Television and screenwriter Jerome Ross was born February 10, 1911, in New York City. He attended Columbia Grammar School there from 1922 to 1927 and then, at the age of sixteen, entered Yale University. He received a B.A. from Yale in 1931.
Ross embarked upon a writing career almost immediately. From 1933 to 1937 he worked as a reporter for the New York Post, and from 1937 to 1940 he was a freelance writer of network radio programs. In 1940 Ross moved to Washington, D.C. to work for the Public Relations Branch of the War Department, and during the war years he continued the same kind of activity, serving first with the Office of War Information in New York (1941-1943) and later with the Psychological Warfare Branch of the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Forces. During that overseas tour of duty he observed both the African and European theaters of war--in Algiers, Tunis, Rome, Florence, and Bologna--and from 1945 to 1946 he functioned as Acting Chief of the United States Information Service in Italy. In 1946 Ross left government service to pursue freelance writing once again.
The era of radio was coming to an end and so Jerome Ross directed his talents to motion pictures and to the newer medium, television. In the fifties Ross wrote for many outstanding television series: Robert Montgomery Presents, Studio One, The Alcoa Hour, Armstrong Circle Theatre, and Kraft Suspense Theatre. During the sixties his scripts appeared on The Hallmark Hall of Fame, The Defenders, Mission Impossible, Mod Squad, Mannix, Marcus Welby, M.D., and many others. He has twice been named winner of the Mystery Writers of America award for best television suspense drama--in 1953 for “Crime at Blossoms” on Studio One, and in 1967 for “Operation Rogosch” on Mission Impossible. In 1968 he and Dorothy Salisbury Davis were awarded the Mystery Writers Special Award for their novel, God Speed the Night.
Ross has also given much of his time to other professional activities. He served as Governor of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences from 1956 to 1958; as a member of the council of the Writers Guild of America, East from 1958 to 1964; and as chairman of the television branch of that organization in 1958.
Jerome Ross is married and resides in Beverly Hills, California.
