Harold Hecht

HAROLD HECHT d1985. American film producer, dance director and talent agent. He was a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences and the Screen Producers Guild. During his first stay in Hollywood in the early to mid-1930s, he 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. In 1947, he co-founded Norma Productions, an independent film production company with his business partner and managed actor Burt Lancaster. From 1954 to 1959, the Norma Productions subsidiaries Hecht-Lancaster Productions and later Hecht-Hill-Lancaster Productions, were the biggest and most important independent production units in Hollywood. Following the end of the Hecht-Hill-Lancaster partnership, he continued as one of the top three independent producers in Hollywood, a position he shared with Stanley Kramer and the Mirisch brothers for the next ten years. He died in California aged 77 on May 26th 1985