James Gaffigan, a former Douglaston resident, died Jan. 8 in Rutland, Vt. He was 69.
Gaffigan was born Sept. 8, 1939, in St. John’s Hospital in Jamaica and attended the St. Anastasia School in Douglaston. As a teenager, he produced the dances held in the church auditorium.
Gaffigan graduated with a bachelor’s in English from St. John’s University in Jamaica.
He attended St. John’s School of Law for one year, but decided a life in law was not for him. He found a career in advertising and met his first wife, Joy Feldstein, while making a sales call at the advertising agency where she worked.
They got married and lived in Greenwich Village, which they were active in. He and Joy helped establish a food co-op for the neighborhood in the early 1970s. With a colleague, Gaffigan co-founded Mother Bucka’s Ice Cream Shop, where he helped serve homemade ice cream.
Jim wrote novels while working in advertising. He and Feldstein moved to West 85th Street in Manhattan, but later divorced.
Despite turmoil in his personal life, Gaffigan kept writing. He wrote a play called “The J.A.R.” — jury assembly room — after serving jury duty in Manhattan. Its world premiere was in Manhattan in 1985.
Gaffigan and his second wife, Irene Corb, were married in December 1989. They lived for a time in Edison, N.J. During this time, Gaffigan taught English at local colleges and continued writing novels, which remain in manuscript form.
In November 2002, the Gaffigans moved to Vermont. While there, they worked to get an agent for Gaffigan’s manuscripts.
By then, however, Gaffigan was experiencing health problems, which plagued him till the end of his life. He died as the result of a bad fall and was cremated. His ashes were interred at the Valley Crematory in White River Junction, Vt.
He is survived by his first and second wives, sister-in-law, four nephews and sister.
