Ben Hecht (1894–1964) was a US journalist, novelist, playwright, film scriptwriter and publisher, associated with Bohemian literary circles before becoming prominent in Hollywood night-life in the early 1930s. His writings are particularly notable for their cynicism, iconoclasm and irony. Many of his short stories border on SCIENCE FANTASY, most vividly "The Adventures of Professor Emmett" (in A Book of Miracles, coll 1939) (> HIVE MINDS); some were influenced by the works of Charles FORT. Hecht is best known in the sf field for the Fantazius Mallare sequence comprising Fantazius Mallare (1922) and The Kingdom of Evil (1924), an erotic and supposedly decadent account of a descent into madness; the first volume was successfully prosecuted for obscenity on the grounds of its illustrations (by Wallace Smith).
He was the first screenwriter to receive an Academy Award for Original Screenplay, for the movie Underworld (1927). The number of screenplays he wrote or worked on that are now considered classics is, according to Chicago's Newberry Library, "astounding," and included films such as, Scarface (1932), The Front Page, Twentieth Century (1934), Barbary Coast (1935), Nothing Sacred (1937), Some Like It Hot, Gone with the Wind, Gunga Din, Wuthering Heights, (all 1939), His Girl Friday (1940), Spellbound (1945), Notorious (1946), Monkey Business, A Farewell to Arms (1957), Mutiny on the Bounty (1962), and Casino Royale (released posthumously, in 1967). He also provided story ideas for such films as Stagecoach (1939). In 1940, he wrote, produced, and directed, Angels Over Broadway, which was nominated for Best Screenplay. In total, six of his movie screenplays were nominated for Academy Awards, with two winning.
