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Ben Hecht (1894-1964) http://tinyurl.com/Hecht

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Movie Writers

From A Child of the Century, 1954.

Reader: Daniel Maloney

During the heyday of the Hollywood studios, good writers were paid handsomely. Unfortunately, so were the bad ones.

Reporter, playwrite, novelist, and consumate screenwriter, Ben Hecht had little sympathy for overpaid Hollywood colleagues, especially the "greedy hacks and incompetent thickheads. . . ."

Out of the thousand writers huffing and puffing through movieland there are scarcely fifty men and women of wit or talent. The rest of the fraternity is deadwood. Yet, in a curious way, there is not much difference between the product of a good writer and a bad one. They both have to toe the same mark.

Nor are the bad writers better off spiritually. Their way is just as thorny. Minus talent or competence, the need for self-expression churns foolishly in them and their hearts throw themselves in a wild pitch for fame. And no less than the literary elite of Hollywood they feel the sting of its knout. However cynical, overpaid, or inept you are, it is impossible to create entertainment without feeling the urges that haunt creative work. The artist's ego, even the ego of the Hollywood hack, must always jerk around a bit under restaint.

Ben Hecht was one of Hollywood's finest writers. His autobiography, A Child of the Century appeared in 1954.