American writer Laura Z. Hobson was BOTD in 1900. Born Laura Zametkin in New York City to Russian Jewish immigrants, her parents were Socialists and involved in labour unions and other left-wing causes. She studied at Cornell University, and became a journalist, reporting for the New York Post and eventually becoming Time magazine’s first female editor. She published her first fiction piece in The New Yorker in 1932, launching a prolific literary career as a short story writer. She published her first novel The Trespassers in 1943. She became internationally famous for her second novel Gentleman’s Agreement, the story of a journalist who researches anti-semitism by posing as a Jew. First serialised in Cosmopolitan magazine, it was published in book form in 1947, reaching No 1 on the New York Times bestsellers’ list and selling over two million copies worldwide. It was adapted successfully for film with a screenplay by Moss Hart, winning three Oscars including best picture. Her subsequent novels The Other Father was a modest success, after which she abandoned novel writing and returned to journalism, citing writer’s block. She had a major comeback in 1975 with Consenting Adult, a drama about parents who learn that their son is gay, based on Hobson’s experiences with her own son. In the 1980s, she published two successful memoirs, chronicling her life and career. Hobson was briefly married to Thayer Hobson in the 1930s, and had two children as a single mother. She died in 1986, aged 85.