Talk:Ben Hecht

Merge from Jenny Hecht
Please merge any relevant content from [ Jenny Hecht] per Articles for deletion/Jenny Hecht. Thanks. —Quarl (talk) 2007-01-01 04:25Z 


 * Is this the same Hecht who wrote the famous Readers Digest article in 1942/43 that predicted that 6,000,000 Jews were being/goinr to be killed? 159.105.80.141 13:56, 5 April 2007 (UTC)


 * That's the one. His book "1001 Afternoons in New York" has a few such essays from that period (published at the start of the war) along with other amazing pieces on a wide variety of subjects. More directed than those though would be his book, "Guide for the Bedevilled" which he wrote during the war and where he describes a world and a Jewish "leadership" practically identical to the farsighted one we're blessed with now. mnuez www.mnuez.blogspot.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.54.14.45 (talk) 02:11, 25 April 2007 (UTC)


 * It is interesting to read Hechts Child of the Century for his take on the Holocaust. He also describes his interactions with gangster Mickey Cohen when they collaborated to raise money for Israel.


 * Hecht had another daughter, Edwina Armstrong by his first wife. She was born in 1918 and may still be alive.Jrm2007 11:07, 15 June 2007 (UTC)


 * At one point I looked into that and, to the best of my recollection, what sources I found indicated that she had already passed on. I recall the sources having some credibility but because I don't recall exactly from whom I had heard this I still hope that it isn't true. www.mnuez.blogspot.com   —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.13.148.23 (talk) 09:32, 31 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I wrote to some site, snicksnee press I think, which is devoted to Ben Hecht, and asked about Edwina Armstrong. For some reason, they refused to tell me, asking me why I was interested.--Jrm2007 (talk) 15:08, 1 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I removed much of the Jenny Hecht film list as it is totally inappropriate for this biography. The deletion of her Wikipedia bio occured 11 years ago, and much has changed about what makes a person "notable". I see many bios of people less notable than her, mainly children of famous people. I believe that today Jenny would be given her own two or three paragraph biography. Nick Beeson (talk) 11:39, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

Untitled
I thought Ben Hecht also 'contributed' to the autobiography of Marilyn Monroe. Is there any mention of that anywhere besides on the cover of the book? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.165.83.65 (talk) 05:41, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Quote attributed to him
"We are going to make sure that there is high-speed broadband available to everyone, and affordable to people historically kept out of it. It means they have not just access, but can also understand how to buy low-cost, affordable computers."

Did he say that? When and why did he say that?

Here is where I found the quote:http://thinkexist.com/quotes/ben_hecht/3.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.12.53.9 (talk) 10:31, 3 April 2008 (UTC)


 * A little research (which should have seemed essential in crediting a quote about Internet accessibility to an individual who died in 1964), reveals that the president and COO of a company called One Economy Corp., which advocates technological accessibility for low-income and Third World populations. Unfortunately, the site you've cited above has several quotes attributed to this Hecht.  PacificBoy  05:33, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Ragged Stranger
Ben Hecht's claim to have broken the Wanderer/Ragged Stranger murder mystery is at best exaggerated. Further there is no evidence that Lt. Wanderer killed so he could be with his homosexual lover "James." In fact, letters to 16-year-old Julia Schmitt were found in the Wanderer home -- not letters to James.

The weapons used in the killing were traced by Chicago detectives through the Colt Arms Company not by Hecht. There was no testimony at either of Wanderer's 2 trials about "James."

I'd edit the entry to reflect this, but it's not that important to me. Marklemagne (talk) 19:54, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Major rewrite explanations
I have rewritten this article's descriptive areas to give much more detail. I will be doing some more rearranging and minor cleanup, so any suggestions or added material would be welcome. I'll try to fix any obvious problems unless someone else gets to them first.

I will also be editing his Zionism activities to a few introductory paragraphs and will add a link to all the material to a more appropriate article and section. I think "Zionism" would be a more appropriate article for this kind of lengthy and detailed material, most of which has little to do with his screenwriting career. I'll create a section within that such as "Jewish American activism." I assume the editors active on that article will help out in inserting this material properly if they're not satisfied.Wikiwatcher1 (talk) 02:14, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Suggested improvement to list of films and books sections
This list of films would be more useful if included dates and was then put in chronological order.

I also think it might be inappropriate to include the number of pages for his books. A standard citation format with any links seems cleaner. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Light show (talk • contribs) 03:31, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

rp template
It looks like there is "double footnoting" going on in thge screenplays section, but this appears to be intentionally done using an rp template, e.g. ref name=Corliss/>, where the :6 comes from { {rp|6}} I can't find the documentation for this template, but assume that rp means reference page. It looks distracting to me and there must be a better way to do it. Any help or comments would be appreciated. Smallbones (talk) 10:00, 9 May 2009 (UTC)


 * There's a description at [RP template for ciations]. It says that this format of adding the page # in the body, "is presently the only solution for the problem of an article with a source that must be cited many, many times, at numerous different pages." --Wikiwatcher1 (talk) 17:55, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

"Blacklisted in the UK"
The article claims, "Hecht was blacklisted in the UK," but doesn't say by whom or what. The only immediately accessible source is the first few lines of a subscription-restricted New York Times article, supposedly to support the claim that, "His films were banned in the UK..." and merely hints at a boycott by film distributors. Surely the current text is misleading, because it suggests a quasi-official/governmental restriction, rather than what seems to be merely at least one organisation protesting Hecht's support for the killing of soldiers of the same army which liberated Nazi concentration camps. Nick Cooper (talk) 17:36, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Rereading some of the cites, it appears that this was a concerted government inspired action, not just of U.K. film distributors. As it is, some might rightly assume that when the British Navy captures an ocean liner named after him, they would also try to keep his name out of their films.--Wikiwatcher1 (talk) 20:17, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
 * If it had been the only ship so intercepted - or attempted to be intercepted - by the Royal Navy, that might be a point, but it wasn't, so it isn't. They could have called the ship the Rule Britannia, and it would still have been a target for interception. Nick Cooper (talk) 12:03, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Untitled
"Some Like it Hot," attributed to 1939, was made 20 years later than that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 170.232.128.10 (talk) 13:19, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Ben Hecht and A Guide for the Bedevilled
The entry for Ben Hecht states: He became an active Zionist shortly before the Holocaust began in Germany, and as a result wrote articles and plays about the plight of Europe's Jews, such as We Will Never Die in 1943 and A Flag is Born in 1946.

A Guide for the Bedevilled (Garden City Publishing, 1945) should also be cited. It is a powerful indictment and analysis of Antisemitism generally and German Antisemitism in particular. In the book he is either neutral or ambivalent about Zionism (see in particular pp 272-273) and I submit that he wrote it as a Jew rather than as a result of becoming "an active Zionist". See also http://philipwitriol.wordpress.com/2012/06/06/a-guide-for-the-bedevilled/ Philip Witriol (talk) 11:35, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Infobox
Can we look into developing a consensus for removing the infobox? I tried it once, and it was reverted for rather vague reasons, but it wasn't worth warring over. This article has a long lede which covers much relevant information, and the IB only covers birth date, death date, and spouses, all of which can be worked in elsewhere.--Sunshineisles2 (talk) 05:52, 23 June 2016 (UTC)
 * I added some fields to the box to round it out for usefulness. More could be added. IBs benefit many who want to know at a glance vital bio details such as his age when he died, place of birth and death, marriages, children, and other key facts. IBs are a familiar feature in most bios with over 90% of bio FAs having them. It also frames the image, as opposed to the bare look for Stanley Kubrick or Cary Grant, for instance. --Light show (talk) 09:02, 23 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Sorry if my edit summery in reverting was vague, but it seemed quite responsive to your edit summary 1) your edit summary misrepresented what was in the infobox - I replied that that was wrong; 2) your edit summary suggested that the infobox contained disinformation - I replied that that was untrue. My summary also noted the longstanding presence of the infobox in this article (see editconsensus).  For the rest, I am inclined to agree with Light show, although I don't care to make any claim about all infoboxes - this infobox, however, increases the informational value, here, and in a widely acceptable way. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:15, 23 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I just feel like infoboxes should contain more information than what was there before.Sunshineisles2 (talk) 18:20, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

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External links modified
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Radio - as writer and actor
I see no mention of his radio scripts, at least one I know he appeared in. Is this by omission or design? 128.32.28.2 (talk) 22:15, 22 March 2024 (UTC)