Marty Trunzo, Sag Harbor Barber for Decades, Dies at 97

Mario Trunzo, known as the longest-working barber in the history of Sag Harbor, died in his sleep at home on Madison Street last Thursday, surrounded by his family. He was 97 and had been in declining health.

Just 10 days earlier he had enjoyed the Sag Harbor Fire Department’s annual banquet, at which the former chief was honored for his nearly 70 years of service, and he still made it for his weekly Sunday breakfast at the Veterans of Foreign Wars in East Hampton, a close family friend, Bonnie Jackson, said.

Marty, as he was known, hadn’t basked in retirement long. He had only hung up his shears, clippers, and blue smock in 2011, at the age of 92. He was said to have given easily more than 10,000 haircuts.

He had eight decades in the business, having started at just 11 years old. As a child growing up during the Great Depression, he found that giving haircuts was a good way to make money. He went house to house in Sag Harbor for 25 cents per customer.

He spent four years as an apprentice and then 10 years working in shops in the area. While working at Vacca’s Barbershop in Bridgehampton in 1938, he gave a shave to the billionaire Howard Hughes as he headed out to Montauk in a limo to do some fishing, he told The New York Times in 2006. He got a quarter as a tip for the 20-cent shave.

In 1939, at the age of 20, he opened his own barbershop, three doors down from the John Jermain Memorial Library on Main Street. It was a time when barbers were so busy they worked 12-to-13-hour days, and there were as many as seven shops in the village.

An Italian immigrant, he was born Mario Domenico Trunzo in San Mango D’Aquino, Calabria, on Aug. 16, 1918, to Felice Trunzo and the former Rosina Notarianni. When he was 11, his family journeyed to America and settled in Sag Harbor, where his father found work at the Fahys watchcase factory.

He grew up in a house behind Main Street, and then later on Jermain Avenue. He built his own house on Madison Street in 1950, two years before he married the former Ninfi Avona. It was in Sag Harbor that he picked up the nickname Marty, after sixth graders teased him and called him Mary, he wrote in the 2007 book “Voices of Sag Harbor.”

Before finishing Pierson High School, Mr. Trunzo entered the Army in April 1942 and served for three years during World War II, until October 1945. He fought in campaigns in North Africa and in Italy, at Naples, Foggia, Rome, and the Arno River with the 389th Port Battalion attached to the 36th Division 5th U.S. Army. In “Voices of Sag Harbor,” he recalled being among the first American troops to land on the shores of Italy at Salerno Beach and being met with a hurricane. “We were up to our chins in the water but we were told to ‘keep the rifles dry.’ It didn’t matter what happened to us, but keep the rifles dry!”

He received the Army Good Conduct Medal, the American Campaign Medal, the European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with bronze arrowhead device, and the World War II Victory Medal.

When he returned home, he joined the Chelberg-Battle Post of the American Legion in Sag Harbor and the Veterans of Foreign Wars in East Hampton. Along with Jack Reidy, the legion recognized him for 70 years of service in 2015.

A dedicated member of the Sag Harbor Fire Department, Mr. Trunzo would leave a customer mid-shave if the fire whistle blew. He joined the Montauk Hose Company in 1946 after returning from the war. He was chief from 1980 to 1981, and had a vanity license plate that let everyone know he was an ex-chief.

On summer evenings, Mr. Trunzo could often be found with his daughter and another ex-chief, Thomas W. Horn Sr., outside the fire station on Main Street, selling T-shirts and raffle tickets on a folding table to raise money for the Fire Department.

His barbershop eventually moved farther down Main Street, into the heart of the village, to a building Mr. Trunzo bought in 1965. “He always said if you don’t own the building, you don’t own the business,” Ms. Jackson said.

There were a few brief times when Mr. Trunzo couldn’t give haircuts. His wife of 42 years died in 1994, and that Easter, one of the worst fires in Sag Harbor history left his Main Street shop badly damaged.

A daughter, Nina Trunzo, and a son, William Porter, survive, as do two sisters, Yolanda Trunzo Fields and Mary Trunzo Herbst, all of whom live in Sag Harbor. Two brothers, Ed Trunzo and Jack Trunzo, died before him.

Mr. Trunzo was cremated. He didn’t like the solemnity of funerals and wanted a party instead, Ms. Jackson said. A celebration of his life will be held at the Sag Harbor Firehouse on Brick Kiln Road on May 7 from noon to 3 p.m.