Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

Homage to Ben Hecht

A name fewer and fewer people recognize, but he was probably responsible for at least one play or book or movie you will never forget.

San Diego paid Ben Hecht an overdue homage this month. Scripps Ranch Theatre staged Ron Hutchinson's farce Moonlight and Magnoilas - about the time Hecht, producer David O. Selznick, and new director to the project Victor Fleming improvised (and Hecht wrote) part one of Gone With the Wind in seven days (the playwright says five, to amp up the lunacy).

The La Jolla Playhouse is currently staging His Girl Friday, John Guare's adaptation of Hecht and Charles MacArthur's film version of their Broadway hit, The Front Page.

Hecht (1894-1964) was such a prolific writer no one has a clue about how much he actually accomplished. And he wrote fast: entire screenplays in two weeks (the one for The Unholy Garden in 12 hours, he boasted, though he had a reputation for elongating the truth a smidge).

Every screenwriter in Hollywood, says Selznick, "aspired to be Ben. The resourcefulness of his mind, his vitality, were so enormous. He could tear through things, and he tore through life. They'd see this prodigious output of Ben's and they'd think, 'Oh hell, I'm a bum.' I think it must have been devastating."

Selznick added, "it is also true that I have never seen anyone else bring to a job more thorough analysis, more willingness to rewrite, than he has."

He wrote 10 novels, several with fearless, pro-Zionist themes. Among the 70 movies that give him a credit: the original Scarface, His Girl Friday (with Charles MacArthur, based on their great pressroom comedy, The Front Page), Hitchcock's Notorious, plus Duel in the Sun, Twentieth Century, Wuthering Heights, and Mutiny on the Bounty.

They say Charlie Parker was such a genius, in part, was because he could improvise in many different keys. Hecht never met a genre - comedy (Monkey Business), drama (A Farewell to Arms), psychological mystery/thriller (Spellbound) - he couldn't master.

He won the first Academy Award for Original Screenplay - Underworld (1927) - this after he received a telegram from screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz urging him to come to Hollywood: "Millions are to be grabbed out here and your only competition is idiots."

Mankiewicz added, "don't let this get around."

Howard Hawks described Hecht's method (with frequent co-author MacArthur): "We'd sit in a room and work for two hours and then we'd play backgammon for an hour. Then we'd start again and one of us would be the character and one would be another. We'd read our lines of dialogue and the whole idea was to try to stump the other people, to see if they could think of something crazier than you could."

Hecht began as a newspaper reporter in Chicago, where he learned to compose un-blocked and capture the voices of the streets ("I ran everywhere in the city like a fly buzzing in the works of a clock," he writes in his autobiography, A Child of the Century, "learned not to sleep, and buried myself in a tick-tock of whirling hours that still echo in me."

He hated typewriters. He propped a board on his lap and wrote on unlined paper - "with 75 to 100 pencils a week" - and rarely required revision.

Some say his autobiography has an apt title. "Ben was never comfortable in the adult world," said Helen Hayes, who was married to Charles MacArthur. "He spent his whole life trying to hang on to youth, its mindset, its wonderment, its carefree fizz."

Although Tennessee Williams credited Hecht with taking "the corsets off American theater," and though his works are carefully plotted with brilliant dialogue, many critics regard his improvisational approach, and the works it produced, as slipshod. One called him "the great hack genius."

Hecht replied in A Child of the Century: "I can understand the literary critic's shyness toward me. it is difficult to praise a novelist or a thinker who keeps popping up as the author of innumerable movie melodramas. It is like writing about the virtues of a preacher who keeps carelessly getting himself arrested in bordellos."

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all

Previous article

Melissa Etheridge, The Imaginary Amazon

Events April 1-April 3, 2024
Next Article

2024 continues to impress with yellowfin much closer to San Diego than they should be

New rockfish regulations coming this week as opener approaches

A name fewer and fewer people recognize, but he was probably responsible for at least one play or book or movie you will never forget.

San Diego paid Ben Hecht an overdue homage this month. Scripps Ranch Theatre staged Ron Hutchinson's farce Moonlight and Magnoilas - about the time Hecht, producer David O. Selznick, and new director to the project Victor Fleming improvised (and Hecht wrote) part one of Gone With the Wind in seven days (the playwright says five, to amp up the lunacy).

The La Jolla Playhouse is currently staging His Girl Friday, John Guare's adaptation of Hecht and Charles MacArthur's film version of their Broadway hit, The Front Page.

Hecht (1894-1964) was such a prolific writer no one has a clue about how much he actually accomplished. And he wrote fast: entire screenplays in two weeks (the one for The Unholy Garden in 12 hours, he boasted, though he had a reputation for elongating the truth a smidge).

Every screenwriter in Hollywood, says Selznick, "aspired to be Ben. The resourcefulness of his mind, his vitality, were so enormous. He could tear through things, and he tore through life. They'd see this prodigious output of Ben's and they'd think, 'Oh hell, I'm a bum.' I think it must have been devastating."

Selznick added, "it is also true that I have never seen anyone else bring to a job more thorough analysis, more willingness to rewrite, than he has."

He wrote 10 novels, several with fearless, pro-Zionist themes. Among the 70 movies that give him a credit: the original Scarface, His Girl Friday (with Charles MacArthur, based on their great pressroom comedy, The Front Page), Hitchcock's Notorious, plus Duel in the Sun, Twentieth Century, Wuthering Heights, and Mutiny on the Bounty.

They say Charlie Parker was such a genius, in part, was because he could improvise in many different keys. Hecht never met a genre - comedy (Monkey Business), drama (A Farewell to Arms), psychological mystery/thriller (Spellbound) - he couldn't master.

He won the first Academy Award for Original Screenplay - Underworld (1927) - this after he received a telegram from screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz urging him to come to Hollywood: "Millions are to be grabbed out here and your only competition is idiots."

Mankiewicz added, "don't let this get around."

Howard Hawks described Hecht's method (with frequent co-author MacArthur): "We'd sit in a room and work for two hours and then we'd play backgammon for an hour. Then we'd start again and one of us would be the character and one would be another. We'd read our lines of dialogue and the whole idea was to try to stump the other people, to see if they could think of something crazier than you could."

Hecht began as a newspaper reporter in Chicago, where he learned to compose un-blocked and capture the voices of the streets ("I ran everywhere in the city like a fly buzzing in the works of a clock," he writes in his autobiography, A Child of the Century, "learned not to sleep, and buried myself in a tick-tock of whirling hours that still echo in me."

He hated typewriters. He propped a board on his lap and wrote on unlined paper - "with 75 to 100 pencils a week" - and rarely required revision.

Some say his autobiography has an apt title. "Ben was never comfortable in the adult world," said Helen Hayes, who was married to Charles MacArthur. "He spent his whole life trying to hang on to youth, its mindset, its wonderment, its carefree fizz."

Although Tennessee Williams credited Hecht with taking "the corsets off American theater," and though his works are carefully plotted with brilliant dialogue, many critics regard his improvisational approach, and the works it produced, as slipshod. One called him "the great hack genius."

Hecht replied in A Child of the Century: "I can understand the literary critic's shyness toward me. it is difficult to praise a novelist or a thinker who keeps popping up as the author of innumerable movie melodramas. It is like writing about the virtues of a preacher who keeps carelessly getting himself arrested in bordellos."

Sponsored
Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.