Sallust
Roman historian and politician (86 BC - c. 35 BC)
American screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, journalist and novelist
Ben Hechtwas an American screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, journalist, and novelist. A journalist in his youth, he went on to write 35 books and some of the most enjoyed screenplays and plays in America.
Table of Contents
About the Ben Hecht
Ben Hechtwas an American screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, journalist, and novelist. A journalist in his youth, he went on to write 35 books and some of the most enjoyed screenplays and plays in America. He received screen credits, alone or in collaboration, for the stories or screenplays of some seventy films.
After graduating from high school in 1910, Hecht ran away to Chicago, where, in his own words, he “haunted streets, whorehouses, police stations, courtrooms, theater stages, jails, saloons, slums, madhouses, fires, murders, riots, banquet halls, and bookshops.” In the 1910s and 1920s, Hecht became a noted journalist, foreign correspondent, and literary figure. In the late 1920s, his co-authored, reporter-themed play, The Front Page, became a Broadway hit.
The Dictionary of Literary Biography – American Screenwriters calls him “one of the most successful screenwriters in the history of motion pictures”. Hecht received the first Academy Award for Best Story for Underworldafter meeting Peter Bergson, who came to the United States near the start of World War II. Motivated by what became the Holocaust–the mass-murder of Jews in Europe–Hecht wrote articles and plays, such as We Will Never Die in 1943 and A Flag is Born in 1946. Thereafter, he wrote many screenplays anonymously to avoid a British boycott of his work in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The boycott was a response to Hecht’s active support of paramilitary action against British Mandate for Palestine forces, during which time a Zionist force’s supply ship to Palestine was named the S.S. Ben Hechtin high esteem, and never spent more than eight weeks on a script. In 1983, 19 years after his death, Ben Hecht was posthumously inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.
18 Quotes by Ben Hecht
- 1.
There’s only one law you gotta follow to keep outta trouble. Do it first, do it yourself, and keep on doin’ it.
Ben HechtAmerican screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, journalist and novelist
- 2.
I’m a Hollywood writer, so I put on my sports jacket and take off my brain.
Ben HechtAmerican screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, journalist and novelist
- 3.
The rule in the art world is: you cater to the masses or you kowtow to the elite; you can’t have both.
Ben HechtAmerican screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, journalist and novelist
- 4.
In Hollywood, a starlet is the name for any woman under thirty who is not actively employed in a brothel.
Ben HechtAmerican screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, journalist and novelist
- 5.
I know that a man who shows me his wealth is like the beggar who shows me his poverty; they are both looking for alms from me, the rich man for the alms of my envy, the poor man for the alms of my guilt.
Ben HechtAmerican screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, journalist and novelist
- 6.
I discovered early in my movie work that a movie is never any better than the stupidest man connected with it. There are times when this distinction may be given to the writer or director. Most often it belongs to the producer.
Ben HechtAmerican screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, journalist and novelist
- 7.
Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock.
Ben HechtAmerican screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, journalist and novelist
- 8.
Hollywood held this double lure for me, tremendous sums of money for work that required no more effort than a game of pinochle.
Ben HechtAmerican screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, journalist and novelist
- 9.
Time is a circus, always packing up and moving away.
Ben HechtAmerican screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, journalist and novelist
- 10.
In moderating, not satisfying desires, lies peace.
Ben HechtAmerican screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, journalist and novelist
- 11.
Prejudice is a raft onto which the shipwrecked mind clambers and paddles to safety.
Ben HechtAmerican screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, journalist and novelist
- 12.
Love is the magician that pulls man out of his own hat.
Ben HechtAmerican screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, journalist and novelist
- 13.
Love is a hole in the heart.
Ben HechtAmerican screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, journalist and novelist
- 14.
Chicago is a sort of journalistic Yellowstone Park, offering haven to a last herd of fantastic bravos.
Ben HechtAmerican screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, journalist and novelist
- 15.
A man nearly always loves for other reasons than he thinks. A lover is apt to be as full of secrets from himself as is the object of his love from him.
Ben HechtAmerican screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, journalist and novelist
- 16.
People’s sex habits are as well known in Hollywood as their political opinions, and much less criticized.
Ben HechtAmerican screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, journalist and novelist
- 17.
I have written a raucous valentine to a poet’s dream and agony.
Ben HechtAmerican screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, journalist and novelist
- 18.
Listen, little boy. In this business, there’s only one law you gotta follow to keep outta trouble. Do it first, do it yourself, and keep on doin’ it.
Ben HechtAmerican screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, journalist and novelist