Frank Gilroy dies at 89; ‘Subject Was Roses’ playwright won a Pulitzer and a Tony

Frank D. Gilroy, who won a Pulitzer Prize with his first Broadway play, “The Subject Was Roses,” died of natural causes Saturday in Monroe, N.Y., his family said. He was 89.

“Roses” was an emotionally searing drama that revolved around three characters: a mother, a father and their GI son newly returned from World War II, who tries to find common ground with his squabbling parents.

Directed by Ulu Grosbard, it starred Jack Albertson and Irene Dailey as the parents and Martin Sheen as the veteran. It ran for two years on Broadway, winning a Tony and a Drama Critics’ Circle Award.

Gilroy later adapted the play for a 1968 film for which Albertson won an Oscar for supporting actor.

Born in New York on Oct. 13, 1925, Gilroy was the only child of Frank B. Gilroy, a coffee broker, and his wife Bettina. He served in Europe with the Army during World War II and attended Dartmouth College on the GI Bill.

He wrote several plays in college and, after graduating in 1950, studied drama at Yale University under a fellowship.

After Yale he began writing for television in dramatic anthologies including “Studio One,” “Playhouse 90” and “The Dick Powell Theater.”

For the latter show, he wrote an installment called “Who Killed Julie Greer?” that launched the series “Burke’s Law,” which starred Gene Barry as a wealthy homicide detective who lived in a mansion and was chauffeured to crime scenes in a Rolls-Royce.

Gilroy was living in Los Angeles in the early 1960s when he wrote “Roses.” It received admiring reviews, including one by Howard Taubman of the New York Times who praised the play’s “simplicity, humor and integrity.”

His other plays include “Who’ll Save the Plowboy?” which made its off-Broadway debut in 1962 and won an Obie Award.

His film work included the screenplays for “The Only Game in Town” (1970), based on his play about a romance between a gambler and a chorus girl (Warren Beatty and Elizabeth Taylor starred in both versions); “Desperate Characters” (1971), adapted from a Paula Fox novel about a middle-class couple in crisis; and “From Noon Till Three” (1976), a romantic comedy starring Charles Bronson and Jill Ireland.

Gilroy is survived by his wife, Ruth, whom he married in 1954; sons Tony, Dan and John; and five grandchildren.

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