Alfredo Francesco Cammarata was born on October 9, 1905 in New York City. His father, Vincenzo Cammarata, was born in 1874 in Palermo, Sicily, and came to America in 1896 and settled in Manhattan. His mother, Myrtle Guerra, was born in 1889 in New Jersey of Italian ancestry. The parents married in 1900 and had six children, Pasqual (b.1901), Giovanni (b.1903), Angelina (b.1904), Alfredo (b.1905), Ottielo (b.1906), and Stanley (b.1907). The family lived at 308 West 118th near Columbia University in Harlem. The father worked as a barber.
In 1909 the father became a nationalized U.S. citizen, a status that applied to all family members.
In June of 1923 Alfredo Cammarata graduated from high school in Manhattan.
In the 1925 New York State census, Alfred Cammarata was listed as an "artist."
In 1931 the artist married Augusta Freida Frey. She was born September 29, 1907 in Brooklyn, of French and English ancestry. She was an artist, and had attended art school in NYC. The married couple moved to an apartment at 301 East 50th Street.
On October 20, 1932 Mr. & Mrs. Cammarata had a baby, Eva Cammarata. The artist's widowed mother-in-law, Emily Tourlinson Frey, who was born in 1884 in England, moved in with the family.
The April 1, 1933 cover of The Saturday Evening Post was painted by Alfred F. Cammarata.
The 1940 U.S. Census listed Alfred Cammarata as an "artist" in the field of "commercial art."
During World War II, at the age of thirty-seven, married and the father of an eight-year-old daughter, Alfred Cammarata was not selected for military service, so he remained active in golden-age comic books throughout the war years.
During the 1940s he worked in comic books as an inker through studios, such as the Sangor Shop. He drew "The Black Hood," "The Wizard," and "Black Jack" for MLJ. For Better Publications he drew "Spectro," "Phantom Detective," "Crime Crushers," "Grim Reaper," and "Jill Trent." He was the first artist on the "Airboy" feature from Hillman Periodicals. He signed his work for comic books under the pen-name "Al Camy'." The apostrophe at the end signifies the missing remainder of his family name.
In 1947 he worked on the comic strip "El Encapuchado Negro" (The Black Hood) for a Spanish-language newspaper syndicate.
In 1948 Richard E. Hughes, editorial director at The American Comics Group, complied an adress book of his free-lance artists, which included a listing for "Alfred Cammarata, 1060 Lexington Ave. BU 8-3028"
By the 1950s his work appeared in romance titles from Harvey Publications and crime titles from DC Comics. His work also appeared in Fawcett and Charlton Comics.
In 1945 Al Cammarata rented an art studio in a four story brownstone at 1060 Lexington Avenue and 75th Street. The NYC Business Directory listed him at this studio for twelve years.
On October 4, 1989 his wife, Augusta Freida (Frey) Cammarata, died at the age of eighty-two in NYC.
Al Cammarata died in at the age of eighty-eight in NYC on October 15, 1993. He was buried in Potter's Field, a Bronx cemetery that usually served the destitute or incarcerated.
His daughter, Eva Cammarata, never married. She died at the age of sixty-eight in NYC on August 15, 2001.
© David Saunders 2019 |
