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. 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, as the big studio system was being crushed by costs (Costs of "Cleopatra" threatened to shut down 20th Century Fox Studios 1963), the Norma Productions subsidiaries, Hecht-Lancaster Productions and Hecht-Hill-Lancaster Productions, were pioneers and one of the most important independent production units in Hollywood. Following the end of the Hecht-Hill-Lancaster partnership, Hecht continued as one of the top independent producers in Hollywood, a position he shared with Stanley Kramer and the Mirisch brothers, for the next ten years.