Unknown author · Public domain

Ben Hecht wrote or co-wrote some seventy screenplays, winning the first Academy Award for Best Story for Underworld in 1927 and helping invent the fast-talking newsroom comedy with his play The Front Page. He worked on classics of the studio era and provided story ideas for films like Stagecoach. After meeting activist Peter Bergson at the start of World War II, Hecht became a committed Zionist, using his Broadway standing to campaign publicly for the rescue of European Jews and for a Jewish state.