American composer Marc Blitzstein was BOTD in 1905. Born in Philadelphia to an affluent middle-class family, he was a child prodigy, performing Mozart piano concertos when he was seven. He made his professional debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra at 21, and studied at the Curtis Institute of Music, before going to Europe to study with Arnold Schoenberg and Nadia Boulanger. He rose to public attention as the composer of The Cradle Will Rock, a pro-union musical which premiered on Broadway in 1937, directed by Orson Welles. The production became infamous when it was shut down by the Works Progress Administration. Undeterred, Welles, Blitzstein and the cast walked to a nearby theatre and performed the play without sets and costumes, with Blitzstein narrating from the piano. He adapted and translated the Bertolt Brecht/Kurt Weill plays The Threepenny Opera and Mother Courage and Her Children, often clashing with Weill whom he believed had debased his talent to reach a wider public. His musical adaptations of Lillian Hellman’s play The Little Foxes and Sean O’Casey’s Juno and the Paycock were performed on Broadway, and he also wrote scores for films Surf and Seaweed and The Spanish Earth. He had a number of lovers, including the conductor Alexander Smallens, though rather puzzlingly married novelist Eva Goldbeck in 1933, remaining together until her death from anorexia in 1936. Blitzstein was subpoenaed to appear before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, admitting to being a Communist Party member but refusing to answer the Committee’s questions. He was murdered in 1964 by three sailors he picked up in a bar. He was 58.