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Lewis Allen)
Abel Meeropol (1903 - 1986) is best known under his pseudonym Lewis Allan, under which he wrote the song "Strange Fruit," famously performed by Billie Holiday. The writer of countless poems and songs, including the Sinatra hit "The House I Live In," Meeropol was also a teacher and ardent but closeted communist. As he and his wife were unable to have children he took his pseudonym from the intended names of their stillborn sons. He later was able to adopt Ethel and Julius Rosenberg's two sons after their parents' execution.
Billie Holiday (or, rather, her ghostwriter) claimed, in Lady Sings the Blues, that she cowrote the music to the song with Meeropol and Sonny White , but this is inaccurate.
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