Roy Finamore, Clarkson Potter Editor and Award-Winning Author, Passes Away at 70
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Roy Finamore, photo courtesy of his sister, Marie Finamore.
Roy Finamore, a James Beard award-winning author and notable editor of cookbooks and lifestyle books, died on May 6 after a brief illness. He was 70.
He was born and grew up in New Rochelle, New York. After attending SUC Brockport and majoring in theater, he left to start a small theater company in Vermont with friends, later moving to New York City. Gradually the freelance editorial work he undertook to support his acting career made way for full-time publishing when he was hired as an editor of lifestyle and design books by Stewart, Tabori & Chang in 1983, where his authors included Tim Street-Porter, Chris Madden, and Abbie Zabar. He joined Clarkson Potter in 1989 as a senior editor and went on to publish award-winning and bestselling cookbooks by Martha Stewart, Ina Garten, Diana Kennedy, Jean Anderson, Anne Willan, Lee Bailey, Carole Walter, Tom Colicchio, Bobby Flay, and Gale Gand.
His first cookbook, ONE POTATO, TWO POTATO, coauthored with Molly Stevens (2001), was called “an impressive and wide-ranging potato bible” by Publishers Weekly when it came out in 2001.
He won the James Beard Foundation Award for Best General Cookbook in 2007 for his second book, TASTY: GET GREAT FOOD ON THE TABLE EVERY DAY.
He coauthored a number of other cookbooks, including FISH WITHOUT A DOUBT: The Cook’s Essential Companion by Rick Moonan (2008); DESSERT FOURPLAY: Sweet Quartets from a Four-Star Pastry Chef by Johnny Iuzzini (2008); MARCUS OFF DUTY: The Recipes I Cook at Home by Marcus Samuelsson (2014); and THE GRAND CENTRAL OYSTER BAR RESTAURANT & COOKBOOK by Sandy Ingber (2018).
He is survived by loving sisters and their spouses, nieces, nephews, a brother, and many devoted friends.