Biography

Songwriter ("Mack the Knife"), composer, pianist, publisher and author, educated at the University of Pennsylvania, the Curtis Institute, and the Acad. der Kuenste in Berlin. He studied with Alexander Siloti, Rosario Scalero, Nadia Boulanger, and Arnold Schoenberg. He was awarded two grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, and one each from the Ford Foundation and the Academy of Arts and Letters. He was awarded a "Page One" from the Newspaper Guild, and received an award from the American Aeronautical Institute. At fifteen, he was a piano soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Serving with the US Army Air Corps in World War II, he later founded Arrow Music, and served as its vice president. He joined ASCAP in 1939, and his chief musical collaborator was Kurt Weill. His song compositions include "Nickel Under the Foot", "The Cradle Will Rock", "Art for Art's Sake", "Francey", "Pirate Jenny", "Barbara's Song", "Army Song", "The Liffey Waltz", "One Kind Word", and "I Wish It So".
- IMDb mini biography by: Anonymous

Blitzstein was found severely beaten on the island of Martinique (he had travelled there while in a writer's slump while writing a play on the Sacco and Vanzetti trial). After being taken to a hospital, he managed to identify his attackers as Portuguese sailors (by their uniforms), but Blitzstien died of his injuries in his sleep that night.

He was a child prodigy in music who, later in life, became an avowed leftist, and wrote several pieces of "agit-prop" musical plays, including "The Cradle Will Rock" and "No For An Answer".

The first performance of his play "No For An Answer" featured a then-unknown actress and singer named Carol Channing, who would later go onto fame as a stage and screen star.

He was devastated by his wife's death, which was caused by malnutrition.

Played by Hank Azaria in Tim Robbins' film "Cradle Will Rock" (1999).