A leading American journalist and playwright, Ben Hecht (1894-1964) became Hollywood's most prolific and sought-after scriptwriter of his time.Ben Hecht was born on February 28, 1894, in New York City...
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Ben Hecht is perhaps best known for coauthoring the Broadway play The Front Page (1928), which established a new tradition in American stage comedy with its irreverent attitude toward established valu...
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Ben Hecht, journalist, novelist, playwright, screenwriter, was one of the major figures of the Chicago Renaissance, a reporter of the Chicago scene par excellence. Born on New York's Lower East Side i...
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Ben Hecht gave to the popular culture of American journalism a vaudeville-style, behind-the-front-page picture of the newspaper reporter, tinted with an absurd "cinematic" realism that made him the m...
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Ben Hecht was one of the most successful screenwriters in the history of motion pictures. In a career that spanned forty years, Hecht was credited with writing the screen stories or screenplays for...
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Over a career spanning nearly half a century, Ben Hecht wrote highly individual works which earned him a place in both popular culture and American literature. An outspoken, abrasive personality, he w...
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Ben Hecht began his career as a writer in 1910, at the age of sixteen, when he became a reporter for the Chicago Journal. His four years at the Journal and the nine years he spent with the Chicago Da...
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In the following essay, Hansen presents biographical information and personal recollections of Hecht, finding such literary influences in Hecht's fiction as Wyndham Lewis, James Joyce, and Dost...
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In the following essay, Karsner favorably compares Hecht to other Chicago writers of the 1920s.
One can well imagine the lion tamer, who is as certain of life as the sexton is of death and equally as ...
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In the following essay, Parry examines the writers and cultural mileau of post-World War I Chicago.
The notoriety of Greenwich Village in the late 1910s was spreading among other places to Chicago. To...
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In the following introductory essay to Hecht's Eric Dorn, Algren assesses the work as prophetic of American cultural decline and existential angst.
We don't even know what living means n...
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In the following essay, Felheim finds evidence that Hecht was influenced by Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer.
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Writing a review of A Treasury of Ben Hecht (1959) in The New Republic for September 28 of...
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In the following excerpt, Martin discusses Hecht's role in the Chicago Renaissance following World War I, and his screenplays, novels, and autobiographical work following World War II.
A Child ...
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In the following essay, Epstein assesses Hecht as more interesting as an individual than significant as a writer.
Nowadays, as the media boys down at the ad agency are likely to tell you, the name Ben...
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Ben Hecht
Ben Hecht
