Pulitzer Prize Winning Playwright Frank D. Gilroy Dies at Age 89

The New York Times reports that playwright Frank D. Gilroy, whose 1964 Broadway debut, THE SUBJECT WAS ROSES was the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize, a Tony and a Drama Critics' Circle Award, passed away on Saturday, September 12th at his home in Monroe, N.Y. He was 89. The news was shared by his son Tony.

Gilroy wrote in the Golden Age of Television for such shows as Playhouse 90, Westinghouse Studio One, The United States Steel Hour, Omnibus, Kraft Television Theatre, and Lux Video Theatre.

His entrance to theatre was marked with his 1962 play Who'll Save the Plowboy? at the Off-Broadway Phoenix Theatre, which won the Obie Award. The Subject Was Roses premiered on Broadway on May 25, 1964 and closed on May 21, 1966.

That Summer, That Fall, which had a brief run on Broadway in 1967, starring Tyne Daly and Irene Papas is a version of the Hippolytus-Phaedra story. The play is set in an Italian neighborhood in Lower Manhattan in an apartment complex.

Gilroy's works include screenplays for the films Desperate Characters (starring Shirley MacLaine) and The Gallant Hours (starring James Cagney). He has also adapted his own plays for film, including The Subject Was Roses (starring Patricia Neal, Martin Sheen and Jack Albertson) and The Only Game in Town (starring Elizabeth Taylor andWarren Beatty). His 1985 screenplay for The Gig (starring Cleavon Little and Wayne Rogers) has been adapted as a musical, with book, music, and lyrics by Douglas J. Cohen. A 2006 Off-Broadway presentation and recording by the York Theatre Company starred Karen Ziemba, Stephen Berger, Michele Pawk, and Michael McCormick.[10]

Gilroy has also written fiction, including the novel From Noon Till Three, which was adapted into a film starring Charles Bronson. In addition to writing the screenplay, Gilroy also directed the film. Gilroy also contributed to several TV westerns in the late 1950s, including Have Gun - Will Travel, The Rifleman, and Wanted: Dead or Alive. His later credits include Nero Wolfe, a 1977 adaptation of Rex Stout's novel The Doorbell Rang as a television movie featuring Thayer David.

A list of Gilroy's plays follows:

The Middle World (1949)

The Viewing (1957)

Getting In (1957)

Who'll Save The Plowboy? (1962)

The Subject Was Roses (1964)

Far Rockaway (1965)

That Summer, That Fall (1967)

The Only Game In Town (1968)

Present Tense: Four Plays (1972)

Come Next Tuesday

Twas Brillig

So Please Be Kind

Present Tense

The Next Contestant (1979)

Last Licks (1979)

Dreams Of Glory (1980)

Real To Reel (1987)

Match Point (1990)

A Way With Words (1991)

A Way With Words

Match Point

Fore!

Reel to Reel

Give The Bishop My Faint Regards

Give The Bishop My Faint Regards (1992)

Fore (1993)

Any Given Day (1993)

Getting In (1997)

Contact With the Enemy

The Housekeeper

The Lake

Piscary

The Fastest Gun Alive

[Source]

Photo Credit: Peter James Zielinski