Ben Hecht was a Jewish American journalist, novelist, playwright, and screenwriter.http://www.filmreference.com/Writers-and-Production-Artists-Ha-Ja/Hecht-Ben.html His credits include work with acclaimed filmmakers such as Alfred Hitchcock, William Wyler, and Howard Hawks.http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0372942/ Hecht was nominated for six Academy Awards and won two. In 1981, he received the Laurel Award for Screen Writing Achievement from the Writer’s Guild of America.http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0372942/awards

Born in New York City on February 28, 1894, Hecht began working as a journalist and columnist in Chicago at the age of 16.http://www.filmreference.com/Writers-and-Production-Artists-Ha-Ja/Hecht-Ben.html He wrote the play The Front Page with fellow journalist Charles MacArthur in 1928, which became an influential portrait of the newspaper world and was adapted into the film His Girl Friday.http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/259157/Ben-Hecht In 1929, he won the Academy Award for Best Writing, Original Story at the very first Academy Awards ceremony, for 1927’s ‘’Underworld’’.http://www.filmsite.org/bestscreenplays5.html He also won an Oscar for scripting 1935’s The Scoundrel and was nominated for writing Viva Villa! (1934), Wuthering Heights (1939), Angels Over Broadway (1940), and Notorious (1946).http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0372942/awards Hecht and MacArthur adapted their own play Twentieth Century for Howard Hawks in 1934, and the film became a prototype for the screwball comedy genre.http://www.filmreference.com/Writers-and-Production-Artists-Ha-Ja/Hecht-Ben.html

Hecht became involved with Zionist and anti-fascist propaganda with the rise of Nazi Germany and the advent of World War II.http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007040 In 1943, he created a series of advertisements in the New York Times designed to bring more public attention to the Holocaust. He also co-authored the We Will Never Die pageant, which included graphic recollections of the Nazi extermination of Jews and urged a response from the Allies.http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007040 Though controversial both inside and out of the Jewish community, the pageant played in six cities and was seen as an influence in President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s creation of the War Refugee Board to aid civilian victims of Nazi Germany.http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007036

Pity - that most vile of virtues - has never been known to you.http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0026970/quotes?qt0214466

If he loved you with all the power of his soul for a whole lifetime, he couldn't love you as much as I do in a single day.http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032145/quotes?qt0289753

There's nothing like a love song to give you a good laugh.http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038787/quotes?qt0324374