Ben Hecht, 1893 - 1964
Publicity still (1949)
Born: 28 February 1894, New York City
Died: 18 April 1964, New York City
Hecht's parents were Jewish immigrants from Belarus, he grew up and attended school at Racine, Wisconsin, spending summers with an uncle at Chicago. At age ten he was considered a child prodigy of the violin, two years later he was performing as an acrobat in the circus. After graduation from high school (1910) he moved to Chicago and became a journalist with the Chicago Journal and then the Chicago Daily News. He covered the gritty side of Chicago, the characters he met, and more importantly their manner of speech, became important in his later work. At the end of the first World War he was assigned to Berlin where he also wrote his first novel. He spent part of each year, never more than twelve weeks, at Hollywood working on scripts, he was the first winner of an Academy Award for best screenplay in 1927, and wrote at least seventy during his career with six Oscar nominations and two wins. When the writer hired to create the screen play for Gone with the Wind turned in a script that would have taken six hours to film and refused to come to Hollywood for revisions, Hecht got the nod. The result was another Oscar-winning screen play but because the original writer had died in the interim, David O. Selznick decided to let the original writer have the credit. When Hecht became active in the Zionist cause his work was banned in Great Britain for several years, during this time his name did not appear in credits so the films could be shown there. He didn't seem to mind, he appeared to see Hollywood only as an easy source of income to support his other writing. He was the ghostwriter of My Story, the autobiography of Marilyn Monroe, and was identified as the author in the reprint in 2000. Some of his most famous scripts were The Front Page (1931), Scarface (1932), Gunga Din (1939), Notorious (1946), and Monkey Business (1952). His own autobiography, A Child of the Century, was published in 1954. Hecht died of a heart attack while working on the script for Casino Royale.
Biography from Wikipedia and Authors' Calendar
Ben Hecht quotes:
Quotes found : 40 — (15 per page, this is page 1 of 3) 1 2 3 Next
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- A man nearly always loves for other reasons than he thinks. A lover is apt to be as full of secrets from himself as is the object of his love from him. permalink
Ben Hecht - Chicago is a sort of journalistic Yellowstone Park, offering haven to a last herd of fantastic bravos. permalink
Ben Hecht - Hollywood held this double lure for me, tremendous sums of money for work that required no more effort than a game of pinochle. permalink
Ben Hecht - I discovered early in my movie work that a movie is never any better than the stupidest man connected with it. There are times when this distinction may be given to the writer or director. Most often it belongs to the producer. permalink
Ben Hecht - 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. permalink
Ben Hecht - On his years as a Chicago journalist - I have known a handful of producers who actually were equal or superior to the writers with whom they worked. These producers were a new kind of nonwriting writer hatched by the movies—as Australia produced wingless birds. They wrote without pencils or even words. Using a sort of mime-like talent, they could make up things like writers. permalink
Ben Hecht - "Elegy for Wonderland", Esquire Magazine (March 1959) - I have written a raucous valentine to a poet's dream and agony. permalink
Ben Hecht - I know that a man who shows me his wealth is like the beggar who shows me his poverty; they are both looking for alms from me, the rich man for the alms of my envy, the poor man for the alms of my guilt. permalink
Ben Hecht - I'll tell you a secret. We live in a mad and inspiring world. permalink
Ben Hecht - I'm a Hollywood writer, so I put on my sport coat and take off my brain. permalink
Ben Hecht - In Hollywood, a starlet is the name for any woman under thirty who is not actively employed in a brothel. permalink
Ben Hecht - In moderating, not satisfying desires, lies peace. permalink
Ben Hecht - In the court of the movie Owner, none criticized, none doubted. And none dared speak of art. In the Owner's mind art was a synonym for bankruptcy.... The movie Owners are the only troupe in the history of entertainment that has never been seduced by the adventure of the entertainment world. permalink
Ben Hecht - Like the actor, authority has faith in its false whiskers. But its deepest faith is in the human illusion. People will hang on to illusion as eagerly as life itself. permalink
Ben Hecht - Perfidy (1962) - Listen, little boy. In this business, there's only one law you gotta follow to keep outta trouble. Do it first, do it yourself, and keep on doin' it. permalink
Ben Hecht
Quotes found : 40 — (15 per page, this is page 1 of 3) 1 2 3 Next
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