Ben Hecht - Early Years

Early Years

Hecht was born in New York City, the son of Russian–Jewish immigrants. Hecht’s father, Joseph Hecht, was a garment worker whose specialty was cutting cloth to patterns. He and his future wife, Sarah Swernofski, had immigrated to the Lower East Side from Minsk, Belarus, then part of the Russian Empire. The family language was Yiddish. The Hechts married on the Lower East Side in 1892 and Ben was born the next year.

The family moved to Racine, Wisconsin, where Ben attended high school. When Hecht was in his early teens he would spend the summers with an uncle in Chicago. On the road much of the time, his father did not have much effect on Hecht’s childhood, and his mother was busy managing the store outlet in downtown Racine. Film author Scott Siegal wrote, "He was considered a child prodigy at age ten, seemingly on his way to a career as a concert violinist, but two years later was performing as a circus acrobat.".

After being graduated from high school in 1910, at age sixteen Hecht moved to Chicago, running away to live permanently lived there with relatives, and started a career in journalism. He found work as a reporter, first for the Chicago Journal, and later with the Chicago Daily News. He was an excellent reporter who worked on several Chicago papers. After World War I, Hecht was sent to cover Berlin for the Chicago Daily News. There he wrote his first and most successful novel, Erik Dorn (1921). It was a sensational debut for Hecht as a serious writer.

The 1969 movie, Gaily, Gaily, directed by Norman Jewison and starring Beau Bridges as "Ben Harvey", was based on his life during his early years working as a reporter in Chicago. The film was nominated for three Oscars. The story was taken from a portion of his autobiography, A Child of the Century.