GARY E. HINTE

We grew up hearing stories about our father being born over Nardoni's Italian Restaurant in New Jersey. He attributed his love of Italian food and especially his homemade eggplant parmigiana to this experience. To this day no one knows if this story is actually true. Anyone who knew him would tell you he had a wickedly silly sense of humor.

​

Born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Gary took pride in its' role in Colonial history and his own working class roots. Every time he and Carol visited the family in Union, NJ they drove around to all the landmarks of his youth - including The Liberty Theatre, which had its own historical  presence in our family, taking on a life of its own in paintings and sketches too numerous to count.

 

He experienced these memories with a kind of glow! Even if on the surface buildings seemed unremarkable or shabby: hardware shops reborn as bodega's or theatres morphed into Evangelical churches with marquees in Spanish or Korean! Landmarks like The Liberty Theatre were iconic in our fathers life and in our household. As Carol recalls, even in its best years, Liberty Theatre never looked as romantic as Gary painted it.

​

Our dad was never short on dreams and schemes. An untethered creative spirit & adventurer.  Always creating things, building, imagining, and inventing. This was his way of leaning into life. Making sure his living was as robust and flavorful as his infamous marinara sauce.

 

Gary wanted a life with no regrets and lived every day ensuring he had none. We cannot know the deepest parts of a persons' inner world but if what he left behind is any indication we can imagine he enjoyed life fully.

 

He leaves behind a rich and colorful legacy. Road trips, boats & travel adventures. Prolific works of art scattered across the globe in the homes of many fond friends and strangers, 10,000 first pages of his novel (a nod to the Worlds Greatest Artist himself), many unknown and delightful hand-painted scenes stored in the archives of theaters and play houses in Los Angeles, Santa Fe, and Belfast, ME.

 

Gary leaves behind two lifetimes worth of memories and is survived  by his beloved spouse and life partner of 42 years, Carol. He is also survived by two siblings, Edward and Diane. And finally, Gary leaves behind his greatest works of art; his true legacy - two adult children and three amazing grandchildren - each embodying some small part of that untamed creative spark.