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 more than fifty films and worked without credit on many others. He could produce a screenplay in two weeks and, according to his autobiography, never spent more than eight weeks on a script. He never liked writing for the movies and looked on it as just a means of obtaining ready cash, but he continued to write screenplays until his death.

Hecht was born in New York City, the son of Russian-Jewish immigrants. The family later moved to Racine, Wisconsin, and when Hecht was in his early teens he would spend his summers with an uncle who owned a circus in Chicago. At sixteen he ran away to Chicago and found work as a reporter...