{"product_id":"the-notorious-ben-hecht-iconoclastic-writer-and-militant-zionist-paperback","title":"The Notorious Ben Hecht: Iconoclastic Writer and Militant Zionist - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eJulien Gorbach\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e2019 National Jewish Book Award Finalist for Biography.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBen Hecht had seen his share of death-row psychopaths, crooked ward bosses, and Capone gun thugs by the time he had come of age as a crime reporter in gangland Chicago. His grim experience with what he called \"the soul of man\" gave him a kind of uncanny foresight a decade later, when a loose cannon named Adolf Hitler began to rise to power in central Europe. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn 1932, Hecht solidified his legend as \"the Shakespeare of Hollywood\" with his thriller\u003ci\u003e Scarface\u003c\/i\u003e, the Howard Hughes epic considered the gangster movie to end all gangster movies. But Hecht rebelled against his Jewish bosses at the movie studios when they refused to make films about the Nazi menace. Leveraging his talents and celebrity connections to orchestrate a spectacular one-man publicity campaign, he mobilized pressure on the Roosevelt administration for an Allied plan to rescue Europe's Jews. Then after the war, Hecht became notorious, embracing the labels \"gangster\" and \"terrorist\" in partnering with the mobster Mickey Cohen to smuggle weapons to Palestine in the fight for a Jewish state. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Notorious Ben Hecht: Iconoclastic Writer and Militant Zionist \u003c\/i\u003eis a biography of a great twentieth-century writer that treats his activism during the 1940s as the central drama of his life. It details the story of how Hecht earned admiration as a humanitarian and vilification as an extremist at this pivotal moment in history, about the origins of his beliefs in his varied experiences in American media, and about the consequences. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWho else but Hecht could have drawn the admiration of Ezra Pound, clowned around with Harpo Marx, written \u003ci\u003eNotorious\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eSpellbound\u003c\/i\u003e with Alfred Hitchcock, launched Marlon Brando's career, ghosted Marilyn Monroe's memoirs, hosted Jack Kerouac and Salvador Dalí on his television talk show, and plotted revolt with Menachem Begin? Any lover of modern history who follows this journey through the worlds of gangsters, reporters, Jazz Age artists, Hollywood stars, movie moguls, political radicals, and guerrilla fighters will never look at the twentieth century in the same way again. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eJulien Gorbach\u003c\/strong\u003e spent most of his 10 years as a daily newspaper reporter on the police beat, covering drive-by shootings and murder trials, and publishing an investigative series on killings that remained unsolved because gangs had intimidated witnesses into silence. As a freelancer, he contributed to the \u003cem\u003eBoston Phoenix\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eTime Out New York\u003c\/em\u003e, the \u003cem\u003eSan Francisco Bay Guardian\u003c\/em\u003e, and the \u003cem\u003eNew Orleans Gambit\u003c\/em\u003e, among other publications. He covered Hurricane Katrina for the \u003cem\u003eBoston Globe\u003c\/em\u003e. Gorbach earned a doctorate in media history at the University of Missouri-Columbia in 2013 and is now an assistant professor in the School of Communications at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 504\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1.2 x 9 x 6 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eIllustrated:\u003c\/strong\u003e Yes\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e March 15, 2019\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Books by splitShops","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51760543269152,"sku":"9781557538659","price":32.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0974\/9764\/5344\/files\/32607cf199e47e25962a85cc2bb824dd.webp?v=1780182871","url":"https:\/\/ebocreations.com\/products\/the-notorious-ben-hecht-iconoclastic-writer-and-militant-zionist-paperback","provider":"The E-Book Oasis LLC","version":"1.0","type":"link"}