Twelve Angry Men writer dies

Social issues: Rose wrote for the times in which he lived

The writer of director Sidney Lumet's classic Hollywood courtroom drama Twelve Angry Men, Reginald Rose, has died aged 81.

Rose died in hospital in Connecticut, a hospital spokesman said.

Rose was one of the leading writers for television in the US during the medium's infancy, in the 1950s.

But it is for Lumet's 1957 film, starring Henry Fonda as a juror who persuades his colleagues to clear a Puerto Rican youth charged with murder, that he will be remembered.

Lumet also directed the 1976 film Network

He won an Emmy award in 1954 for writing the original, television version of the story.

Rose received an Oscar nomination in 1958 for the screenplay of the film version, which he co-produced with Fonda.

Lee J Cobb, Ed Begley Sr, EG Marshall, Jack Klugman, Jack Warden and Martin Balsam starred alongside Fonda.

Twelve Angry Men was also nominated for a best picture Oscar.

Rose's work was noted for its focus on social and political issues.

In 1957, he wrote the television drama The Defenders, another Studio One special, about a father-and-son duo of lawyers.

The show was later turned into a television series, and ran for 130 episodes from 1961. It often explored contentious issues of the day.

Other films written by Rose included The Wild Geese (1978), starring Richard Burton, Richard Harris and Roger Moore, and Whose Life Is It Anyway? (1981), with Richard Dreyfuss.