Johnny Marks

A songwriter who, despite being Jewish, became the dominant author of the American Christmas songbook, writing "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree," "A Holly Jolly Christmas," and "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day." Those songs, recorded by Gene Autry, Brenda Lee, Burl Ives, and Bing Crosby, remain in seasonal rotation decades after he wrote them. His career is an unlikely case of a Jewish songwriter defining how mid-century America musically imagined its most Christian holiday.