The magnificent Ben Hecht penned his memoir in 1954 during a period of convalescence. He never slowed down previously to take the time. The child of secular Jewish immigrants, he grew up in the New York ghetto before the family moved to Wisconsin. There he became a confirmed bibliophile. He went to college for one day before running off to Chicago and landing a job as a reporter during the height of Prohibition era gangster activity. He knew everybody from high to low. His romantic escapades were the stuff of movies. He became a propagandist for the Florida land boom, a variety of charities (some legit), a foreign correspondent, and went all out raising funds for the future state of Israel while antagonizing the Brits to no end. He wrote innovative scripts for legendary movies, novels, plays, poems, advertising, you name it. He turned a jaundiced eye on the waste associated with the capitalist horror of Bolshevism believing their fright gave that ideaology power it would never otherwise have had. His disdain for the sainted FDR earned him animosity but he was never cowed. The slaughter of the Holocaust aroused the latent Jew in him and he was relentless in their cause. His personal fortunes were always boom and bust, sometimes one step ahead of creditors and at others throwing down cash like Croesus. He ends his story before he began his stint as an early television talk show host. Written in an essay like narrative, his clear-eyed pithy wisdom is something to return to again and again. A life lived to the very fullest. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ ( )

I first read a selection from this book in Fradkin's Seven States Of California. It concerned Hecht's time as a film writer in Hollywood. It was so falling down funny that I sought out the book, and I was not disappointed. Hecht starts out as a reporter in Chicago and moves to New York as a playwright. He does a hilarious stint as a promotional writer for a real estate developer in Florida, and then moves on to Hollywood to write movies. He is an ardent supporter of the nascent Israel state and one of their naval vessels is named for him. He is funny and erudite and his biography aptly captures the first half of the twentieth century in the arts. This is one of the more engaging autobiographies I have read. ( )