Reginald Rose

Reginald Rose was born in Manhattan on December 10th, 1920. He attended Townsend High School and briefly attended City College (now part of the City University of New York) before serving in the U.S. Army in 1942-46, where he became a first lieutenant.

In 1950, Rose began a new and illustrious career in film and television writing, selling his first teleplay Bus to Nowhere to the live CBS dramatic anthology program Studio One. Just four years later he was to sell his classic Twelve Angry Men to the same studio. Inspired by Rose's own experience serving on a jury, the play was set in entirely in one room, where a jury is deliberating the fate of a man accused of murder. The insightful play about morality and justice was immediately successful, being rewritten for the stage in 1955 and for the big screen in 1957. The play continues to be performed throughout the world. Rose continued to write for the stage and screen, although Twelve Angry Men remains his best known work. 

He was married twice, to Barbara Langbart in 1943, with whom he had four children, and to Ellen McLaughlin in 1963, with whom he had two children. He passed away in 2002.