Megrue, Roi Cooper

(1883-1927)

   The playwright and agent was born in New York City, educated at Trinity School and Columbia University, and worked with Elisabeth Marbury as a play broker. His familiarity with playwrights' contracts and negotiations with theatre managers took him to a leadership role in the Dramatists Guild. His own plays were produced on Broadway throughout the 1910s. Noteworthy among these were It Pays to Advertise (with Walter Hackett, 1914), Under Cover (1914), Under Fire (1915), Under Sentence (with Irvin S. Cobb, 1916), and Tea for Three (1918). According to his Variety obituary (2 March 1927), the unmarried playwright's "affectionate relationship with his mother was epic." He and his widowed mother, Mrs. Stella (Cooper) Megrue, shared an artistically furnished apartment.