John Cocchi
Film historian John Cocchi, reported missing a few weeks ago, unfortunately has been found dead. The family’s online funeral notice gives June 16 as the date of his passing.
The Monster Kid Classic Horror Forum posted Valerie and Bob Cocchi’s announcement of a memorial service on June 26 (details are included in the forum and in funeral notices). They extended this invitation to those who knew him:
John touched many lives if you would like to share your memories please feel free to share them during the service.
James H. Burns noted in his earlier post that Cocchi has been one of the leading film history researchers for decades and was thanked by name in many of the books on the genre appearing in the 1960s and 1970s. Jerry Beck also commented, “John was IMDB personified years before IMDB existed. He knows everything about classic Hollywood movies.”
Cocchi contributed to leading mainstream film publications like Box Office, wrote introductions for Bob Dorian when he was hosting AMC’s classic movies, and authored two books — Second Feature (Citadel Press, about B-movies, including serials, horror and sci-fi) and The Westerns: A Picture Quiz Book (for Dover).
A contemporary, and friend, of Leonard Maltin’s and Joe Franklin’s, Cocchi was a frequent presence at movie buff conventions.
He also acted in the 1960s serial homage, Captain Celluloid.
In recent years he had started writing articles again, for Classic Images.
The family asks, in lieu of flowers, that donations be made in Cocchi’s memory to: American Foundation for Suicide, 120 Wall 29th floor, NY, NY 10005 or Columbia University Psychiatry Research on Bipolar Disorders Dawn de Leon, Senior Director of Development, Columbia University Medical Center, 100 Haven Avenue, Suite 29D, NY, NY 10032.
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