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HECHT Ben

Benjamin Hecht.

Date of birth : February 28th 1893, New York City.

Date of death : April 18th 1964, New York City.

 

Practise: writer, screenwriter.

 

Portrait : 

 

Story

With his wife Mary, they had a daughter, Edwina Armstrong (born in 1916) who became an actress.

He worked on more tha 100 productions, among them "The Front Page" in collaboration with Charles MacArthur, "Queen Christina", "Twentieth Century", "Nothing Sacred", "Wuthering Heights", "Whirlpool".

 

He also contributed to the definitive screenplay of "Gone With the Wind", even if had worked a lot on it and if he hadn't been credited. He also wrote and modified several movies of Alfred Hitchcock, among them "Foreign Correspondant", "Spellbound", "Notorious","The Paradine Case","The Rope" and "Strangers On a Train".

 
In 1929 he received an Academy Award for "Underworld".

He wrote the screenpaly of "Underwolrd" which obtained an Oscar, and "Wuthering Heights" (1939), "Angels Over Broadway" (1940), "Notorious" (1946), eachof them selected for the Academy Awards.

Link with Marilyn

In 1954 Charles Feldman, Marilyn's agent contacted him and asked him to write Marilyn's first autobiography. He had already met her 2 years before, on the set of "Monkey Business" (1952).

He had written an episode of "O'Henry's Full House" (1952) and would have met Marilyn in 1949, for "Love Happy" of the Marx Brothers. For a while they met together regularly, often joined by Sidney Skolsky.

Marilyn's agents (Charles Feldman and Hugh French) then contacted Jacques Chambrun, himself Ben Hecht's agent, reporter, novelist and prolific screenwriter : they struck a deal.

Contract between Marilyn and Ben Hecht, dated March 16th 1954 : .

Marilyn and Hecht who had met with much warmth while the movie inspired on Hecht's scenario, "Monkey Business" was on preparation, agreed on regular appointments, several times a week and often on Marilyn's specific request, in the presence Sidney Skolsky.

Hecht worked quickly (in regard for the recording material at that time) and suggested a preliminary draft at the end of April. 

In April 1954 he passed his work on Marilyn; some pieces of the text were sold under a form arranged by Hecht's agent, Jacques Chambrun, with nor Marilyn's permission, neither Hecht's one.
From May to August 1954, thoses pieces were published in episodes in the Empire News in London.

Hecht dismissed his agent in June and the whole project collapsed. The book was only published 20 years later.

Letter from Lloyd Wright dated June 1st 1954 :,.

 
"My Story" was published in 1974 by Stein and Day, under the title "The Unfinished Biography of Marilyn Monroe".

Actually it was a collection of anecdotes about Marilyn's life, told by her and Sidney Skolsky, organized by Ben Hecht and later revised by Milton Greene.

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