Richard Gambino, a son of Red Hook, Brooklyn, who rose to prominence in academia with his books on Italian-American history — and as a founder of the scholarly study of the Italian-American experience — died on Jan. 12 at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital at the age of 84. He had been living with dementia and lymphoma for some time.
Dr. Gambino, who lived on North Haven and in Southampton in recent years, was born in 1939 to the late Catherine (Tranchina) Gambino and Dominic Gambino, who came to Brooklyn from Palermo, Italy. As a young man, he worked as a lifeguard on the beaches of the Rockaways and studied philosophy at Queens College, where he got his bachelor’s degree. A master’s in philosophy (and a thesis on Spinoza) followed at the University of Illinois, and then a doctorate from New York University, where he wrote a thesis on the topic of “Mental Disorder and Criminal Responsibility.” He became a professor at his alma mater Queens College, where he founded the first Italian-American studies department in the United States. He also founded the first academic journal on the topic, “Italian Americana.”
During the American Bicentennial year of 1976, Dr. Gambino was tapped by President Gerald Ford to serve on the U.S. Bicentennial Committee alongside James Michener, Alex Haley, and Joan Ganz Cooney. Mayor Kevin Lane of Boston presented him with the “key” to the city in 1984 and Mayor Ed Koch did the same in New York City in 1988. Dr. Gambino was one of the marshals of the New York City Columbus Day Parade in 1975. Gov. Mario Cuomo appointed him to the New York State Council for the Humanities, on which he served from 1984 to 1992.
Meanwhile, he was publishing. “Blood of My Blood: The Dilemma of the Italian-Americans,” his history of first, second, and third-generation families that intermingled scholarly data with personal anecdote, hit the top of the New York Times best-seller list in 1973. (Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola have both reportedly attempted to adapt it for the big screen.) “Vendetta,” which told the story of the lynching of 13 Sicilian immigrants in New Orleans, was made into an HBO movie. Among his other nonfiction books is “Red Hook,” a memoir of a Brooklyn childhood in the 1940s and 1950s.
Rabbi Dan Geffen conducted a memorial service at Temple Adas Israel in Sag Harbor on Jan. 15. Rabbi Geffen addressed head-on the unusual circumstance of a Catholic-born Italian-American scholar having his funeral service in a Jewish temple and being laid to rest, afterward, at Chevra Kodetia, Temple Adas Israel’s cemetery on Route 114 in Sag Harbor. He said during the service that Dr. Gambino had not only been a frequent presence at Adas Israel alongside his wife, Gail (Cherne) Gambino, who survives, but that he also exemplified values dear to Jewish tradition, an eagerness to both learn and to teach.
During the memorial, Dr. Gambino was remembered, too, for his love of sailing and theater. Andrew Botsford spoke, recalling a production of “Camerado” that Dr. Gambino wrote about the poet Walt Whitman, one of two plays he wrote that were staged at the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center.
In addition to his wife, Dr. Gambino is survived by two daughters, Erica-Lynn Huberty of Bridgehampton and Doria Gambino of New Jersey; a stepdaughter, Lisa Beatty of London, and two grandchildren, Liam and Beatrix Huberty of Bridgehampton.
The family has suggested memorial donations to the Nature Conservancy, online at nature.org.
