William Becker, whose vision and financial savvy helped bring modern European film to American audiences, died of kidney failure at his house in Southampton on Saturday. He was 88.

In some five decades of involvement with Janus Films and the Criterion Collection, Mr. Becker contributed to the expansion of audiences and catalogs of what have become classic art house and foreign film titles, steadily adding new selections as the years went by.

He and a partner bought Janus, which had been successful in bringing films by Federico Fellini and Ingmar Bergman to America but had fallen on hard times, in 1965, and continued its commitment to such avant-garde directors as Akira Kurosawa, Francois Truffaut, Luis Bunuel, Michelangelo Antonioni, and Jean Renoir. Criterion began in 1984 and was merged with another company to form a partnership with Janus. Criterion went on to release classic movies, both early and later ones, developing the “special edition” DVD with commentary and other enhancements.

Arthur William John Becker III was born in St. Louis on May 23, 1927, to Arthur Becker Jr. and the former Margaret Heath. He grew up and attended school in St. Louis and enrolled at Washington University there when he was 15, but transferred to Duke University and finally to Harvard, where he graduated. After naval service in Guam during the war, he was named a Rhodes Scholar, and wrote his dissertation at Oxford on the poet William Butler Yeats.

In addition to steering Janus to success and profitability through distribution to colleges, sales of rights to television, and, with his sons and his business partners, through video and DVD licensing, he was a writer, critic, and actor. His friends and family also described him as a lover of travel, particularly to Europe; a dedicated genealogist and gardener, and a great thinker, citing his aesthetic sensibilities and business acumen as key factors in his success. In a written remembrance, his friend Peter Cowie said he “adored the recondite and the arcane.”

In an email, his daughter, Alison Price Becker of New York City, wrote that the family started coming to the South Fork in the early 1960s, following George Plimpton and other friends. She remembered her father stopping one night on the way to Southampton to see, beyond barriers, the progress of the still-uncompleted Long Island Expressway. At their first house on Meadow Lane, he would hold movie parties and screen reel-to-reel movies from the Janus collection, films by Truffaut, Bergman, and Jean Renoir. At their second house in Southampton Village, Mr. Becker became an avid gardener and planned all the landscaping himself, his daughter said.

Mr. Becker is also survived by his wife, Patricia Birch Becker of New York and Southampton, and two sons, Jonathan Heath Becker of Manhattan and Peter Heath Becker of Brooklyn. He also leaves a sister, Jane Daniel of St. Louis.

The family plans a celebration of his life in New York City in October.

Joan S. Heitner, a retired professor who taught at La Guardia Community College for more than 25 years, “was a fighter all her life, not just the daily struggle with the limitations imposed by her disability, but for numerous progressive causes,” her husband, Dean Heitner, wrote. She was active in the civil rights movement in the 1960s, in the disability rights movement of the 1970s and ’80s, in the labor movement, and in her Park West community in Manhattan.

Ms. Heitner, who had a progressive hereditary neurological disease that had been diagnosed when she was in her early teens, died on Sept. 6 in New York City. She was 72.

While her love of art, music, theater, and film kept her from ever moving out of Manhattan completely, she and her husband had fallen in love with Montauk on their honeymoon in 1976. They bought a small cottage on Upper Firestone Road there in 1980 and built a larger house on the property in 1984, spending a good part of the year there after they retired.

“She loved the fresh air, the beach, nature, plants, and birdlife that was and still is Montauk,” her husband wrote. She kept a garden with vegetables, herbs, and flowers, and filled her days in Montauk with gardening and exercising in the pool.

A bacteriologist at Mount Sinai Hospital early in her working life, she switched careers in her mid-30s to become a professor and career counselor at La Guardia, where she enjoyed teaching and helping students, many of them disadvantaged immigrants from around the world, get their start in the world of work.

Ms. Heitner was born on Dec. 8, 1942, in Brooklyn to Reuben Smelensky and the former Anne Kellman. She grew up in Brooklyn and went on to earn a bachelor’s degree at New York University and a master’s degree in counseling at Hunter College. She worked as a bacteriologist at New York-Presbyterian Hospital for two years, then at Mount Sinai for five before moving on to La Guardia Community College.

The Heitners were married on May 18, 1976. “She was the best wife a man could ask for and the best friend anyone could hope for,” Mr. Heitner wrote. They loved to travel together and had been to France, Israel, Ireland, and the Caribbean. She also enjoyed fine dining and cooking. “She would start with a recipe, but then creatively do her own thing.”

A service was held on Sept. 8 at Riverside Memorial Chapel in Manhattan. Burial was at Beth Moses Jewish Cemetery in Farmingdale.

In addition to her husband, Ms. Heitner is survived by a brother, Martin Smelensky of Boynton Beach, Fla.

Memorial contributions have been suggested to the United Spinal Association, at unitedspinal.org; American Jewish World Service, 45 West 36th Street, 11th floor, New York City 10018-7904; Citymeals-on-Wheels, 355 Lexington Avenue, New York City 10017, or Habitat for Humanity, 111 John Street, 23rd floor, New York City 10038.

Jerry Russell Ruschmeyer of New Port Richey, Fla., a Montauker who moved to Florida, where he was the captain of sportfishing boats for many years, died on Jan. 24 at Tampa General Hospital two weeks after suffering a brain aneurysm. He was 64 years old.

Mr. Ruschmeyer was born at Southampton Hospital on June 5, 1950. His parents, the late Gerhardt and Vera Russell Ruschmeyer, founded Ruschmeyer’s hotel and restaurant in Montauk, and he grew up and attended public school there. His graduating class had only 17 members and the boys in the class became a close-knit group who stayed in touch even though Mr. Ruschmeyer left for Florida not long after graduating from East Hampton High School. He was “full of life and always up for a party,” his family said.

As an outdoorsman, Mr. Ruschmeyer not only was a sportfisherman, but enjoyed hunting, kayaking, and camping. He also played golf and had coached T-ball. A friend, James Nicoletti of East Hampton, said that he also was “into food,” making dinner for his daughter and her family every Sunday, and occasionally posted photos of meals he had prepared on Facebook.

After leaving the water in 1985, Mr. Ruschmeyer went into the window treatment business, owning Shutters International and, previously, Vertical Blinds Etc. He was a member of Grace Family Church in Lutz, Fla.

His surviving daughter is JeriRose Chandler, also of New Port Richey. His marriage to the former Juniece Vandergriff had ended in divorce. He also is survived by two grandchildren, whom, his daughter said, he adored and for whom he created an education fund. Contributions to the fund in his memory, which, she said, “Dad would love,” can be made online at gofundme.com/ granders.

He also is survived by a stepmother, Christine Ruschmeyer Moore, and by a sister, Chrissy Ruschmeyer, both of Miami.

A lakeside barbecue to celebrate his life will be held on Feb. 21 from 2 to 5 p.m. at Hungry Harry’s BBQ Lakehouse, 3116 Land O’ Lakes Boulevard, Land O’ Lakes, Fla.

Mr. Ruschmeyer’s family and friends plan a local celebration of his life in the spring when they will disperse his ashes in the waters off Montauk.

Douglas Pierson Strong, who had been a Wainscott potato farmer and longtime volunteer with the Bridgehampton Fire Department, died on Sunday at home in Richfield, N.C., at the age of 92. He had had Alzheimer’s disease.

A 12th generation farmer and volunteer firefighter for over 70 years, Mr. Strong also worked for East Hampton Town and was a member of the Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church.  

He was born in Southampton on Aug. 4, 1922, to Stanley Talmage Strong Sr. and Gertrude Mason Strong. In January of 1948, he and Beatrice Lorraine Terry were married. She joined him on the Wainscott potato farm, where they raised three children. A decade ago, the couple relocated to North Carolina, and she died in December of 2012 at the age of 85. 

Mr. Strong is survived by his children: Douglas Strong Jr. of Southwick, Mass., James Strong of Leslie, Mich., and Terry Widmeyer of Richfield, N.C. He also is survived by eight grandchildren, 14 great-grandchildren, and one great-great grandchild.

A funeral service will take place on Monday at 1 p.m. at the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton. The family will receive friends there for two hours before the service, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Burial will follow at Wainscott Cemetery.

Memorial donations have been suggested to the Bridgehampton Fire Department, 64 School Street, Bridgehampton 11932, or to the Western North Carolina Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association, 3800 Shamrock Drive, #999, Charlotte, N.C. 28215.

An obituary that appeared in The East Hampton Star on May 12, 1938, incorrectly gave the names of Phoebe Scott of Amagansett’s mother and first husband.

Her mother was the former Harriet Miller; her stepmother, the former Abigail Topping, married her father, Daniel Loper of Springs, after her mother’s death.

Mrs. Scott’s first husband was Edward Payne. She married James H. Scott some time after Mr. Payne disappeared in about 1885, following his departure for a school for sailors in New York City. She was born on June 25, 1853, in Springs.

Jordan L. Gruzen, an architect whose firm played a significant role in the landscape of New York City, died of cancer on Jan. 27 at home in Manhattan’s Battery Park City on Jan. 27  He was 80 and had been ill for the past year.

Mr. Gruzen lived in the apartment buildings and houses he designed, including the building on South End Avenue where he died. He summered in Amagansett for more than 50 years, living at Lazy Point for the last eight and building a house on Cranberry Hole Road, which is to be completed in June.

From 1967 until early last year, Mr. Gruzen was a partner in the firm his father founded in 1936, now known as IBI Group-Gruzen Samton. Over a six-decade career, he and his firm of architects and urban planners designed or revitalized Stuyvesant High School, the New York Police Department’s 1 Police Plaza headquarters, five residential buildings in Battery Park City, and the horse stables at 86th Street in Central Park. Also among the firm’s projects were university buildings, courthouses, transportation terminals, facilities for the elderly, synagogues, the United States Embassy in Moscow, civic work in Tel Aviv, and buildings and developments in Dubai, Nairobi, and Tehran.

A fellow of the American Institute of Architects, Mr. Gruzen’s firm won five national A.I.A. design awards and numerous state and city A.I.A. awards. He had bachelor’s and master’s degrees in architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University of Pennsylvania and also won a Fulbright Fellowship to study in Italy.

Mr. Gruzen’s architecture was apparently shaped by his cultural and artistic influences. He once wrote that at M.I.T. he “took as many courses in planning, art, music, and philosophy as I did in architecture.”

His family described him as a passionate preservationist who was driven by a desire to create socially responsible work. He was a co-founder of the Action Group for Better Architecture and had been a leading figure in the fight to save Penn Station. Among his favorite Manhattan projects was the Museo Del Barrio at 104th Street and Fifth Avenue.

On the South Fork, Mr. Gruzen loved the natural beauty, the bays, and his neighbors, his family said. He was a member of the Devon Yacht Club, where he played tennis, and he enjoyed exploring Gardiner’s Bay on a Sunfish, being proud to have won a Lazy Point Sunfish regatta. He also loved skiing and biking. He was a man of great accomplishment, joie de vivre, warmth, and optimism, who fully embraced life in both work and play, his family said.

He was born on April 5, 1934, in Jersey City, N.J., to Barney Sumner Gruzen and the former Ethel Brof, a singer with the Metropolitan Opera. He grew up in Maplewood, N.J., before moving to New York in 1960.

On June 26, 1976, he married Lee Ferguson, who survives. He also is survived by a son, Alex Gruzen of Austin, Tex., two daughters, Rachel Gruzen of Amagansett and Georgia Gruzen of Altadena, Calif., and four grandchildren. A brother, Maxson Gruzen of San Diego, survives, as does his first wife, Joan Gruzen of New York City.

Mr. Gruzen was cremated. A memorial service and dispersal of his ashes will take place in the summer. The family has suggested memorial contributions to the Knickerbocker Chamber Orchestra, which he and his wife helped to found, at www.knickerbocker-orchestra.org.

Antoinette D’Angelo, a longtime resident of Sag Harbor and North Haven who once ran Sag Harbor’s Emporium Hardware Store with her husband, was a true Rosie the Riveter, joining the war effort by helping manufacture planes for the Navy at the Grumman plant in Bethpage after the United States entered World War II.

She died on Sunday at the Westhampton Care Center after a brief illness. She was 92.

Known as Anne, she was born on March 9, 1922, to Dominic and Maria Leogrande in Brooklyn, the eldest of six children. Her father died when she was 16, and she became the family’s main breadwinner. She still managed to graduate from Sewahaka High School before taking a job as a clerk on Wall Street. She left to work for Grumman.

It was at that time that she met Paul D’Angelo. The two married in 1946 and settled down in New Hyde Park, where they raised two sons, Frank D’Angelo, now of Southampton, and Dennis D’Angelo, who lives in Ringgold, Pa.

After the birth of her children, she took great pride in her homemaking skills, including baking, craftwork, and sewing, her family said. She was so good at sewing that she taught the skill at the Singer Company. She also worked in bookkeeping at Arco Electronics in Great Neck.

In the mid-1970s, the family moved to Sag Harbor and took over the hardware store on Main Street. She worked as the bookkeeper until the late 1980s. The D’Angelos built a house on Coves End Lane on North Haven.

After the couple retired, they began spending winters in Pompano Beach, Fla. But during the summer, their home was on North Haven, where they enjoyed entertaining their many friends and family.

Mrs. D’Angelo was also active in the Sag Harbor Ladies Village Improvement Society, and was a parishioner at St. Andrew’s Catholic Church.

Her husband died about 10 years ago. In addition to her sons, Mrs. D’Angelo is survived by two brothers, Joseph Leogrande of Huntington and Michael Leogrande of Plainview, and three sisters, Josephine Wurm of Noyac, Margaret Dickenson of Manorville, and Rose Knight of Southampton, as well as 7 grandchildren, and 14 great-grandchildren.

    Visiting hours were held yesterday at the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in Sag Harbor. A Mass was to be said today at St. Andrew’s, followed by burial at Calverton National Cemetery.

    The family suggested donations to East End Hospice, P.O. Box 1048, Westhampton Beach 11978.

Esther Laufer died at home on Highland Lane in East Hampton on Sunday at the age of 101. Mrs. Laufer had been a concert pianist and a piano teacher. “One of the highlights of her life was playing a Rachmaninoff piece during a piano lesson and later learning that Rachmaninoff himself had heard and admired her rendition,” her family said in an email. Her prized possession was a Hardman baby grand.

She was born Esther Murofchick in Brooklyn on April 23, 1913, to Harry and Golda Murofchick, who emigrated from Minsk, Russia, in 1905. She was one of four siblings. A younger brother, Edward, died in World War II. Her older brothers were Jack and Abe. They were raised in Brooklyn, where she graduated from high school in 1927.

In 1934, she married Leon Laufer. They raised three children in Brooklyn until 1955, when they moved to Cedarhurst. Mrs. Laufer helped her husband in the photography business, and it was he who gave her the baby grand as an anniversary present.

The Laufers traveled to far-flung places such as Iran (then Persia), Hong Kong, and India. In 1977, they moved to East Hampton’s Northwest Woods. Her husband was attracted to the rural environment here, her family said, going fishing and cutting firewood, and the couple enjoyed going to farm stands together.

She remained in their house after his death in 1995, where she enjoyed the company of her family and kept her bird feeders full, her family said.

“Esther’s greatest pleasure by far was always her family, and she showed her love by cooking for her family and friends, who will especially remember her potato pancakes and chocolate chip cookies,” they wrote. “While she and her family kept their perishables in an ice box when she was young, she grew to love her Cuisinart and KitchenAid.”

Her children, Joan Laufer of New York City, Leonard Laufer of East Northport, and Nina Hirschman of East Hampton, survive, as do five grandchildren, 10 great-grandchildren, and one great-great-grandchild.

A funeral and burial was to take place at New Montefiore Jewish Cemetery in West Babylon today at 11:15 a.m.

A wake for Jeremiah Harrington of East Hampton, who died in a car accident last Thursday in Sarasota, Fla., will be held tomorrow from 3 to 8 p.m. at the Graham Funeral Home in Rye, N.Y. A funeral will be held on Saturday at 10 a.m. at the Church of the Resurrection, also in Rye.

An obituary for Mr. Harrington, who was 67 and known as Jerry, will appear in a future issue.

Peter Remington Nixon, who had been an East Hampton Little League coach and Cub Scout leader when his son was younger and worked as a viticulturist, died on Sunday in Millerton, N.Y. He was 62 and had been ill with cancer for a year.

“Children just flocked to him,” said Emily Liss, his former wife.

A 30-year resident of East Hampton, Mr. Nixon was active in the community, Ms. Liss said. He worked growing and caring for grapes at Sagaponack Vineyard, an early South Fork vineyard. He loved to read and research music of all kinds, and was an accomplished photographer and windsurfer.

Born on Aug. 11, 1950, in Washington, D.C., to Richard W. Nixon and the former Jane Ryder, he grew up in White Plains. After obtaining a general equivalency diploma, he attended Skidmore College, where he studied Eastern literature.

In 1983, he married Ms. Liss and the two soon settled in Amagansett, where they raised a son, Morgan Nixon. Ms. Liss described Mr. Nixon as a bright, articulate man and a keen observer of human nature who was blessed with a great sense of humor. The marriage ended in divorce.

Mr. Nixon was drawn to the local waters, where he would go clamming, lobstering, and eeling with his father-in-law, Joe Liss.

Mr. Nixon eventually moved to Millerton, where a brother, Andrew Nixon, lives. His son lives in East Hampton.

A service has not been announced, but donations have been suggested in his memory to the East End Foundation, P.O. Box 1746, Montauk 11954.