Jerome Lawrence

Jerome Lawrence (born Jerome Lawrence Schwartz; July 14, 1915 – February 29, 2004) was an American playwright and author. After graduating from the Ohio State University in 1937 and the University of California, Los Angeles in 1939, Lawrence partnered with Robert Edwin Lee to help create Armed Forces Radio while serving together in the U.S. Army during World War II. The two built a partnership over their lifetimes, and continued to collaborate on screenplays and musicals until Lee's death in 1994. Lawrence and Lee won acclaim for the 1955 play Inherit the Wind, based on the Scopes trial. Lawrence describes their plays as "shar[ing] the theme of the dignity of every individual mind, and that mind's life-long battle against limitation and censorship".