Skip to main content

Claire Pollikoff

Claire Pollikoff

Aug. 14, 1998 - May 31, 2018
By
Star Staff

Claire Patricia Pollikoff, who was 19, died on May 31 after being admitted to the intensive care unit at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital on May 27. She had been found lying on a trail in East Hampton’s Northwest Woods after an accidental overdose.

According to her family, Ms. Pollikoff’s passion was cosmetology. “She loved to do makeup and she was great at it,” her mother, Bernadette O’Brien of East Hampton, said. Her daughter wrote beautiful poetry and had a beautiful voice and loved to sing, Ms. O’Brien said.

Ms. Pollikoff was born on Aug. 14, 1998, at Southampton Hospital, one of two daughters of Ms. O’Brien and Jay Pollikoff of East Hampton. Her parents, who are divorced, survive, as does her younger sister, Caitríona Pollikoff, who is known as Cat.

Ms. Pollikoff was brought up mainly in East Hampton and attended East Hampton High School,  but she went to school in Dublin as well, when she and her mother and sister lived there for three years. 

“She was a very witty, feisty, kind, and compassionate young woman, and had a big heart,” Ms. O’Brien said.

A funeral service was held at the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton on June 3, with the Rev. Donald P. Hammond of the Amagansett Presbyterian Church and the Rev. Ryan Creamer of Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church in East Hampton presiding. Ms. O’Brien was especially grateful, she said, to Mr. Hammond, and to Doreen Quaranto of Most Holy Trinity, who “were with us every step of the way and still continue,” as well as to the staff of the I.C.U. in Southampton.

Ms. O’Brien said she wanted to “thank our community for all of their generous help and encouragement.”

Ms. Pollikoff was cremated. Her ashes will be buried with her paternal grandparents’ ashes here and her maternal grandparents’ ashes in Dublin. There will be a memorial service in Ireland in August.

Five aunts and uncles in Dublin also survive, as do 12 first cousins. The family has suggested memorial donations in Claire Pollikoff’s name for organizations that are combating the opioid crisis on the East End.

Gregory James Fariel, of the Sea Breeze Inn

Gregory James Fariel, of the Sea Breeze Inn

April 5, 1957 - June 7, 2018
By
Star Staff

Gregory James Fariel, a special education teacher who moved to Amagansett full time in the 1990s to help his family run the Sea Breeze Inn, a bed-and-breakfast on an almost two-acre compound on Atlantic Avenue, died on June 7 at the Hamptons Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing in Southampton, where he had lived for 18 months. His grandfather had opened the inn in 1957, and it was Mr. Fariel’s home for the last 20 years. He was 61.

The cause of death was complications resulting from cerebral ataxia, the result of cerebellar lesions, which cause an inability to coordinate balance, gait, extremities, and eye movements. It had been diagnosed when he was a child, although the symptoms did not manifest until about seven years ago, which is typical of the disease. His mother had died of it in 2006.

He was born in El Paso, Tex., on April 5, 1957, to Robert and Janet Fariel, and the family moved to Freeport, where he was raised. He spent his summers at the Sea Breeze in Amagansett, where as a 10-year-old in 1967 he won the first ever sandcastle contest on the beach at Atlantic Avenue, which has become an annual tradition that draws hundreds of contestants.

Mr. Fariel graduated from Freeport High School and attended Florida Atlantic University, from which he received a bachelor’s degree in education, followed by a master’s degree in education from Columbia University. After a short teaching stint in Fort Myers, Fla., he returned north permanently and taught special education at Boys and Girls High School in Brooklyn. 

Mr. Fariel was an ocean lifeguard in the 1970s and ’80s, and it was he who dubbed the red bathing briefs worn by male lifeguards at the time, the “red devils,” named after his high school mascot, the Freeport Red Devils. He was also an avid surfer, spoke several languages, and was fluent in Spanish, which he perfected on many surf trips to El Salvador and Costa Rica.

A member of the East Hampton Presbyterian Church, Mr. Fariel seldom missed a Sunday service and was known to arrive early to claim his seat in a particular pew. He also attended Bible study classes there for many years.

As the cerebral ataxia advanced, movement and speech became increasingly difficult for him, which made surfing impossible. He was grateful to have the help of Carmen Albaracin, who cared for him, and her family. Ms. Albaracin is an employee of the Sea Breeze Inn and Mr. Fariel particularly enjoyed reading to her children, Benny and Camilla.

Mr. Fariel is survived by his father, a brother, Scott Fariel, who lives in Hempstead, and a sister, Robin Fariel of Amagansett. His family has suggested donations in his name to the nonprofit organization A Walk on Water, at www.awalkonwater.org, which provides surf therapy to children with special needs or disabilities. Donations also were suggested to the National Ataxia Foundation, 600 Highway 169 South, Minneapolis, Minn. 55426.

A memorial service will be held at a later date.

Memorial Donations for the Krupinskis

Memorial Donations for the Krupinskis

By
Star Staff

The family of Ben and Bonnie Krupinski and their grandson, William Maerov, have suggested contributions to the following organizations.

For Mrs. Krupinski, contributions have been suggested to the Amagansett Fire Department, ambulance corps, P.O. Box 911, Amagansett 11930, or amagansettfd.org, and to the Amagansett Village Improvement Society, P.O. Box 611, Amagansett 11930, or keepamagansettbeautiful.com.

Donations in memory of Mr. Krupinski have been suggested to the Ben Krupinski Educational Scholarship Fund, care of the East Hampton Fire Department, 1 Cedar Street, East Hampton 11937 or easthamptonfiredepartment.org and the Retreat, 13 Goodfriend Drive, East Hampton or theretreat.org.

Contributions in memory of Mr. Maerov have been suggested to the St. Andrew’s School, 350 Noxontown Road, Middletown, Del. 19709 or standrews.org; the Rippowam Cisqua School, 439 Cantitoe Street, Bedford, N.Y. 10506 or rcsny.org, and to the Bedford Playhouse, 633 Old Post Road, Bedford or bedfordplayhouse.org.

An obituary for Mr. Maerov will appear in a future issue of The Star.

Bonnie Bistrian Krupinski, 70

Bonnie Bistrian Krupinski, 70

Was ‘Known For Her Keen Vision and Wise Counsel’
By
Carissa Katz

Bonnie Bistrian Krupinski, a successful and influential East Hampton businesswoman, began her career as a secretary to her father, Peter Bistrian, in his mining and construction business, but her “obvious skill and tenacity” soon led her to assume direction of the Bistrian family’s varied enterprises, her brother Bruce Bistrian wrote. 

Mrs. Krupinski died in a plane crash off Indian Wells Beach in Amagansett on June 2 along with her husband, Ben Krupinski, her grandson, William Maerov, and their pilot, Jon Dollard. They had been returning from visiting her granddaughter, Charlotte Maerov, at her school in Newport, R.I.

The Krupinskis were involved in a wide array of businesses and philanthropic endeavors, both together and individually. With her brother Barry Bistrian, Mrs. Krupinski co-managed the Bistrian Gravel and Bistrian Cement Corporation in East Hampton and the farming and real estate conglomerate established by their father. She developed the General Home Store, a mercantile operation in East Hampton Village, and was “an essential assistant to her husband” in managing a commercial enterprise that included three restaurants — the 1770 House, Cittanuova, and East Hampton Point — as well as shopping centers, two marinas, and numerous residential units, among other ventures.

“Known for her keen vision and wise counsel to family, friends, business associates, and public and governmental committees, she gave freely of her time and also of her financial support where needed and appropriate,” Bruce Bistrian wrote. Among the many organizations she supported were the East Hampton Ladies Village Improvement Society, the Amagansett Village Improvement Society, Guild Hall, the Amagansett Presbyterian Church, and the Amagansett Life-Saving and Coast Guard Station. She had also served on East Hampton Town’s airport management and advisory committee.

According to Bruce Bistrian, she was “the driving force in the successful development of the East Hampton Golf Club,” fulfilling a longtime dream of her father’s. The club, on Abraham’s Path, has a course designed by Ben Crenshaw and Bill Coore, and now boasts “full membership,” her brother wrote. 

Mrs. Krupinski shepherded her family’s gift of 16 acres of Napeague wetlands to New York State and helped to broker the sale of 11 acres of a reclaimed mining operation to East Hampton Town for conservation purposes, “while retaining 1.5 acres for exchange of properties with the Suffolk County Water Authority to provide ample water to supplement the inadequate water supply in eastern Amagansett,” according to her brother. 

Bonnie Mae Bistrian was born on Aug. 26, 1947, at Southampton Hospital to Peter Bistrian and the former Mary Ryan, the fourth of six children. Her mother, who was of Scottish-English ancestry, named her Bonnie for her pleasant appearance, and Mae for a childhood friend. She attended the Amagansett School and the Sacred Heart Catholic School in Sag Harbor. She and Bernard Krupinski were high school sweethearts and married on Oct. 22, 1965. “They really loved each other,” said her sister Barbara Borg. 

Mrs. Krupinski began college, but soon returned home to have her own child, Laura, and to help raise her younger sisters. She was a “trusted assistant and confidante to her mother,” Bruce Bistrian wrote.

After many years in Amagansett, the Krupinskis renovated a house on North Main Street in East Hampton Village, making it a showpiece for the work of Ben Krupinski Builders. They had a summer house overlooking Three Mile Harbor.

Mrs. Krupinski was a “superb party-giver,” her brother wrote, renowned for her annual birthday bashes at the East Hampton Golf Club, Bastille Day celebrations overlooking the fireworks on Three Mile Harbor, dinner parties at the house in East Hampton Village, and gatherings at the couple’s restaurants and winter house in North Palm Beach, Fla. 

Mrs. Krupinski “had a wide circle of friends from many different stations of life and was noted and celebrated for maintaining friends from childhood” all the way through high school and beyond. 

Her siblings Patrick Bistrian Jr. of Amagansett, Dr. Bruce Bistrian of Amagansett and Ipswich, Mass., Barry Bistrian of East Hampton, Barbara Borg of Amagansett and Jupiter, Fla., and Betsy Avallone of East Hampton all survive, as do her daughter, Laura Krupinski, her granddaughter, Charlotte, and many nieces and nephews. 

A service for Mrs. Krupinski, her husband, and her grandson was held on Friday at the East Hampton Presbyterian Church.

Ben Krupinski, 70

Ben Krupinski, 70

Builder, Businessman, and Philanthropist, Was ‘Greater Than Life’
By
David E. Rattray

Bernard John Krupinski Jr., who died in a June 2 plane crash that took the lives of his wife, Bonnie Krupinski, their grandson, William Maerov, and Jon Dollard, a Hampton Bays pilot who worked for Mr. Krupinski, was described as a man who loved his family, friends, and community above all.

Mr. Krupinski, known as Ben, was perhaps best known as a house builder. His Ben Krupinski Builders counted the rich and famous among its clients. But the company also had a strong commitment to charitable acts, putting roofs on churches, completing a $14.5 million rebuilding of the Guild Hall cultural center, renovating the shops at the Ladies Village Improvement Society in East Hampton, often at no cost to the organizations. 

The exterior work and windows at the Amagansett Life-Saving and Coast Guard Station, now restored and open to the public, was another of his projects. Krupinski Builders was the general contractor at the new Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill, rebuilt the fire-wrecked Scoville Hall in Amagansett, and spearheaded the major — and at one time controversial — expansion of the East Hampton Library.

Mr. Krupinski was a restaurateur as well, operating East Hampton Point on Three Mile Harbor and Cittanuova and the acclaimed 1770 House in East Hampton Village. At one time, he also owned the Asian fusion Wei Fun on Pantigo Road in East Hampton that was run as the Grill on Pantigo for a time. A share of the Red Horse Market complex in East Hampton was among his holdings, as were a number of other commercial properties, including the East Hampton Point and Shagwong Marinas. 

His Executive Air Terminal at the East Hampton Airport offers private charter aircraft from East Hampton Airlines and provides fuel and other services. Mr. Krupinski had a pilot’s license and had a great love for his aircraft. 

“His acts of kindness were shown in many ways,” Mr. Krupinski’s brother, Frank Ackley of East Hampton, said this week. “Known acts were publicly seen and many discreetly taken care of without needed attention.”

Among these were work on the Retreat’s shelter for victims of domestic violence and their families, where he made sure that any children who stayed there had a room of their own to play in. He built access ramps for disabled residents. He supported school sports teams. He provided money to the East Hampton Food Pantry and fruit for runners in the annual Katy’s Courage 5K race.

Mr. Krupinski and other members of his extended family were frequent donors to local Republican candidates. He also supported Sinn Fein, the Irish republican political party. Gerry Adams, its former longtime leader, spoke at Mr. and Mrs. Krupinski and Mr. Maerov’s funeral at the East Hampton Presbyterian Church on Friday.

One of Mr. Krupinski’s grandmothers immigrated to the United States in 1900 and found work in the East Hampton summer colony. Intrigued with his Irish roots, he visited Ireland and saw the family homestead. Later, he got to know Mr. Adams through a mutual friend.

Bernard John Krupinski Jr. was born on June 15, 1947, at Southampton Hospital to Ben Krupinski Sr. and Cecilia Howard Ackley, both of whom died before him. His father ran Benny’s delicatessen on Springs-Fireplace Road. In his teens he had a paper route in East Hampton and he would often dig for clams in Accabonac Harbor with his siblings; his mother would deliver them to customers where she worked in Riverhead. The young Mr. Krupinski used the clamming money to buy his first boat.

He attended East Hampton schools and Mercy High School, then went for a time to Suffolk County Community College in Selden, returning to work in his wife’s father’s sand and gravel mining business. From there, he moved into home building, starting G.B.D. Builders in about 1980. That led to East Hampton’s largest independent commercial enterprise, centered on Ben Krupinski Builders.

During the 2007-8 renovation at Guild Hall, Mr. Krupinski was invited to join the cultural center’s board of directors. He declined, telling an interviewer at the time, “I am a free spirit. I am a person of action. Parliamentary procedure is not my forte. It can be frustrating. I’d rather just do it.” 

He was an honorary member of the East Hampton Fire Department and a past member of many civic organizations. Mr. Ackley said that his brother’s love of fishing, hunting, card games, golf, and tennis were important but came second after his passion for work and pleasing others.

“Ben Krupinski was greater than life. His smile and eyes just light up a room,” Mr. Ackley said. Many years ago, when Mr. Krupinski appeared on his friend Martha Stewart’s Christmas television special to make a gingerbread house, even Miss Piggy, the vociferous Muppet, could not take her eyes off him, his family recalled.

In addition to Mr. Ackley, Mr. Krupinski is survived by a daughter, Laura Krupinski, and a granddaughter, Charlotte Maerov. Charlotte’s father, Lance Maerov, spoke at the Friday funeral. He lives in New York City and is a frequent visitor to East Hampton. He is also survived by a sister, Sheila Smith of East Hampton, a half brother, Kevin Ackley of East Hampton, and dozens of nieces and nephews.

In the 2007 interview, Mr. Krupinski spoke about his charitable works. “When you have lived here like I have, my whole life, you know the needs of people and you never forget that. It’s not the money. It’s the thought. The process. It makes for a better town.”

For Peter Whelan

For Peter Whelan

By
Star Staff

A wake for Peter Whelan of Sag Harbor will be held tonight from 6:30 to 8:30 at the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in that village. A funeral Mass will be said tomorrow at 10:30 a.m. at St. Andrew’s Catholic Church, also in Sag Harbor.

Mr. Whelan, who was 66, died on Saturday at St. Catherine of Siena Medical Center in Smithtown. An obituary will appear in a future issue.

Warren G. Padula, 71, Architect and Artist

Warren G. Padula, 71, Architect and Artist

March 17, 1947 - May 27, 2018
By
Star Staff

Warren George Padula, who was said to have been at the forefront of the digital revolution among visual artists, died of heart failure on May 27 at his home on Long Beach Lane in Sag Harbor. He was 71 and had been diagnosed with cancer in 2013. 

Mr. Padula’s artwork, including sculpture, is in museums and collections around the world. Large-scale digital prints of his own photographs are in the collections of the Denver Art Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Musée de la Photographie à Charleroi in Belgium.

His brother, Alfred (Fred) Padula Jr., and an uncle, Edward Padula, a Broadway producer who won a Tony Award in 1961 for “Bye Bye Birdie,” were among his mentors. Fred introduced him to Mad Magazine, which “precipitated a lifelong interest in the nature of perception . . . and the follies of human existence,” his wife, Elaine Ann McKay, who was with him at the time of his death, said in submitting obituary material.

  Lynn Libman, Mr. Padula’s sister, said, “Warren had spent some time with a naval architect named Giovanni Cardelli, when he was about 12 or so, as an apprentice, so he learned respect for space. Warren became an advocate for artists and creativity in all forms. . . . We could say he was an art historian because he could explain how Warhol, etc., were laughing at the world, and then it all made sense.”

He was born on March 17, 1947, in Newark, N.J., to Alfred Padula and the former Dorothy Buckelew. The family moved to Water Mill in 1955, and Mr. Padula attended Southampton public schools, going on to Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, from which he graduated in 1965. Inspired by the architect Louis Kahn, Mr. Padula enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania to study with him, later transferring to the Rhode Island School of Design, from which he graduated in 1970.

After college, Mr. Padula’s interest in architecture was cultivated when he worked in his family’s building business in Water Mill. He not only managed construction sites and learned the basics of the building trade, but soon became known for skilled cabinetry and the innovative houses he designed and built. It was during this time that he met and became a mentor and lifelong friend of Miles Jaffe, the son of the noted East End architect Norman Jaffe. 

He and Ms. McKay met in 1987 and were married on Feb. 2, 2014. “He was my love spark, my companion, my husband, a true art warrior who worked every day on art, creating a good life being abundantly generous to all,” Ms. McKay wrote in an email. “Warren wanted to thank all the farm families, local families, and visiting families who had embraced him over the years,” she wrote.

In addition to his wife, Mr. Padula is survived by a stepdaughter, Jennifer McKay Palermo of Houston, his sister, Ms. Libman, who lives in Teaneck, N.J., and Naples, Fla., and by godchildren, nieces, and nephews.

The family has suggested memorial donations to  East End Hospice, P.O. Box 1048, Westhampton Beach 11978. A memorial service will be held later this year.

Katherine Hargreaves

Katherine Hargreaves

Dec. 2, 1929 - May 26, 2018
By
Star Staff

Katherine A. Hargreaves, a world traveler, soap opera enthusiast, frequent Montauk visitor, and the former executive secretary for the Springfield Symphony Orchestra in Springfield, Mass., died of complications from hip surgery on May 26 at the Bristal Assisted Living community in Sayville. She was 88. 

Mrs. Hargreaves, whom friends called Kentsy, was born in Hartford on Dec. 2, 1929, to Herbert G. Behan and Elsie F. Farrell. Her early years were spent in West Hartford, where she graduated from the Oxwood School, an all-girls private high school. She went on to attend Bradford Junior College in Massachusetts; then transferred to Brown University, graduating in 1956. 

Afterward, she prepared for a secretarial career at the Katharine Gibbs School in Boston, and became a private secretary at the Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company. After several years there, she left to work for the Springfield Symphony Orchestra. 

In 1965, she married Walter A. Hargreaves, a physicist and the founder of Optovac, a company that manufactured optical fluoride crystals. The couple lived in the country town of West Brookfield, Mass., where they enjoyed playing golf and planning frequent trips to exotic locales around the globe. Mrs. Hargreaves was also enthusiastic about bridge, gardening, and reading.

After her husband retired, the couple moved to Hilton Head, S.C., and later to the Oak Harbor Retirement Community in Vero Beach, Fla. He died in 2013, after which she lived in Montauk for a year before moving to Sayville. 

She is survived by a niece, Jane Bimson, and a nephew, Chris Behan, both of Montauk. A memorial service and the dispersal of her ashes will take place at a later date at St. Michael’s Cemetery in Springfield. Memorial contributions can be made to the Animal Rescue Fund, P.O. Box 901, Wainscott 11975.

Services for Ben and Bonnie Krupinski and Their Grandson

Services for Ben and Bonnie Krupinski and Their Grandson

Durell Godfrey
By
Star Staff

Visiting hours for Ben and Bonnie Krupinski of East Hampton, who died Saturday in a small-plane crash off Amagansett that also took the lives of their grandson, William Maerov, and Jon Dollard, who worked for Mr. Krupinski as a pilot, will be Thursday from 4 to 8 p.m. at the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton. 

A Firematic service will take place at the funeral home at 7 p.m.; Mr. Krupinski was an honorary member of the East Hampton Fire Department.

There will be a service for the Krupinskis Friday at 10 a.m. at the East Hampton Presbyterian Church, with burial following at Cedar Lawn Cemetery on Cooper Lane in East Hampton.

On Saturday at 3 p.m. there will be a vintage plane flyover in their honor and that of Mr. Maerov and Mr. Dollard, at Indian Wells Beach in Amagansett, during which four wreaths will be dropped into the ocean.

Obituaries for the Krupinskis and Mr. Maerov will appear in a future issue.

Joe Pintauro, Noted Playwright Was 87

Joe Pintauro, Noted Playwright Was 87

Nov. 22, 1930 - May 29, 2018
By
Mark Segal

Joe Pintauro, a prolific playwright and fixture of the theatrical and literary worlds, died at home in Sag Harbor on May 29 in the company of his husband and partner of 40 years, Greg Therriault. He was 87.

The world premiere of his play “Men’s Lives,” an adaptation of Peter Matthiessen’s book about the fishermen of the South Fork, opened the first season of Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor in 1992. 

“That was a magical time,” recalled Mr. Therriault, “when Emma Walton, Steve Hamilton, and Sybil Christopher decided they were going to make a theater in Sag Harbor and chose Joe to write the first play based on ‘Men’s Lives.’ It was a very important time in Joe’s life, his artistic life, and his life here in the community.”

Mr. Therriault also noted the importance of “Raft of the Medusa,” which Mr. Pintauro wrote in 1992 in response to the AIDS epidemic. “Joe was very responsive to what was happening in the culture and tried to articulate for people not only what he thought but hopefully what they were thinking as well.” “Raft of the Medusa” was produced at the Minetta Lane Theater in Manhattan.

His many other plays include “Snow Orchid,” which was produced with Olympia Dukakis and Peter Boyle at Circle Rep in New York in 1982, and, in 1989, “Beside Herself,” which featured William Hurt, Calista Flockhart, and Lois Smith, also at Circle Rep.

Three of the works in “Metropolitan Operas,” his collection of 40 one-act plays, were adapted by Kevin Jeffers in “Salvation,” a contemporary musical theater piece that had its premiere at the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill on May 25. 

Mr. Pintauro also wrote novels, poetry, short stories, and, during the past 10 years, exhibited his photographs, a selection of which, titled “Nunc et Semper,” was published in 2013. His awards include the 2007 Guild Hall Academy of the Arts Lifetime Achievement Award in literary arts and the 2005 John Steinbeck Literary Award.

“Joe Pintauro was a true original,” Scott Schwartz, Bay Street Theater’s artistic director, said. “He was a great playwright whose work delved deep into the human condition and whose voice will continue to resonate and inspire.”

Joseph T. Pintauro was born in Ozone Park, Queens, on Nov. 22, 1930, to Aniello Pintauro and the former Carmela Iovino. He attended Manhattan College, earning a degree in advertising and marketing. While he was there, his mother was dying. “Death was a pure shock to me,” he said in an interview published in The Star in 2014. “I never expected it to come so soon in my life, so I began searching.”

The search led him to St. Jerome’s College in Ontario for a degree in philosophy, and to Our Lady of Angels, a seminary at Niagara University, to study theology. He was ordained in 1958 and assigned to a diocese in Brooklyn. 

“He was such a popular and charismatic priest that not only did people who had been his parishioners still keep in touch with him, he also saved lives and changed lives in a very important way,” Mr. Therriault said. “The diocese did not want him to leave, because he was very good at what he was doing.”

“He had gone to Peru and Chile and worked with the poor when the church was very much involved with liberation theology and very progressive. The confines of the church hierarchy were just too much for our Joe in terms of his creativity and his emotional life, and so he received a dispensation and left.” 

“State of Grace,” his second novel, published in 1983, was based on his experiences in Brooklyn and South America.

After leaving the priesthood, his continuing involvement in spiritual thought led to the “Trilogy of Belief” series, three volumes of poetry illustrated by the artist Sister Corita Kent and published by Harper & Row from 1968 to 1971.

“Those books were part of what was going on in the culture,” said Mr. Therriault. “They had an antiwar sentiment, they were very inclusive, they were stunning graphically, and they provided people access to a spiritual life in a different way from that of the traditional church.”

Mr. Pintauro subsequently attended Fordham University, where he earned a master’s degree in American literature, and worked for several major advertising agencies, including Young & Rubicam and Ted Bates. “He was a ‘Mad Man’ during those years,” Mr. Therriault said.

“I was struck most of all by his kindness,” said Kristen Lowman, an actress who read excerpts from “Metropolitan Operas” in 2015 with her husband, the actor Harris Yulin. “No matter that a room was crowded with people yackety-yacking, music blaring, Joe would look at you, be with you, with his deep lulling voice. Joe listened and he remembered.”

“I loved Joe Pintauro,” Mr. Yulin said. “Most everyone who had the opportunity to know him loved him. How could you not love Joe? He was generous beyond measure, a writer and photographer of real accomplishment, a person of infinite possibilities. Take him all in all, he was a man.”

In addition to Mr. Therriault, whom he married in December 2013, a niece, Barbara Lobosco, and two nephews, Richard Pintauro and Robert Pintauro, survive him. A brother, Anthony Pintauro, and a sister, Mildred Salvaggio, predeceased him.

“Joe changed my life in every way,” said Mr. Therriault. “I’m just grateful for the 40 years. I’m heartbroken.”

A funeral Mass was said yesterday at St. Andrew’s Catholic Church in Sag Harbor. A memorial service will take place in New York City at a later date.

Mr. Therriault suggested contributions in Mr. Pintauro’s memory to the Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons, P.O. Box 901, Wainscott 11975, or to the Sag Harbor Partnership, for the rebuilding of the Sag Harbor Cinema, P.O. Box 182, Sag Harbor 11963.