Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, 1928: Ben Hecht for Underworld - CARLI Digital Collections Featured Image

As per usual, I saw exactly zero of the Best Picture nominees from last night's Academy Awards -- I plan to catch up in ten years when my kids go off to college -- but that doesn't stop me from participating in the office Oscars pool. Here at the Newberry, it's particularly high stakes, since the prize includes a day off and a photo of yourself holding Ben Hecht's Oscar.

The statuette, an unexpected artifact among the library's rare books and antique maps, is part of the Ben Hecht papers, 163 boxes of materials documenting the life and work of the novelist, playwright, and screenwriter. Best known for The Front Page (later adapted as His Girl Friday), Spellbound, and Notorious, Hecht won his first (and the Academy’s first ever) screenwriting Oscar in 1928 for Underworld. A seminal work of the gangster film genre, Underworld was drawn from his pre-Hollywood career as a crime reporter for the Chicago Daily News.

Hecht boasted that he used the Oscar as a doorstop (a claim backed up by photographic proof in his papers) -- a not particularly respectful but practical use of the weightier-than-expected statuette. Indeed, posing with the eight-and-a-half-pound award requires an extra-firm grip from our Oscar pool winner, who is as per usual not me. (Spotlight -- who knew?)

Written by Jen Wolfe, Digital Initiatives Librarian, Newberry Library

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