Harold Hecht
[1] During his first stay in Hollywood in the early to mid-1930s, Hecht was one of the leading dance directors in the movie industry, working with the Marx Brothers, Mae West, Bing Crosby, Cary Grant, W. C. Fields, Gary Cooper, Maurice Chevalier and Marion Davies.
[28] Hecht excelled at The Lab and was accepted into its Auxiliary Acting Group, granting him the privilege of appearing in the school's produced plays, while remaining under Boleslavsky's teachings beyond the two years required to graduate.
LeRoy Prinz was producing and directing the Edmunt Joseph and Nat Perrin story Lucky Day with financial backing from Rodney Pantages, Arthur Silber and Harold Morehouse.
[53] Considering that his first known assignment at Paramount Pictures was a Marx Brothers film, it is quite possible that Hecht found his way to that studio through Nat Perrin, whom he had just worked with on Lucky Day and was Groucho's close friend and collaborator.
[64] Karl Hajos composed and conducted the 30-piece orchestra and the cast included Herbert Evans, Ruth Gillette, Alex Callam, Florinne McKinney, Franklin Record, Roland Woodruff, Diane Warfield, Paul Sauter, Rolloe Dix, William Jeffries, Harold Reeves and Evelyn Cunningham.
[65][66] Hecht was interviewed by Motion Picture Magazine in 1933, in response to Mae West's media comments regarding "curvy women being the new trend", to which he answered in her favor; "Dangerous curves are not only ahead, but actually with us.
[93][94] Hecht is said to have worked on the Edmond Goulding film Hollywood Party (at the time known under the title Star Spangled Banquet) at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in March 1934, though no official credit has surfaced to confirm this.
The big-budget film featured some of the biggest names from the Warner Brothers lot at the time, including Virginia Mayo (fresh from White Heat) as the leading lady and Max Steiner (famous for Casablanca and Gone with the Wind) who was hired to compose the soundtrack.
The Flame and the Arrow was released in the summer of 1950 and became one of the year's top grossers, earning two nominations at the 23rd Academy Awards ceremony in March 1951; one for Best Dramatic or Comedy Score (Max Steiner), another for Best Color Cinematography (Ernest Haller).
The First Time (released in early 1952) was a comedy film directed by Frank Tashlin starring Robert Cummings and Barbara Hale, based on a short story by Hugo Butler and Jean Rouverol as first-time parents.
Apache was another box office success for the company and despite the controversy that both leading actors had striking blue eyes, the film met with the approval of Native Americans, who were consulted at private screenings prior to the opening dates.
As part of its publicity, Hecht hired artist Thomas Hart Benton to paint a life-sized portrait of Lancaster and Donald MacDonald (in character), posing with their dog Faro.
[124] That year he also returned to Broadway to bring English playwright Terence Rattigan's hit show Separate Tables to the American stage, with plans to turn it into a film for Hecht-Lancaster Productions.
Director Alexander Mackendrick was hired with top cinematographer James Wong Howe and composer Elmer Bernstein (fresh from working on Otto Preminger's The Man with the Golden Arm) wrote a memorable soundtrack.
Directed by Robert Wise, it starred Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster with featured roles by Nick Cravat, Jack Warden and Don Rickles (in the comedian's film debut).
Separate Tables featured an all-star cast with David Niven, Rita Hayworth, Deborah Kerr, Burt Lancaster, Wendy Hiller, Gladys Cooper and Rod Taylor (several years before his best-remembered role in The Birds).
Hecht-Hill-Lancaster Productions was hoping to make an impact in the film industry, while African American civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. were protesting in the streets with the same message.
[126] The purpose of the new venture (a subsidiary of the Hecht and Lancaster Companies/Norma Productions) was to publish and copyright songs from their films' soundtracks and license them to record labels for release in the booming business of vinyls for the home market.
[134][135] Hecht and Lancaster had previously purchased the screen rights to one of Arnold's Western books, Blood Brother, and came very close to turning it into a picture (it was eventually made as Broken Arrow with James Stewart).
Hecht was hoping that the new combo would be as successful and hired more top Hollywood personnel to work on The Young Savages; John Gay to write the screenplay and Robert Rossen to direct.
Because of a financial deficit owed to United Artists when Hecht-Hill-Lancaster Productions decided to call it quits in 1959, the three partners were obligated to make a number of films for the studio in an attempt to recoup the costs.
In turn, Frankenheimer hired another television acquaintance, the promising young actor Sydney Pollack, as a dialogue coach for the teenage hoodlums who needed an authentic New York City accents.
Hecht hired J. Lee Thompson as director and Waldo Salt, who had written the script of The Flame and the Arrow in 1949 before being blacklisted, and Karl Tunberg, a two-time Oscar nominee who had just worked on megahit Ben-Hur, to write the screenplay.
The film starred Yul Brynner, Richard Widmark and George Chakiris, who was reluctant to take the role after winning an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in West Side Story.
Featured roles were played by Larry Storch, Marty Ingels, Marcel Dalio, Cliff Osmond, Fifi D'Orsay, Vito Scotti, Stanley Adams and Shelly Manne.
Monsieur Cognac's owner, a rich and famous actress (Kaufmann), finds the two of them the next day and develops a love affair with Curtis, much to the opposition of her jealous dog and her controlling father.
Director Michael Anderson returned to work with Hecht for a second time after Flight from Ashiya, with seven-time Academy Award nominated cinematographer, Joseph LaShelle, who had won an Oscar for Laura in 1945.
The rest of the cast featured Michael Callan, Dwayne Hickman, Nat King Cole, Stubby Kaye, Tom Nardini, Jay C. Flippen, John Marley, Arthur Hunnicutt, Reginald Denny and Bruce Cabot.
Over the years such stars as Burt Lancaster, Gary Cooper, James Stewart, John Wayne, Charlton Heston, Ingrid Bergman and Katharine Hepburn were all signed on for parts.
[160] Adam Arthur Hecht was born on August 6, 1965, at the UCLA Medical Center and worked as a tennis coach before mysteriously vanishing on July 7, 1989, from Beverly Hills, California at age 23.
