Reginald Rose

Reginald Rose was born in 1920 in Manhattan and spent his youth, high school, college years, and adult life in New York City. He attended City College (now incorporated into the City University of New York). After college, he served in the US Army during World War II. He rose to the rank of first lieutenant, while serving from 1942 to 1946. Rose married Barbara Langbart in 1943. The couple had four children. Rose achieved literary success as an adult when he sold his first teleplay Bus to Nowhere to CBS in 1950. His 1954 teleplay Twelve Angry Men established his name in the literary world, and is his most famous work. He received an Emmy for the play, which was later adapted into an Oscar nominated feature-length film, as well as into the script for a live stage version. Rose’s other works include: the television show The Defenders (1961), winner of two Emmy awards for dramatic screenwriting; the teleplay The Incredible World of Horace Ford (the basis for an 1963 episode of The Twilight Zone); the screenplay of Crime In The Streets (1956); and films with British producer Euan Lloyd, including The Wild Geese, The Sea Wolves, Who Dares To Win, and Wild Geese II. In 1963 he got remarried, to a woman named Ellen McLaughlin, with whom he had two children. He died in 2002 from heart failure.