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HECHT Ben

Benjamin Hecht.

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

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

 

Profession writer, screenwriter.

 

Portrait ,,

Addresses

* 1918 : 5488 Hyde Park Boulevard, Chicago

* 1920 : 1414 53rd Street, Chicago

* 1930-1940 : 40 Perry Lane, Nyack, New York ()

* 1950 : 2035 South Coast, San Diego, California.

Story

His parents were Joseph Hecht (1870, Russia-October 5, 1938, Los Angeles)() and Sarah Swernofsky (1876, New York-October 14, 1935, Los Angeles). They married in 1892.

On November 30, 1915 he married in Chicago Mary Armstrong (June 6, 1892, Detroit-1956). 

They had a daughter Edwina (November 14, 1916, Chicago-1991) who became an actress (). 
They divorced in 1925.

In 1925 he married his second wife, Rose Caylor (born Libman) (March 15, 1898, Vilnius, Lithuania-March 1979,

Nyack, New York)(). They had a daughter Jenny (July 30, 1943, New York-March 25, 1971, Los

Angeles) who became an actress and died young from an overdose (,,

).

He worked on more than 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 16, 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 1, 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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