114-704: Ben Hecht ( / h ɛ k t / ; February 28, 1894 – April 18, 1964) was an American screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, journalist, and novelist. A journalist in his youth, he went on to write 35 books and some of the most enjoyed screenplays and plays in America. He received screen credits, alone or in collaboration, for the stories or screenplays of some seventy films. After graduating from high school in 1910, Hecht ran away to Chicago , where, in his own words, he "haunted streets, whorehouses, police stations, courtrooms, theater stages, jails, saloons, slums, madhouses, fires, murders, riots, banquet halls, and bookshops." In
228-403: A Democrat, was elected in 1955, in the era of machine politics . In 1956, the city conducted its last major expansion when it annexed the land under O'Hare airport, including a small portion of DuPage County. By the 1960s, white residents in several neighborhoods left the city for the suburban areas – in many American cities, a process known as white flight – as Blacks continued to move beyond
342-453: A Zionist force's supply ship to Palestine was named the S.S. Ben Hecht ( nl )( he ). In 1954, Hecht published his highly regarded autobiography, A Child of the Century . According to it, he did not hold screenwriting (in contrast to journalism) in high esteem, and never spent more than eight weeks on a script. In 1983, 19 years after his death, Ben Hecht was posthumously inducted into
456-440: A bum." I think it must have been devastating. Ben did it to MacArthur , who died in time to save his reputation. And I'd hate to have been Herman [Mankiewicz], caught between Kaufman and Hecht. According to James Harvey, Ernst Lubitsch felt uneasy in the world of playwright Noël Coward . "If Coward could write his play for three particular actors, he reasoned to an interviewer, why couldn't it be rewritten for three others? It
570-415: A fan letter from producer Arthur Hornblow, Jr.: After reading your magnificent script, Mr. Goldwyn and I both wish to go on record with the statement that if The Unholy Garden isn't the finest motion picture Samuel Goldwyn has ever produced, the fault will be entirely ours. You have done your part superbly. It was produced exactly as written, and 'became one of the biggest, yet funniest, bombs ever made by
684-486: A heart attack soon after. Washington was succeeded by 6th ward alderperson Eugene Sawyer , who was elected by the Chicago City Council and served until a special election. Richard M. Daley , son of Richard J. Daley, was elected in 1989. His accomplishments included improvements to parks and creating incentives for sustainable development , as well as closing Meigs Field in the middle of the night and destroying
798-660: A model for the new field of social work . During the 1870s and 1880s, Chicago attained national stature as the leader in the movement to improve public health. City laws and later, state laws that upgraded standards for the medical profession and fought urban epidemics of cholera , smallpox , and yellow fever were both passed and enforced. These laws became templates for public health reform in other cities and states. The city established many large, well-landscaped municipal parks , which also included public sanitation facilities. The chief advocate for improving public health in Chicago
912-409: A mural by John W. Norton depicting the newspaper production process . The Art Deco structure became a Chicago landmark, and stands today under the name Riverside Plaza . In 1930, the radio station obtained a license for an experimental television station, W9XAP, but had already begun transmitting from it just prior to its being granted. Working with Sears Roebuck stores by providing them with
1026-582: A new corporation, CDN Publishing Co., Inc., based in DuPage County, Weston published a number of special editions of the Chicago Daily News , including one celebrating the Chicago Auto Show . The following year, a Rosemont -based group headed by former Illinois governor Richard B. Ogilvie contracted to purchase CDN Publishing, with the expressed intention of publishing the Chicago Daily News as
1140-472: A new grade with the use of jackscrews for raising buildings. While elevating Chicago, and at first improving the city's health, the untreated sewage and industrial waste now flowed into the Chicago River , and subsequently into Lake Michigan , polluting the city's primary freshwater source. The city responded by tunneling two miles (3.2 km) out into Lake Michigan to newly built water cribs . In 1900,
1254-476: A period of almost fifty years in which Hecht's role was denied ... Hecht himself, however, kept denying it publicly". According to her biographer, Sarah Churchwell , Monroe was "persuaded to capitalize on her newfound celebrity by beginning an autobiography. It was born out of a collaboration with journalist and screenwriter Ben Hecht, hired as a ghostwriter". Churchwell adds that the facts in her story were highly selective. "Hecht reported to his editor during
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#17328514300681368-416: A premium because they could write dialogue in the quirky, idiosyncratic style of the common man. Hecht, in particular, was wonderful with slang, and he peppered his films with the argot of the streets. He also had a lively sense of humor and an uncanny ability to ground even the most outrageous stories successfully with credible, fast-paced plots." Hecht, his friend Budd Schulberg wrote many years ago, "seemed
1482-471: A studio'." Despite his monetary success, however, Hecht always kept Hollywood at arms' length. According to film historian Gregory Black, "he did not consider his work for the movies serious art; it was more a means of replenishing his bank account. When his work was finished, he retreated to New York." At least part of the reason for this was due to the industry's system of censorship. Black writes, "as Mankiewicz, Selznick, and Hecht knew all too well, much of
1596-434: A successful novelist, playwright, journalist, and screenwriter. His star has sunk below the horizon now, but in his own lifetime Hecht became one of the most famous American literary and entertainment figures". Eventually Hecht became associated with the writers Sherwood Anderson , Theodore Dreiser , Maxwell Bodenheim , Carl Sandburg , and Pascal Covici . He knew Margaret Anderson , and contributed to her Little Review ,
1710-530: A tough crime reporter while also becoming known in Chicago literary circles". In 1921, Hecht inaugurated a Daily News column, One Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago . While it lasted, the column was enormously influential. His editor, Henry Justin Smith, later said it represented a new concept in journalism: the idea that just under the edge of the news as commonly understood, the news often flatly unimaginatively told, lay life; that in this urban life there dwelt
1824-541: A weekend edition beginning that August. Weston hosted a party celebrating the signing of the contract with Ogilvie at the iconic Pump Room in the Ambassador Chicago Hotel. The gala was attended by hundreds of the city's well-known names in politics, publishing, broadcasting and advertising. The next day, Ogilvie reneged on the deal. The check he signed as payment to Weston bounced and his corporation filed for federal bankruptcy protection. Weston's last edition of
1938-514: A writer, and together they left Chicago (and his family) in 1924, moving to New York. He was divorced from Armstrong in 1925. He married Caylor that same year, and they remained married until Hecht's death in 1964. On July 30, 1943, Ben and Rose had a daughter, Jenny Hecht, who became an actress at the age of 8. She died of a drug overdose on March 25, 1971, at the age of 27, shortly after completing her third movie appearance. A play about Jenny's brief life, The Screenwriter's Daughter by Larry Mollin,
2052-409: Is his crisp, frenetic, sensational prose and dialogue style that elevates his work above that of the dozens of other reporters who streamed west to cover and exploit Hollywood's biggest 'story': the talkie revolution." He married Marie Armstrong (1892–1956), a gentile , in 1915, when he was 21, and they had a daughter, Edwina, who became actress Edwina Armstrong (1916–1991). He later met Rose Caylor ,
2166-407: Is known to botanists as Allium tricoccum and known more commonly as "ramps". The first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as " Checagou " was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir. Henri Joutel , in his journal of 1688, noted that the eponymous wild "garlic" grew profusely in the area. According to his diary of late September 1687: ... when we arrived at
2280-646: Is peanuts. Millions are to be grabbed out here, and your only competition is idiots", it read. "Don't let this get around." As a writer in need of money, he traveled to Hollywood as Mankiewicz suggested. He arrived in Los Angeles and began his career at the beginning of the sound era by writing the story for Josef von Sternberg 's gangster movie Underworld in 1927. For that first screenplay and story, he won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in Hollywood's first Academy award ceremony. Soon afterward, he became
2394-554: Is routinely ranked among the world's top six busiest airports by passenger traffic , and the region is also the nation's railroad hub. The Chicago area has one of the highest gross domestic products (GDP) of any urban region in the world, generating $ 689 billion in 2018. Chicago's economy is diverse , with no single industry employing more than 14% of the workforce. Chicago is a major destination for tourism , including visitors to its cultural institutions , and Lake Michigan beaches . Chicago's culture has contributed much to
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#17328514300682508-785: Is the center of the Chicago metropolitan area , often colloquially called "Chicagoland" and home to 9.6 million residents. Located on the shore of Lake Michigan , Chicago was incorporated as a city in 1837 near a portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River watershed . It grew rapidly in the mid-19th century. In 1871, the Great Chicago Fire destroyed several square miles and left more than 100,000 homeless, but Chicago's population continued to grow. Chicago made noted contributions to urban planning and architecture , such as
2622-505: The Time editorial board named Hecht's autobiography to the Time 100 best non-fiction books list (books published since the founding of the magazine in 1923). New Yorker film critic David Denby begins a discussion of Hecht's screenwriting by recounting a long story from his autobiography. He then asks, "How many of these details are true? It's impossible to say, but truth, in this case, may not be
2736-561: The American Theater Hall of Fame . Hecht was born in New York City, the son of Belarusian-Jewish immigrants. His father, Joseph Hecht, worked in the garment industry. His father and mother, Sarah Swernofsky Hecht, had emigrated to New York from Minsk , Russian Empire. The Hechts married in 1892. The family moved to Racine , Wisconsin, where Ben attended high school. For his bar mitzvah, his parents bought him four crates full of
2850-473: The Black Belt . While home loan discriminatory redlining against blacks continued, the real estate industry practiced what became known as blockbusting , completely changing the racial composition of whole neighborhoods. Structural changes in industry, such as globalization and job outsourcing, caused heavy job losses for lower-skilled workers. At its peak during the 1960s, some 250,000 workers were employed in
2964-699: The Calumet River in the industrial far South Side—flow either entirely or partially through the city. Chicago's history and economy are closely tied to its proximity to Lake Michigan. While the Chicago River historically handled much of the region's waterborne cargo, today's huge lake freighters use the city's Lake Calumet Harbor on the South Side. The lake also provides another positive effect: moderating Chicago's climate, making waterfront neighborhoods slightly warmer in winter and cooler in summer. When Chicago
3078-574: The Chicago Daily News featured extensive photo coverage of the October 4, 1979, visit to Chicago of Pope John Paul II . In 1984, Weston sold his rights to the Chicago Daily News trademark to Rupert Murdoch , who, at the time, was owner and publisher of the Chicago Sun-Times . The headquarters of the Daily News and Sun-Times was located at 401 North Wabash before the building was demolished. It
3192-548: The Chicago School , the development of the City Beautiful movement , and the steel-framed skyscraper . Chicago is an international hub for finance, culture , commerce, industry, education, technology, telecommunications, and transportation . It has the largest and most diverse finance derivatives market in the world, generating 20% of all volume in commodities and financial futures alone. O'Hare International Airport
3306-482: The Daily News was widely syndicated and boasted a first-class foreign news service. It became known for its distinctive, aggressive writing style which 1920s editor Henry Justin Smith likened to a daily novel. This style became the hallmark of the newspaper: "For generations", as Wayne Klatt puts it in Chicago Journalism: A History , "newspeople had been encouraged to write on the order of Charles Dickens , but
3420-912: The Daily News , Victor Lawson pioneered many areas of reporting, opening one of the first foreign bureaus among U.S. newspapers in 1898. In 1912, the Daily News became one of a cooperative of four newspapers, including the New York Globe , The Boston Globe , and the Philadelphia Bulletin , to form the Associated Newspapers syndicate. In 1922, Lawson started one of the first columns devoted to radio. He also introduced many innovations to business operations including advances in newspaper promotion, classified advertising, and syndication of news stories, serials, and comics. Victor Lawson died in August 1925, leaving no instructions in his will regarding
3534-527: The Great Lakes to connect to the Mississippi River. A flourishing economy brought residents from rural communities and immigrants from abroad. Manufacturing and retail and finance sectors became dominant, influencing the American economy . The Chicago Board of Trade (established 1848) listed the first-ever standardized "exchange-traded" forward contracts, which were called futures contracts . In
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3648-525: The Jefferson Township , which now makes up most of Chicago's Northwest Side . The desire to join the city was driven by municipal services that the city could provide its residents. Chicago's flourishing economy attracted huge numbers of new immigrants from Europe and migrants from the Eastern United States . Of the total population in 1900, more than 77% were either foreign-born or born in
3762-503: The Miami , Sauk and Meskwaki peoples in this region. The first known permanent settler in Chicago was trader Jean Baptiste Point du Sable . Du Sable was of African descent, perhaps born in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (Haiti), and established the settlement in the 1780s. He is commonly known as the "Founder of Chicago." In 1795, following the victory of the new United States in
3876-634: The New Negro Movement , in art, literature, and music. Continuing racial tensions and violence, such as the Chicago race riot of 1919 , also occurred. The ratification of the 18th amendment to the Constitution in 1919 made the production and sale (including exportation) of alcoholic beverages illegal in the United States. This ushered in the beginning of what is known as the gangster era, a time that roughly spans from 1919 until 1933 when Prohibition
3990-803: The Northwest Indian War , an area that was to be part of Chicago was turned over to the U.S. for a military post by native tribes in accordance with the Treaty of Greenville . In 1803, the U.S. Army constructed Fort Dearborn , which was destroyed during the War of 1812 in the Battle of Fort Dearborn by the Potawatomi before being later rebuilt. After the War of 1812, the Ottawa , Ojibwe , and Potawatomi tribes ceded additional land to
4104-463: The University of Chicago , Northwestern University , and the University of Illinois Chicago , among other institutions of learning . Professional sports in Chicago include all major professional leagues , including two Major League Baseball teams. The name Chicago is derived from a French rendering of the indigenous Miami–Illinois word shikaakwa for a wild relative of the onion ; it
4218-623: The WGN call letters to this second station. The Daily News would eventually take full ownership of the station and absorb shared band rival WQJ, which was jointly owned by the Calumet Baking Powder Company and the Rainbo Gardens ballroom. WMAQ would pioneer many firsts in radio—one of them the first complete Chicago Cubs season broadcast on radio in 1925, hosted by sportswriter-turned-sportscaster Hal Totten . In April 1930, WMAQ
4332-663: The Washington and Jackson Parks. During World War I and the 1920s there was a major expansion in industry. The availability of jobs attracted African Americans from the Southern United States . Between 1910 and 1930, the African American population of Chicago increased dramatically, from 44,103 to 233,903. This Great Migration had an immense cultural impact, called the Chicago Black Renaissance , part of
4446-451: The "most prolific and highest paid screenwriter in Hollywood". Hecht spent from two to twelve weeks in Hollywood each year, "during which he earned enough money (his record was $ 100,000 in one month, for two screenplays) to live on for the rest of the year in New York, where he did what he considered his serious writing", writes film historian Carol Easton. Nonetheless, later in his career, "he
4560-490: The 1800s, Chicago became the nation's railroad hub, and by 1910 over 20 railroads operated passenger service out of six different downtown terminals. In 1883, Chicago's railway managers needed a general time convention, so they developed the standardized system of North American time zones . This system for telling time spread throughout the continent. In 1893, Chicago hosted the World's Columbian Exposition on former marshland at
4674-477: The 1850s, Chicago gained national political prominence as the home of Senator Stephen Douglas , the champion of the Kansas–Nebraska Act and the "popular sovereignty" approach to the issue of the spread of slavery. These issues also helped propel another Illinoisan, Abraham Lincoln , to the national stage. Lincoln was nominated in Chicago for U.S. president at the 1860 Republican National Convention , which
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4788-443: The 1910s and 1920s, Hecht became a noted journalist, foreign correspondent, and literary figure. In the late 1920s, his co-authored, reporter-themed play, The Front Page , became a Broadway hit. The Dictionary of Literary Biography – American Screenwriters calls him "one of the most successful screenwriters in the history of motion pictures". Hecht received the first Academy Award for Best Story for Underworld (1927). Many of
4902-747: The 57th mayor of Chicago. Chicago is located in northeastern Illinois on the southwestern shores of freshwater Lake Michigan. It is the principal city in the Chicago Metropolitan Area , situated in both the Midwestern United States and the Great Lakes region . The city rests on a continental divide at the site of the Chicago Portage, connecting the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes watersheds . In addition to it lying beside Lake Michigan, two rivers—the Chicago River in downtown and
5016-455: The Chicago River were devastated; by 1933 over 50% of industrial jobs in the city had been lost, and unemployment rates amongst blacks and Mexicans in the city were over 40%. The Republican political machine in Chicago was utterly destroyed by the economic crisis, and every mayor since 1931 has been a Democrat . From 1928 to 1933, the city witnessed a tax revolt, and the city was unable to meet payroll or provide relief efforts. The fiscal crisis
5130-514: The Daily News was instructing its staff to present facts in cogent short paragraphs, which forced rivals to do the same." In the 1950s, city editor Clement Quirk Lane (whose son John would become Walter Cronkite 's executive producer) issued a memo to the staff that has become something of a memorial of the paper's house style, a copy of which can be found on Lane's entry. After a long period of ownership by Knight Newspapers (later Knight Ridder ),
5244-454: The Field years were mostly a period of decline for the newspaper, partly due to management decisions but also due to demographic changes; the circulation of afternoon dailies generally declined with the rise of television, and downtown newspapers suffered as readers moved to the suburbs. In 1977 the Daily News was redesigned and added features intended to increase its appeal to younger readers, but
5358-527: The Mississippi River. In 1871, the Great Chicago Fire destroyed an area about 4 miles (6.4 km) long and 1-mile (1.6 km) wide, a large section of the city at the time. Much of the city, including railroads and stockyards , survived intact, and from the ruins of the previous wooden structures arose more modern constructions of steel and stone. These set a precedent for worldwide construction. During its rebuilding period, Chicago constructed
5472-562: The South arrived in the city to work in the steel mills, railroads, and shipping yards. On December 2, 1942, physicist Enrico Fermi conducted the world's first controlled nuclear reaction at the University of Chicago as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project . This led to the creation of the atomic bomb by the United States, which it used in World War II in 1945. Mayor Richard J. Daley ,
5586-553: The United States in the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis . The Potawatomi were forcibly removed from their land after the 1833 Treaty of Chicago and sent west of the Mississippi River as part of the federal policy of Indian removal . On August 12, 1833, the Town of Chicago was organized with a population of about 200. Within seven years it grew to more than 6,000 people. On June 15, 1835, the first public land sales began with Edmund Dick Taylor as Receiver of Public Monies. The City of Chicago
5700-603: The United States near the start of World War II . Motivated by what became the Holocaust —the mass-murder of Jews in Europe—Hecht wrote articles and plays, such as We Will Never Die in 1943 and A Flag is Born in 1946. Thereafter, he wrote many screenplays anonymously to avoid a British boycott of his work in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The boycott was a response to Hecht's active support of paramilitary action against British Mandate for Palestine forces, during which time
5814-775: The United States of foreign parentage. Germans , Irish , Poles , Swedes , and Czechs made up nearly two-thirds of the foreign-born population (by 1900, whites were 98.1% of the city's population). Labor conflicts followed the industrial boom and the rapid expansion of the labor pool, including the Haymarket affair on May 4, 1886, and in 1894 the Pullman Strike . Anarchist and socialist groups played prominent roles in creating very large and highly organized labor actions. Concern for social problems among Chicago's immigrant poor led Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr to found Hull House in 1889. Programs that were developed there became
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#17328514300685928-403: The [his friend, Margaret C. Anderson 's] Little Review . After World War I he was sent by the Chicago Daily News to Berlin to witness the revolutionary movements, which gave him the material for his first novel, Erik Dorn (1921). ... A daily column he wrote, 1001 Afternoons in Chicago , was later collected into a book, and brought Hecht fame". These works enhanced his reputation in
6042-400: The air rights over the railroad tracks that ran along the west side of the Chicago River. He commissioned architects Holabird & Root to design a modern building over the tracks that would have newspaper production facilities and radio studios. The 26-floor Chicago Daily News Building opened in 1929. It featured a large plaza with a fountain dedicated to Strong's mentor, Victor Lawson, and
6156-538: The best American talkies". His movie career can be defined by about twenty credited screenplays he wrote for Hawks, Hitchcock, Hathaway, Lubitsch, Wellman, Sternberg, and himself. He wrote many of those with his two regular collaborators, Charles MacArthur and Charles Lederer . While living in New York in 1926, he received a telegram from screenwriter friend Herman J. Mankiewicz , who had recently moved to Los Angeles. "Will you accept three hundred per week to work for Paramount Pictures. All expenses paid. The three hundred
6270-401: The blame for the failure of the movies to deal more frankly and honestly with life, lay with a rigid censorship imposed on the industry ... [and] on the content of films during its golden era of studio production." Because the costs of production and distribution were so high, the primary "goal of the studios was profit, not art ... [and] fearful of losing any segment of their audiences,
6384-488: The changes did not reverse the paper's continuing decline in circulation. The Chicago Daily News published its last edition on Saturday, March 4, 1978. As reported in The Wall Street Journal , later in 1978, Lloyd H Weston , president, editor and publisher of Addison Leader Newspapers, Inc., a group of weekly tabloids in the west and northwest suburbs—obtained rights to the Chicago Daily News trademark. Under
6498-553: The city include the central business district, called the Loop , and the North, South , and West Sides . The three sides of the city are represented on the Flag of Chicago by three horizontal white stripes. The North Side is the most-densely-populated residential section of the city, and many high-rises are located on this side of the city along the lakefront. The South Side is the largest section of
6612-529: The city was affected by a series of tenant rent strikes , which lead to the formation of the Chicago Tenants Protective association, passage of the Kessenger tenant laws, and of a heat ordinance that legally required flats to be kept above 68 °F during winter months by landlords. Chicago was the first American city to have a homosexual-rights organization. The organization, formed in 1924,
6726-415: The city's first African American woman mayor and its first openly LGBTQ mayor, was elected to succeed Emanuel as mayor in 2019. All three city-wide elective offices were held by women (and women of color) for the first time in Chicago history: in addition to Lightfoot, the city clerk was Anna Valencia and the city treasurer was Melissa Conyears-Ervin . On May 15, 2023, Brandon Johnson assumed office as
6840-424: The city's first female mayor, was elected. She was notable for temporarily moving into the crime-ridden Cabrini-Green housing project and for leading Chicago's school system out of a financial crisis. In 1983, Harold Washington became the first black mayor of Chicago. Washington's first term in office directed attention to poor and previously neglected minority neighborhoods. He was re‑elected in 1987 but died of
6954-544: The city, encompassing roughly 60% of the city's land area. The South Side contains most of the facilities of the Port of Chicago . Chicago Daily News The Chicago Daily News was an afternoon daily newspaper in the midwestern United States , published between 1875 and 1978 in Chicago , Illinois. The Daily News was founded by Melville E. Stone , Percy Meggy, and William Dougherty in 1875 and began publishing on December 23. Byron Andrews , fresh out of Hobart College ,
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#17328514300687068-515: The convention hall, with anti-war protesters, journalists and bystanders being beaten by police. Major construction projects, including the Sears Tower (now known as the Willis Tower , which in 1974 became the world's tallest building ), University of Illinois at Chicago , McCormick Place , and O'Hare International Airport , were undertaken during Richard J. Daley's tenure. In 1979, Jane Byrne ,
7182-571: The crooks their assignments forced them to cover ... It is no accident that Ben Hecht, the greatest screenwriter of rapid-fire, flavorful tough talk, as well as a major comic playwright, wrote gangster pictures, prison pictures, and newspaper pictures." Hecht became one of Hollywood's most prolific screenwriters, able to write a full screenplay in two to eight weeks. According to Samuel Goldwyn biographer, Carol Easton, in 1931, with his writing partner Charles MacArthur , he "knocked out The Unholy Garden in twelve hours. Hecht subsequently received
7296-403: The disposition of the Daily News . Walter A. Strong , who was Lawson's business manager, spent the rest of the year raising the capital he needed to buy the Daily News . The Chicago Daily News Corporation, of which Strong was the major stockholder, bought the newspaper for $ 13.7 million (equivalent to $ 238 million in 2023) —the highest price paid for a newspaper up to that time. Strong
7410-479: The district and forcing a shutdown of electrical power. The area was shut down for three days and some buildings did not reopen for weeks; losses were estimated at $ 1.95 billion. On February 23, 2011, Rahm Emanuel , a former White House Chief of Staff and member of the House of Representatives , won the mayoral election. Emanuel was sworn in as mayor on May 16, 2011, and won re-election in 2015. Lori Lightfoot ,
7524-526: The fair was technological innovation over the century since Chicago's founding. During World War II , the city of Chicago alone produced more steel than the United Kingdom every year from 1939 – 1945, and more than Nazi Germany from 1943 – 1945. The Great Migration, which had been on pause due to the Depression, resumed at an even faster pace in the second wave , as hundreds of thousands of blacks from
7638-568: The interviews that he was sometimes sure Marilyn was fabricating. He explained, 'When I say lying, I mean she isn't telling the truth. I don't think so much that she is trying to deceive me as that she is a fantasizer. ' " Beginning with a series of one-acts in 1914, he began writing plays. His first full-length play was The Egotist , and it was produced in New York in 1922. While living in Chicago, he met fellow reporter Charles MacArthur and together they moved to New York to collaborate on their Chicago-crime-reporter themed play, The Front Page . It
7752-606: The literary scene as a reporter, columnist, short story writer, and novelist. After leaving the News in 1923, he started his own newspaper, The Chicago Literary Times . According to biographer Eddy Applegate, "Hecht read voraciously the works of Gautier , Baudelaire , Mallarmé , and Verlaine , and developed a style that was extraordinary and imaginative. The use of metaphor , imagery , and vivid phrases made his writing distinct ... again and again Hecht showed an uncanny ability to picture
7866-451: The lowest points are along the lake shore at 578 ft (176.2 m), while the highest point, at 672 ft (205 m), is the morainal ridge of Blue Island in the city's far south side. Lake Shore Drive runs adjacent to a large portion of Chicago's waterfront. Some of the parks along the waterfront include Lincoln Park , Grant Park , Burnham Park , and Jackson Park . There are 24 public beaches across 26 miles (42 km) of
7980-411: The magazine of the Chicago "literary renaissance" , and to Smart Set . In 1954, Hecht published his autobiography, A Child of the Century , which, according to literary critic Robert Schmuhl, "received such extensive critical acclaim that his literary reputation improved markedly during the last decade of his life ... Hecht's vibrant and candid memoir of more than six hundred pages restored him to
8094-527: The murder of Carl Wanderer 's wife, which led to the trial and execution of war hero Carl Wanderer. In Chicago, he also met and befriended Maxwell Bodenheim , an American poet and novelist, later known as the King of Greenwich Village Bohemians , and with whom he became a lifelong friend. After concluding One Thousand and One Afternoons , Hecht went on to produce novels, plays, screenplays, and memoirs, but for him, none of these eclipsed his early success in finding
8208-527: The paper was acquired in 1959 by Field Enterprises , owned by heirs of the former owner of the Marshall Field and Company department store chain. Field already owned the morning Chicago Sun-Times , and the Daily News moved into the Sun-Times ' building on North Wabash Avenue. A few years later Mike Royko became the paper's lead columnist, and quickly rose to local and national prominence. However,
8322-472: The personification of the writer at the top of his game, the top of his world, not gnawing at doubting himself as great writers were said to do, but with every word and every gesture indicating the animal pleasure he took in writing well". "Movies", Hecht was to recall, "were seldom written. In 1927, they were yelled into existence in conferences that kept going in saloons, brothels, and all-night poker games. Movie sets roared with arguments and organ music." He
8436-653: The point. As Norman Mailer noted in 1973, Hecht 'was never a writer to tell the truth when a concoction could put life in his prose. ' " Denby calls this Hecht's "gift for confabulated anecdote". Near the end of the article, Denby returns to A Child of the Century , "that vast compendium of period evocation, juiced anecdotes, and dubious philosophy". Besides working on novels and short stories (see book list ), he has been credited with ghostwriting books, including Marilyn Monroe 's autobiography My Story . "The reprint of Marilyn Monroe's memoir, My Story , in 2000, by Cooper Square Press, correctly credits Hecht as an author, ending
8550-498: The present location of Jackson Park . The Exposition drew 27.5 million visitors, and is considered the most influential world's fair in history. The University of Chicago , formerly at another location, moved to the same South Side location in 1892. The term "midway" for a fair or carnival referred originally to the Midway Plaisance , a strip of park land that still runs through the University of Chicago campus and connects
8664-593: The problem of sewage contamination was largely resolved when the city completed a major engineering feat. It reversed the flow of the Chicago River so that the water flowed away from Lake Michigan rather than into it. This project began with the construction and improvement of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, and was completed with the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal that connects to the Illinois River , which flows into
8778-473: The receivers, those present at the stores were able to see Bill Hay , (the announcer for Amos 'n' Andy ), present a variety show from the Daily News Building, on August 27, 1930. Ulises Armand Sanabria was the television pioneer behind this and other early Chicago television experiments. In 1931 The Daily News sold WMAQ to NBC . In its heyday as an independent newspaper from the 1930s to 1950s
8892-584: The runways. After successfully running for re-election five times, and becoming Chicago's longest-serving mayor, Richard M. Daley declined to run for a seventh term. In 1992, a construction accident near the Kinzie Street Bridge produced a breach connecting the Chicago River to a tunnel below, which was part of an abandoned freight tunnel system extending throughout the downtown Loop district. The tunnels filled with 250 million US gallons (1,000,000 m ) of water, affecting buildings throughout
9006-596: The said place called "Chicagou" which, according to what we were able to learn of it, has taken this name because of the quantity of garlic which grows in the forests in this region. The city has had several nicknames throughout its history, such as the Windy City , Chi-Town, Second City, and City of the Big Shoulders. In the mid-18th century, the area was inhabited by the Potawatomi , an indigenous tribe who had succeeded
9120-579: The screenplays he worked on are now considered classics. He also provided story ideas for such films as Stagecoach (1939). Film historian Richard Corliss called him " the Hollywood screenwriter", someone who "personified Hollywood itself". In 1940, he wrote, produced, and directed Angels Over Broadway , which was nominated for Best Screenplay. In total, six of his movie screenplays were nominated for Academy Awards , with two winning. Hecht became an active Zionist after meeting Peter Bergson , who came to
9234-520: The stature of a serious and significant American writer ". Novelist Saul Bellow reviewed the book for The New York Times : "His manners are not always nice, but then nice manners do not always make interesting autobiographies, and this autobiography has the merit of being intensely interesting ... If he is occasionally slick, he is also independent, forthright, and original. Among the pussycats who write of social issues today, he roars like an old-fashioned lion." In 2011, Richard Corliss , announced
9348-570: The steel industry in Chicago, but the steel crisis of the 1970s and 1980s reduced this number to just 28,000 in 2015. In 1966, Martin Luther King Jr. and Albert Raby led the Chicago Freedom Movement , which culminated in agreements between Mayor Richard J. Daley and the movement leaders. Two years later, the city hosted the tumultuous 1968 Democratic National Convention , which featured physical confrontations both inside and outside
9462-464: The strange jumble of events in strokes as vivid and touching as the brushmarks of a novelist". "Ben Hecht was the enfant terrible of American letters in the first half of the twentieth century", wrote author Sanford Sternlicht. "If Hecht was consistently opposed to anything, it was to censorship of literature, art, and film by either the government or self-appointed guardians of public morality". He adds, "Even though he never attended college, Hecht became
9576-477: The studios either carefully avoided controversial topics or presented them in a way that evaded larger issues", thereby creating only "harmless entertainment". According to historian David Thomson, "to their own minds, Herman Mankiewicz and Ben Hecht both died morose and frustrated. Neither of them had written the great books they believed possible." In an interview with director Howard Hawks , with whom Hecht worked on many films, Scott Breivold elicited comments on
9690-547: The stuff of literature in city life. Recalling that period, Hecht wrote, "I haunted streets, whorehouses, police stations, courtrooms, theater stages, jails, saloons, slums, madhouses, fires, murders, riots, banquet halls, and bookshops. I ran everywhere in the city like a fly buzzing in the works of a clock, tasted more than any fit belly could hold, learned not to sleep, and buried myself in a tick-tock of whirling hours that still echo in me". Besides working as reporter in Chicago, "he also contributed to literary magazines including
9804-445: The stuff of literature, not hidden in remote places, either, but walking the downtown streets, peering from the windows of sky scrapers, sunning itself in parks and boulevards. He was going to be its interpreter. His was to be the lens throwing city life into new colors, his the microscope revealing its contortions in life and death. While at the Chicago Daily News , Hecht famously broke the 1921 "Ragged Stranger Murder Case" story, about
9918-603: The time, especially for comedy. ... it was also the first screwball comedy to lay apparent claim to larger satiric meanings, to make scathing observations about American life and society." In an interview with Irene Selznick , ex-wife of producer David O. Selznick , she discussed the other leading screenwriters of that time: They all aspired to be Ben. The resourcefulness of his mind, his vitality were so enormous. His knowledge. His talent and ambition. He could tear through things, and he tore through life. They'd see this prodigious output of Ben's, and they'd think, "Oh, hell, I'm
10032-551: The unemployed. In the spring of 1937 Republic Steel Works witnessed the Memorial Day massacre of 1937 in the neighborhood of East Side. In 1933, Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak was fatally wounded in Miami, Florida , during a failed assassination attempt on President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt . In 1933 and 1934, the city celebrated its centennial by hosting the Century of Progress International Exposition World's Fair . The theme of
10146-625: The visual arts, literature , film, theater , comedy (especially improvisational comedy ), food , dance, and music (particularly jazz , blues , soul , hip-hop , gospel , and electronic dance music , including house music ). Chicago is home to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Lyric Opera of Chicago , while the Art Institute of Chicago provides an influential visual arts museum and art school . The Chicago area also hosts
10260-644: The waterfront. Landfill extends into portions of the lake providing space for Navy Pier , Northerly Island , the Museum Campus , and large portions of the McCormick Place Convention Center. Most of the city's high-rise commercial and residential buildings are close to the waterfront. An informal name for the entire Chicago metropolitan area is "Chicagoland", which generally means the city and all its suburbs, though different organizations have slightly different definitions. Major sections of
10374-402: The way they often worked: Breivold. Could you explain how the day-to-day writing goes on a script? Hawks. Well, when Hecht and MacArthur and I used to work on a script, we'd sit in a room and work for two hours and then we'd play backgammon for an hour. Then we'd start again and one of us would be one character and one would be another character. We'd read our lines of dialogue and the whole idea
10488-437: The works of Shakespeare, Dickens and Twain. 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 a store 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
10602-525: The world's first skyscraper in 1885, using steel-skeleton construction. The city grew significantly in size and population by incorporating many neighboring townships between 1851 and 1920, with the largest annexation happening in 1889, with five townships joining the city, including the Hyde Park Township , which now comprises most of the South Side of Chicago and the far southeast of Chicago, and
10716-431: Was John H. Rauch, M.D. Rauch established a plan for Chicago's park system in 1866. He created Lincoln Park by closing a cemetery filled with shallow graves, and in 1867, in response to an outbreak of cholera he helped establish a new Chicago Board of Health. Ten years later, he became the secretary and then the president of the first Illinois State Board of Health, which carried out most of its activities in Chicago. In
10830-622: Was a full-time reporter, first with the Daily Journal , and later with the Chicago Daily News . He was an excellent reporter who worked on several Chicago papers. In the aftermath of World War I , Hecht was sent to cover Berlin for the Daily News . While there he also 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",
10944-442: Was a writer who liked to think that his genius had been stifled by Hollywood and by its dreadful habit of giving him so much money". Yet his income was as much a result of his skill as a writer as well as his early jobs with newspapers. As film historians Mast and Kawin wrote, "The newspaper reporters often seemed like gangsters who had accidentally ended up behind a typewriter rather than a tommy gun; they talked and acted as rough as
11058-494: Was as rife with conflict as the films themselves Nothing Sacred is probably the "most famous of all the Carole Lombard films next to My Man Godfrey ", wrote movie historian James Harvey. And it impressed people at the time with its evident ambition "and Selznick determined to make the classiest of all screwball comedies, turned to Lombard as a necessity, but also to Ben Hecht, nearly the hottest screenwriter in Hollywood at
11172-550: Was at this point ... that he turned to Ben Hecht ... to work with him on the screenplay for Design for Living ." It was the only Lubitsch-Hecht collaboration. Harvey adds, "Though Lubitsch must have been reassured by Hecht's taking the job. No writer in Hollywood had better credentials in the tough, slangy, specifically American style that Lubitsch wanted to impart to the Coward play. And together, they transformed it." According to Siegel, "The talkie era put writers like Hecht at
11286-448: Was based on Hecht's 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 . From 1918 to 1919, Hecht served as war correspondent in Berlin for the Chicago Daily News . According to Barbara and Scott Siegel , "Besides being a war reporter, he was noted for being
11400-520: Was best known for two specific and contrasting types of film: crime thrillers and screwball comedies . Among crime thrillers, Hecht was responsible for such films as The Unholy Night (1929), the classic Scarface (1932), and Hitchcock's Notorious . Among his comedies, there were The Front Page , which led to many remakes, Noël Coward 's Design for Living (1933), Twentieth Century , Nothing Sacred , and Howard Hawks 's Monkey Business (1952). Film historian Richard Corliss wrote, "it
11514-467: Was called the Society for Human Rights . It produced the first American publication for homosexuals, Friendship and Freedom . Police and political pressure caused the organization to disband. The Great Depression brought unprecedented suffering to Chicago, in no small part due to the city's heavy reliance on heavy industry. Notably, industrial areas on the south side and neighborhoods lining both branches of
11628-462: Was founded in 1837, most of the early building was around the mouth of the Chicago River, as can be seen on a map of the city's original 58 blocks. The overall grade of the city's central, built-up areas is relatively consistent with the natural flatness of its overall natural geography, generally exhibiting only slight differentiation otherwise. The average land elevation is 579 ft (176.5 m) above sea level . While measurements vary somewhat,
11742-566: Was held in a purpose-built auditorium called the Wigwam . He defeated Douglas in the general election, and this set the stage for the American Civil War . To accommodate rapid population growth and demand for better sanitation, the city improved its infrastructure. In February 1856, Chicago's Common Council approved Chesbrough 's plan to build the United States' first comprehensive sewerage system. The project raised much of central Chicago to
11856-532: Was hired in February 1922 and went on to have a long and distinguished career in broadcasting. What would become WMAQ had its inaugural broadcast April 12, 1922. That same year, the rival Chicago Tribune began to experiment with radio news at Westinghouse -owned KYW . In 1924 the Tribune briefly took over station WJAZ , changing its call letters to WGN, then purchased station WDAP outright and permanently transferred
11970-521: Was incorporated on Saturday, March 4, 1837, and for several decades was the world's fastest-growing city. As the site of the Chicago Portage , the city became an important transportation hub between the eastern and western United States. Chicago's first railway, Galena and Chicago Union Railroad , and the Illinois and Michigan Canal opened in 1848. The canal allowed steamboats and sailing ships on
12084-601: Was one of the first reporters. The paper aimed for a mass readership in contrast to its primary competitor, the Chicago Tribune , which appealed to the city's elites. The Daily News was Chicago's first penny paper , and the city's most widely read newspaper in the late nineteenth century. Victor Lawson bought the Chicago Daily News in 1876 and became its business manager. Stone remained involved as an editor and later bought back an ownership stake, but Lawson took over full ownership again in 1888. During his long tenure at
12198-561: Was organized as a subsidiary corporation with Walter Strong as its chairman of the board, and Judith Waller as vice president and station manager. On August 2, 1929, it was announced that the Chicago Daily Journal was consolidating with the Daily News , and the Journal published its final issue on August 21. By the late 1920s, it was apparent to Walter Strong that his newspaper and broadcast operations needed more space. He acquired
12312-424: Was performing as a circus acrobat". After graduating from Racine High School in 1910, Hecht attended the University of Wisconsin for three days before leaving for Chicago at the age of 16 or 17. He lived with relatives, and started a career in journalism. He won a job with the Chicago Daily Journal after writing a profane poem for publisher John C. Eastman to entertain guests at a party. By age seventeen Hecht
12426-455: Was repealed. The 1920s saw gangsters , including Al Capone , Dion O'Banion , Bugs Moran and Tony Accardo battle law enforcement and each other on the streets of Chicago during the Prohibition era . Chicago was the location of the infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre in 1929, when Al Capone sent men to gun down members of a rival gang, North Side, led by Bugs Moran. From 1920 to 1921,
12540-469: Was resolved by 1933, and at the same time, federal relief funding began to flow into Chicago. Chicago was also a hotbed of labor activism, with Unemployed Councils contributing heavily in the early depression to create solidarity for the poor and demand relief; these organizations were created by socialist and communist groups. By 1935 the Workers Alliance of America begun organizing the poor, workers,
12654-462: Was staged in London in October 2015. Chicago Chicago is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States . With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 census , it is the third-most populous city in the United States after New York City and Los Angeles . As the seat of Cook County , the second-most populous county in the U.S., Chicago
12768-619: Was the president and publisher of the Chicago Daily News Corporation from December 1925 until his death in May 1931. As Lawson's business manager, Strong partnered with the Fair Department Store to create a new radio station. Strong asked Judith C. Waller to run the new station. When Waller protested that she didn't know anything about running a station. Strong replied "neither do I, but come down and we'll find out." Waller
12882-507: Was to try to stump the other people, to see if they could think of something crazier than you could. According to film historian Virginia Wexman, David Selznick had a flair for the dramatic, and no one knew that better than Ben Hecht. The two collaborated on some of Hollywood's biggest hits – movies like Gone With the Wind and Notorious and Duel in the Sun – and often enough, the making of those films
12996-470: Was widely acclaimed and had a successful run on Broadway of 281 performances, beginning August 1928. In 1931, it was turned into a successful film , which was nominated for three Oscars. Film historian Richard Corliss writes, "Ben Hecht was the Hollywood screenwriter ... [and] it can be said without too much exaggeration that Hecht personifies Hollywood itself." Movie columnist Pauline Kael says, "between them, Hecht and Jules Furthman wrote most of
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