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Hecht’s straightforward language and style of prose led to federal charges against him for using the mail to send obscene material, with officials branding his book Fantazius Mallare: A Mysterious Oath (1922) as “lewd, obscene, and lascivious.”ĭuring Chicago’s eruption of literary and artistic expression between 19, Hecht was well positioned as a writer and contributor to the Chicago Literary Renaissance. Indeed, the success of 1001 Afternoons in Chicago overshadowed the release of his first novel in 1921, Erik Dorn. Covici-McGee compiled a selection of these reports and published a book under the same name in 1922. After returning from Europe in 1920, he wrote a daily column for the Chicago Daily News entitled “1001 Afternoons in Chicago.” The column was highly regarded and established a reporting model for the human interest story that was widely adopted by later journalists. Chicago’s streets, jails, courtrooms, and citizenry provided ample inspiration for Hecht, who wrote vivid, authentic, though not always pleasant stories about the city, always seeking “to remove the mask from the world.” Following World War I, the Chicago Daily News sent Hecht to Berlin as foreign correspondent. Hecht’s career as a journalist, first with the Chicago Journal (1910-1914) and later the Chicago Daily News (1914-1923), influenced much of his later writing. In 1910, he enrolled at the University of Wisconsin however, having already read the required books, he left within the first few days, feeling that the University “had nothing to teach him.” He moved to Chicago where a distant uncle assisted Hecht in obtaining a job at the Chicago Journal. Hecht had little formal education, but was a voracious reader.
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At age 14 Hecht joined Costello as a trapeze performer in his traveling show. While he was a child, his family moved to Racine, Wisconsin, where he met his “first mentor,” the trapeze artist Harry Costello. WorldCat record id: 60744775īen Hecht was born on February 28, 1894, in New York, New York. WorldCat record id: 122616235įrom the description of Nothing sacred : screenplay, 1937, June 12 - 18. WorldCat record id: 122527680įrom the description of To Quito and back, n.d. (Columbia University In the City of New York). WorldCat record id: 122517878įrom the description of Reminiscences of Ben Hecht : oral history, 1959. WorldCat record id: 56617479įrom the description of Homage to Winkelberg: typescript, 1957, October 24. WorldCat record id: 155863432Ĭhicago and New York journalist, novelist, and playwright Hollywood screenwriter and Jewish activist.įrom the description of Ben Hecht papers, 1879-1983. Bergson and Ben Hecht, among others founded in 1943, the group publicized the extermination of the Jewish people ongoing under Nazi reign in Europe and pressured the administration of President Franklin Roosevelt to take measures to save Jewish refugees.įrom the description of Correspondence to Alma Mahler and Franz Werfel, 1943, 1946.
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The Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People of Europe was a Jewish activist group led by Peter H.