Marc Peros Brugnoni, a director and television producer who won five Emmy Awards for his work, died in his sleep on Nov. 5 at Stony Brook University Hospital. He was 87.
An Amagansett resident, Mr. Brugnoni had worked for CBS, NBS, PBS, Unicef, and the March of Dimes. He contributed to the very first episode of “Sesame Street” and many episodes after that, and “ironically,” his family said, his last work was for the “Elmo’s World” segments on “Sesame Street.” In 1972, he started his own production company focusing on motion pictures, videos, and television programs ranging from current affairs to nature documentaries to children’s education
Mr. Brugnoni’s parents, Rene Brugnoni and the former Lubi Peros, settled in Queens after immigrating from France and what was then Yugoslavia. He was born in Queens on March 4, 1936, and grew up in Manhasset. His father was an architect who worked on Roosevelt Field and briefly with I.M. Pei and Henry Ford. His mother was a fashion illustrator for Macy’s and Gimbels.
He graduated from Manhasset High School and went on to Harvard College, where he majored in English. He returned home to New York City after graduating. It was there that he met his future wife, Elisabeth Colmar, through his parents’ friends. They were married in her native France on Sept. 23, 1960.
The couple moved to Roslyn, where their three daughters were born, and in 1974 settled in Amagansett, a place Mr. Brugnoni “fell in love with immediately,” his family wrote. The wide-open and undeveloped landscape of the South Fork at that time “allowed him to pursue two of his great passions: fishing and hunting. In all his world travels, he always felt that Louse Point in Springs was one of the most wonderful places on Earth.”
Mr. Brugnoni “was a loving and inspirational father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and friend,” his family wrote. “The lives he touched were many and he will be greatly missed by family and friends.”
His wife died on July 3 of this year. He is survived by his daughters, Dian Breza, who lives on Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula, Elena Hanson of Hatfield, Mass., and Amanda Topping of Sagaponack, and their spouses, and by his grandchildren, Sean Breza, Madeleine Breza, Nathaniel Hanson, Olivia Hanson, and Phoebe Topping, and a great-grandchild, Finn Breza. He also leaves a brother, Eric Brugnoni of Woodstock, N.Y.
The family plans an informal celebration of the life of Mr. Brugnoni and his wife on their anniversary, Sept. 23, 2024, at a location to be determined.
