American writer Cornell Woolrich was BOTD in 1903. Born in New York City, his parents separated when he was a child, and he lived in Mexico with his father before returning to New York in his teens. He attended Columbia University in 1921, where he wrote his first novel Cover Charge, a Jazz Age-era narrative inspired by the work of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Published in 1926 to critical success, he left college to devote himself to writing. His 1927 short story Children of the Ritz won a literary prize. Hollywood quickly came calling, leading to a screenwriting contract with First National Pictures. While in Los Angeles, he enthusiastically explored his homosexuality, allegedly wearing a sailor suit while cruising for men. In 1930, he married Violet Blackton, the daughter of the co-founder of Vitagraph Film Studios. The marriage was unconsummated, and he left his wife after only three weeks. After little success as a screenwriter, he returned to writing fiction, though was unable to find a publisher for his novel I Love You, Paris. He reinvented himself as a pulp writer, publishing detective fiction stories under the pseudonym William Irish. His short story It Had to Be Murder, originally published in Dime Detective Magazine in 1942, was eventually optioned by filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock, who used it as the basis for his 1954 film Rear Window starring Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly. He returned to New York, living with his mother in a series of low-budget hotels in until her death in 1957. His final years were spent as a recluse, marked by poor health, alcoholism and guilt over his homosexuality. In 1968, he developed gangrene due to an untreated foot infection, requiring the amputation of his leg. A few months later, his work experienced a revival in popularity when French New Wave filmmaker François Truffaut adapted his story The Bride Wore Black into a film starring Jeanne Moreau. Woolrich died in September 1968, aged 64. The following year, Truffaut adapted his story Waltz into Darkness into the film Mississippi Mermaid, starring Catherine Deneuve and Jean-Paul Belmondo. In 1990, the copyright in the story It Had to Be Murder and its use for Rear Window was litigated before the US Supreme Court, establishing a legal precedent that successor copyright owners have exclusive rights over the creation and exploitation of derivative works, regardless of any agreements made by prior copyright owners.