920s, perfected a type of human interest sketch that was widely emulated. His play The Front Page (1928), written with Charles MacArthur, influenced the public's idea of the newspaper world and the newspaperman's idea of himself.Hecht was the son of Russian-Jewish immigrants, and after attending high school in Racine, Wis., he moved to Chicago, then in the midst of an artistic and literary renascence. He worked as a reporter for the Chicago Journal (1910–14) and then the Chicago Daily News, which sent him to Berlin during the revolutionary upheaval following World War I. From this experience came some of the material for his first novel, Erik Dorn (1921). For the Daily News he developed a column that formed the basis of his collection of sketches A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago (1922).He was dismissed by the Daily News after his novel Fantazius Mallare (1922) was seized by the government on obscenity charges. He was associated in Chicago with the bohemian novelist and poet Maxwell Bodenheim (Bodenheim, Maxwell) (q.v.).Lively reminiscences of Hecht's Chicago years are found in his Gaily, Gaily (1963; motion-picture version 1969, British title Chicago, Chicago), Letters from Bohemia (1946), and his autobiography, A Child of the Century (1954).Hecht later divided his time between New York City and Hollywood. He collaborated with MacArthur (MacArthur, Charles) on another successful stage comedy, Twentieth Century (1923). In Hollywood he wrote scripts, often with MacArthur, for a number of successful motion pictures, among them The Front Page (film version 1931), The Scoundrel (1935), Nothing Sacred (1937), Gunga Din (1938), Wuthering Heights (1939), Spellbound (1945), and Notorious (1946). Hecht also wrote the script for the film Spectre of the Rose (1946).Hecht's last Broadway success was Ladies and Gentlemen (1939; also with MacArthur). Columns written for the New York newspaper PM appeared as 1001 Afternoons in New York (1941). Among his other works are A Guide for the Bedevilled (1944), an analysis of anti-Semitism; Collected Stories (1945); and Perfidy (1961), which concerns the struggle to establish Israel.Additional ReadingWilliam MacAdams, Ben Hecht: The Man Behind the Legend (1990).* * *
Universalium. 2010.
