Nancy Ann Reals Perl Benderoth, an artist, designer, and producer of a documentary film that was nominated for an Academy Award, died at her Jericho Road, East Hampton, house on Feb. 6. Her family, who were with her at the end, said the cause of death was cardiac arrest brought on by pneumonia. She was 84 and had been in declining health for several years. 

She was born to Barney Reals and the former Annabel Whitney in Brooklyn on April 26, 1933, and grew up in the gated community of Seagate, adjacent to Coney Island. A lifelong painter, she attended Cooper Union and the Art Students League, both in Manhattan. Locally, she studied at the Art Barge on Napeague with Victor D’Amico of the Museum of Modern Art. Ms. Perl also worked as an assistant to other artists and as a stylist for such well-known photographers as Bert Stern and Irving Penn. 

At one time, she had a career in advertising, working for Mary Wells Lawrence at Wells, Rich, and Greene.

Her husband had been collaborating with James Baldwin on a dramatic production of the life of Malcolm X, which eventually became a film. It was was incomplete when Mr. Perl died, and Ms. Perl, a producer on the project, stepped in. Working with the editor of the film, Mick Benderoth, the film was completed, and was nominated for an Academy Award in 1972. Ms. Perl and Mr. Benderoth began collaborating both professionally and personally. They formed a film production company, called Benderoth-Perl, and were married on Christmas Eve in 1990. 

She and Arnold Perl, a playwright, screenwriter, and producer were married in 1956. A former member of the Communist Party, Mr. Perl had been blacklisted and sold television scripts through a front. Though not a member of the Communist Party, she shared many of her husband’s political beliefs. 

They met in the world of theater through Bernard Gersten, co-founder along with Joseph Papp of the Public Theater in Manhattan. She was an informal consultant on costumes and props for the 1953 stage production of “Sholem Aleichem,” which her husband wrote. Mr. Perl also wrote “Tevya and His Daughters,” a basis for “Fiddler on the Roof.”

In the early 1960s, the Perl family began summering in East Hampton. They were attracted by the many artists and writers and found many kindred spirits here. The family rented a house on Jericho Road for the summer of 1964, with the understanding that the rent could be applied toward a purchase price. They bought it for $36,000. A few years later, the couple also purchased a townhouse on East 18th Street in Manhattan. 

East Hampton became the center of their family’s life, however, said Sarah Perl, one of the couple’s daughters, and enjoyed living year round here. They were not religious and celebrated both Jewish culture and heritage as well as Christmas. Ms. Perl said yesterday that when the family spent a Christmas away from Jericho Road, in a house without a fireplace, she asked her mother how Santa would get in. Don’t worry, was the answer, “I will let him in.”

Ms. Perl Benderoth loved spending long days at Georgica Beach or Louse Point, going in the morning and staying until sunset. Her daughter said her mother would frequently take a black skillet and a stick of butter to Louse Point, where they would seine for and fry minnows. She would often stuff plums into the bottom of an ice-packed carrier. “You would stick your arm in up to your elbow, and pull them out,” Ms. Perl recalled.

Her mother opened the Boutique at Enrico Caruso at 110 East 55th Street in Manhattan in 1965, where, her daughter said “she sold ‘the best of everything,’ including Viennese pastries made by her 70-year-old mother in a tiny kitchen in the Stuyvesant Town apartment complex.”

In addition to Sarah Perl, Ms. Perl Benderoth is survived by her husband and her daughter Rebecca Perl, as well as two stepchildren, Rachel Garson of Seattle and Adam Perl of Ithaca, N.Y., and two grandchildren. A stepson, Joshua Perl, and a brother, Martin Elliot, died before her.

Donations in Ms. Perl Benderoth’s memory have been suggested to Planned Parenthood, P.O. Box 97166, Washington, D.C. 20090-7166. A memorial service will be held for her this spring.

James Robert McCrosson, who with his wife and parents ran a real estate development and construction business in the Sag Harbor area, died on Jan. 10 at the Kanas Center for Hospice Care in Quiogue. He was 69. Mr. McCrosson was a member of the North Haven Village Zoning Board of Appeals for more than 30 years and a volunteer in North Haven.

Mr. McCrosson was an athlete who competed in the Mighty Hamptons Triathlon and the New York City Marathon, as well as East End 10K races. As a swimmer, he participated in the masters program at the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter, and as a skier he not only enjoyed the slopes of New England but made trips to France, Italy, and Switzerland with his family and friends. He was an active member of the Breakwater Yacht Club, which is based in Sag Harbor and runs Wednesday night sailing races in season, in which he participted, and on the board of the Sag Harbor Yacht Club, most recently as its commodore. He enjoyed fishing off Montauk and also was a member of the Maidstone Gun Club who enjoyed hunting in the Adirondacks.

He was born on Nov. 26, 1948, one of two children of the former Helen McClain and James McCrosson Jr. He graduated from Pierson High School and the Rochester Institute of Technology, where he swam on the school’s Tigers team.

He married the former Katherine Regan, who survives. His daughters, Kimberly Regan Bossert of Wading River and Kaylee Katherine Hernandez of Billerica, Mass., survive, as do a sister, Bonnie Porzio of Portsmouth, N.H.,  an uncle, five grandchildren, and a number of cousins, nephews, and nieces.

A service was held in January. Memorial donations have been suggested for the community sailing center at the Breakwater Yacht Club, 51 Bay Street, Sag Harbor 11963, the Kanas Center for Hospice Care, P.O. Box 1048, Westhampton Beach 11978, or a charity of choice.

“Aside from her family,” Roseanne E. Monaco’s “true passion in life was being a special educator,” her family wrote. Mrs. Monaco served as a unit coordinator for special education with the New York City Board of Education in Brooklyn for 25 years. 

Mrs. Monaco, a resident of East Hampton for 25 years and a part-time resident of Montauk for 20 years before that, died at home in Morristown, N.J., on Jan. 25 after a long illness. She was 86. 

She loved to read on the beach here, and even as her health began to fail, an ice cream at the Main Beach pavilion remained a fun treat. She and her husband, Dr. Michael Monaco, had been members of Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church in East Hampton for many years. They left the South Fork for New Jersey to be closer to family. 

Mrs. Monaco was born in Brooklyn on May 2, 1931, to Salvatore Piccoli and the former Rose Matera. She grew up in Brooklyn and earned a bachelor’s degree from St. John’s University in 1954, a master’s degree in education from Richmond College on Staten Island in 1970, and a master’s in special education from Wagner College in 1979. 

She was married on Sept. 5, 1955, and settled on Staten Island, where she and her husband brought up their six children. Mrs. Monaco had been a president of the Auxiliary to the Richmond County Medical Society and was a charter member of the Staten Island Mental Health Society.

Along with reading, she enjoyed playing bridge, traveling, and the theater. 

Her husband survives, as do five of their children, Dr. Paul Monaco, Christine Monaco, Regina Zambon, Maryann Reilly, and Jennifer Michener, and 12 grandchildren. Her son Michael Monaco Jr. died before her. 

Visiting hours were held on Jan. 30 at the Doyle Funeral Home in Morristown, with a service following the next day at Assumption Church, also in Morristown. Mrs. Monaco was buried at Moravian Cemetery on Staten Island. 

Her family has suggested donations to the Parkinson’s Foundation, 200 S.E. First Street, Suite 800, Miami 33131, or online at parkinson.org.

Visiting hours for Mary Ellen Thiele Rooney will be Sunday from 2 to 5 p.m. at Brockett Funeral Home on Hampton Road in Southampton, with a prayer service at 3 p.m.

Burial will be private on Monday at the Sacred Hearts Cemetery in Southampton. A memorial event will be planned in New York City for a later date with details to follow.  

Ms. Rooney, who was known to friends as Reggie, died on Feb. 5 in New York City. She was 83.

Giacomo A. Lucente, a World War II Army veteran and a former bartender at the Veterans of Foreign Wars post when it was on Main Street in East Hampton, died of lung disease last Thursday at the age of 90. 

Known as Jack, Mr. Lucente was a fisherman and clammer whose introduction to East Hampton came as a child when he would spend summers with relatives who lived on the former peach farm in Northwest Woods. 

Born on Aug. 2, 1927, in Hackensack, N.J., the son of Anthony Lucente and the former Rose Urato, Mr. Lucente was a graduate of Hackensack High School. After joining the Army and serving in World War II, he returned to New Jersey and worked as a beautician for many years. Later, he sold airplane parts for the Air Works company. 

In 1959, he settled in East Hampton, where he was a member of Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church and the American Legion. Although he never married, Mr. Lucente’s home was a popular spot for family gatherings, including summertime visits from his 10 nieces and nephews (including grand and great-grandnieces and nephews). “We’d go to the beach every day,” Cosimo Ferrari, a nephew, recalled. 

Mr. Lucente’s sister, Frances Ferrari, predeceased him. A funeral service was held at the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton on Monday, followed by burial at Most Holy Trinity Cemetery.

Gandolfo Vincent DiBlasi of Manhattan, a renowned lawyer who was known to friends and colleagues as Vince, died on Jan. 14 from complications of pneumonia. He was 64.

Mr. DiBlasi  was a litigator for the Wall Street firm of Sullivan & Cromwell, handling many high-profile cases, which ran the gamut from takeover law to securities, antitrust, commercial, and white-collar crime cases. According to his family, the cases he took up would “always involve matters that were particularly challenging and urgent.” He was a director of the Legal Aid Society, a trustee of the Federal Bar Council, a trustee of the Riverdale Country School, and director of Asphalt Green, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting health through sports and fitness.

  He was a recipient of the Jewish Theological Seminary’s Judge Simon H. Rifkind Award, which recognizes exemplary public service, and of Yale Law School’s Simeon E. Baldwin Award, which recognizes distinguished alumni. At the presentation of the Baldwin award, Judge Ralph K. Winter, said, “He is stunningly brilliant and among the greatest craftsman in the law. He also has wisdom and judgment, qualities not always associated with brilliance.”

Mr. DiBlasi was born in Brooklyn on July 7, 1953, one of three sons of the former Theresa Restivo and Rudolph DiBlasi, a New York State assemblyman and family court judge. Mr. DiBlasi graduated from Brooklyn Preparatory School and earned a bachelor’s degree in 1975 from Yale University. His doctorate came from Yale Law School in 1978, and he remained involved in Yale alumni matters and fund-raising for the rest of his life. He joined Sullivan & Cromwell in Manhattan in 1978, going on to become a partner in the company’s litigation group and working there for nearly four decades.

Mr. DiBlasi spent childhood summers in Montauk in a house built by his maternal grandparents. In September 1980 he married the former Roberta Wilson at Montauk’s St. Therese of Lisieux Catholic Church. She survives, as do his sons, Richard DiBlasi and William DiBlasi. His brother Joseph V. DiBlasi died a year before him; his brother Rudolph DiBlasi of Moriches survives, as do several nieces and nephews.

Having heard of his former classmate’s death, Harold Hongju Koh, a professor at Yale Law School, told the school’s online alumni journal, “I met Vince when we were freshmen and watched him grow into a brilliant lawyer, a profoundly shrewd counselor, and a lightning-quick wit — able to deliver a hilarious retort and a Latin quote from Ovid in the same breath.”

There was a private funeral and a memorial service is being organized. Memorial donations have been suggested for the Independent Group Home Living Foundation, 221 North Service Road, Manorville 11419, or ighl.org.

Mary Ellen Thiele Rooney, a writer and photographer with a great sense of adventure who was born in Bridgehampton — and was for many years one of the East End’s inspiring personalities — died at home in Hudson Heights, N.Y., on Feb. 5 of cancer. An indomitable spirit, known to friends as Reggie, she was 83.

Ms. Rooney’s writing was published widely, in The New York Times, Newsday, and the United Nations Society of Writers’ magazine, Reflections, among others. Her “Windows on Wise Women” photography series was exhibited in Boston.

Her exploits ranged from driving a potato truck on a Bridgehampton farm to teaching sailing to diving with the Cousteau Society in French Polynesia to becoming a licensed falconer when she was 70.

Mary Ellen Thiele was born on Oct. 30, 1934, in Bridgehampton to Charles Thiele and the former Ellen Maran. She graduated from St. Lawrence University, having also studied at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, then lived in New York City, where she worked in publishing. Later, Ms. Rooney lived in Quebec City with her husband, Dr. Wallace C. Rooney Jr., from whom she later was divorced.

Her eagerness to see the world began early, her family said, when she saw a picture of Scotland in a book. While working in Southampton as a maid for the heiress Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan, the former Duchess of Marlborough, she saved enough money to travel to England on a steamship.

Among her life’s milestones were teaching English in Kyrgystan and the Czech Republic, and crewing on a boat during Operation Sail in 1976 despite two broken ribs. She had a deep love of birds and rocks and an interest in reiki and acupuncture. She studied spiritual healing, religion, and alternative therapies, from which she took what she needed and left the rest, her family said. Helping people with alcoholism, drawing on her own experience and sense of hope, was important to her, as well.

Ms. Rooney reflected in an article for Newsday on the hard work of her potato-farming days and her struggles as a writer: “A friend who studies Zen Buddhism contends that the concentration on a single spot during the long hours of driving the truck acted as a meditation during which the inner consciousness was revealed to me,” she wrote. “Or perhaps it was the sheer physical exhaustion of the farm work that ground me down to the nub of myself, where I realized that if I could drive a truck I could certainly handle the fearsome typewriter.”

Ms. Rooney is survived by her children, Peter Rooney of New Jersey and Lucas Rooney of New York City, and three grandchildren. A son, Colin Rooney, died before her.

A service for her was held at the Brockett Funeral Home in Southampton on Sunday. Burial was in the Sacred Hearts Cemetery in Southampton. A memorial gathering in New York City will be announced.

Memorial contributions have been suggested to St. George’s Choral Society, P.O. Box 3932, New York, N.Y. 10163.

Frances Edith Wright Bennett of Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., died at home on Feb. 6 of cardiac arrest at the age of 99. Mrs. Bennett was married on Aug. 23, 1939, to Richard Bacon Bennett of Old Saybrook, Conn., who had East Hampton roots, and she had frequently visited here.

She was born on May 16, 1918, in Portland, Me., the daughter of Joseph and Fannie Wright. She attended Syracuse University, where she majored in English.

She is survived by four daughters, Georgia Panya of Knoxville, Tenn., Ginne Munson of Ponte Vedra Beach, Barbara Walters of Bradenton, Fla., and Joan Mickelson of Anacortes, Wash.

A memorial service was held on Feb. 9 at Vicar’s Landing in Ponte Vedra Beach, with burial to take place at a later date in Old Saybrook. Her family has suggested memorial contributions to the St. Labre Indian School in Ashland, Mont., or the Vicar’s Landing Scholarship Fund. An online tribute can be found at quinn-shalz.com.

Herbert Haucke of Montauk, a partner in an insurance firm in Manhattan that he built into a successful business, died on Feb. 1 at the Peconic Bay Medical Center in Riverhead after a fall. He was 84.

Mr. Haucke and a business associate and friend, Murray King, sold business liability insurance and other packages. They were also in a “mockumentary” produced by Leeam Lowin and Amram Nowak called “King Murray,” made in 1969. A friend and neighbor of Mr. Haucke’s at Windmill Village in East Hampton, Walter James Blumberg, wrote the blurb for the IMDb: “Murray King and Herbert Haucke are able to comfortably navigate the fine line between fiction and reality so convincingly you are able to better appreciate the confidence and intensity these men possess.”

“His ability to relate to people,” Mr. Blumberg said, “his comfort with presentation and public speaking, and his lack of fear and tenaciousness prepared him for the role he played as an over-the-top salesman who accompanied . . . Murray King on the trip to Las Vegas portrayed in the movie.” He said that the film won an award at the Edinburgh Film Festival.

Mr. Haucke was born in New York City on Sept. 18, 1933, and brought up by his mother after his father, Herbert Haucke Sr., who was a New York Police Department patrolman in the 103rd Precinct in Queens, was killed in the line of duty when his son was not even a year old. Herbert and his mother would visit a small family cottage in Montauk, and when she could not take him there, he would go on his own, camping at the beach at Camp Hero. He told Mr. Blumberg that he remembered seeing soldiers who were stationed there during World War II.

For many years, Mr. Haucke kept a powerboat in Montauk. He bought and sold houses for a time, Mr. Blumberg said, and about six years ago moved into Windmill Village.

Mr. Haucke will be cremated and his ashes dispersed by his friends. A memorial is being planned for a later date.

Alfred G. Osterweil, an attorney who represented all of the police unions in the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and most police unions in Bergen County, N.J., died of pneumonia on Jan. 29 in Many, La. He was 86.

The law was not only Mr. Osterweil’s work, it was his passion. “He loved the practice of law and won cases that changed laws in New Jersey,” his wife, Cynthia Anne Osterweil, wrote. He had recently won a case in New York regarding the right of “non-domiciled residents to own firearms,” she said. 

Mr. Osterweil began practicing public-sector labor law when it was a burgeoning field. In addition to the police unions, he also represented nurses at Englewood Hospital during their first strike. 

He had a law office in Edgewater and lived in Hackensack, N.J. From 1995 to about 2001, he and his wife lived in Amagansett, first on Hedges Lane and later on Cross Highway to Devon. When they made Amagansett their year-round residence, Mrs. Osterweil volunteered as an emergency medical technician for the Amagansett Fire Department’s ambulance squad and Mr. Osterweil volunteered as an ambulance driver. 

More recently, the couple lived in Louisiana and summered in Summit, N.Y. 

Mr. Osterweil was born in Newark on June 30, 1931, to Jack Osterweil and the former Freida Lane. He grew up in Newark, graduating from Central High School before going on to Rutgers Law School. He served with the Army in Germany following his graduation and opened a law office in Edgewater after his discharge. 

Mr. Osterweil married Cynthia Anne Rollenhagen on Jan. 2, 1983. In addition to his wife, he is survived by a daughter, Marla Collins of Westfield, N.J., and two grandchildren. A son, Hal Osterweil, died before him. 

A burial service in Summit and a memorial service in New Jersey are planned for the spring. Condolences can be left for the family at levinememorialchapel.com.