Understanding Reginald Rose's life goes a long way toward understanding the recurring themes within his work. Indeed, most biographies on Rose focus almost exclusively on his work. Considering how prolific of a writer he was, it is safe to say that in many respects his life and his work were for a time one and the same. His greatest legacy lies in the enduring relevance of his plays which covered social and political issues many of his peers in the industry were afraid to address. Reginald Rose pushed the envelope his entire career; a career that lasted over 30 years and included ten television shows, twelve films, and six stage productions. His acclaimed film 12 Angry Men earned him two Oscar nominations; his contributions to television earned him three Emmy awards, but for Reginald Rose the inspiration for his writing was not fame, but in his words:
[...] These lifelong convictions are better reflected by another remark Rose made about his inspiration for 12 Angry Men: "The moment I walked into the courtroom and found myself facing a strange man whose fate was suddenly more or less in my hands, my entire attitude changed." While Rose is considered to be part of the “slice of life” school of drama (where the plays depict scenarios that arise in the everyday lives of ordinary people), he is best known for focusing not on the specific domestic scenes that were popular at the time, but on broader, more political ideas. [...]
[...] Rose left City College in 1938 and worked briefly at assorted menial jobs; he was a window cleaner, a receiving clerk, and a camp counselor which again brought him into contact with troubled youth. Rose enlisted in the United States Army in 1942 at the end of World War II. He married his first wife Barbara Langbart while enlisted, rose in ranking to First Lieutenant, and completed his service in the Army in 1946. While his experiences in the army are not reflected in his earlier work, later in his life he worked on several movies with war-related plots and characters in the military. [...]
[...] While this may seem like a criticism of the justice system, Rose was in truth a strong proponent of it, and several of his works can be viewed as parables of what one man can accomplish with honesty and conviction. The first half of Rose's career was centered on the crime/law drama genre. His best known work—written in 1957, the same year as Crime in the Streets-- was 12 Angry Men, and this play in many ways epitomizes his early work. [...]
[...] Reginald Rose died on April but not before he saw his greatest work remade in 1997. The story's relevance was renewed thanks to public interest in the recent O.J. Simpson trial which was also rife with allegations of prejudice. This newest screen version of 12 Angry Men would fittingly include four African American men but still no women as producers did not want to change the familiar title. Unfortunately, Rose would not be present to see his play performed on Broadway in 2004, or at the 1957 film's induction into the National Film Registry in 2007. [...]
[...] As in most Rose plays, justice prevails. The action of the play is confined to the one small room, and Rose makes every effort to duplicate the jury process, right down to the length of the film (the 95 minutes it takes the jury to make the decision). The diversity of the jurors lends to the tension, but is not unrealistic. A law against discriminating in the jury selection process would not be passed until many years after Rose wrote 12 Angry Men; and thus it would not be unlikely at the time that a poor, young Puerto Rican boy would get a jury of middle class, middle-aged white men. [...]
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