It has been a year since actor and Fairport native Philip Seymour Hoffman died of an apparent drug overdose at the age of 46. Among those remembering Hoffman is a New York City sportswriter.
It’s perhaps not all that unusual that New York Daily News sportswriter Andy Martino wrote an article about Hoffman this week. His editors have been encouraging the paper’s beat writers to stretch their reportorial contributions. And the natural angle for Martino is that he’s a Fairport native himself. He went to Fairport High School, just like Hoffman, although Martino graduated 14 years later.
Martino came back to Fairport recently to research the story and spoke with two of Hoffman’s former teachers, John Baynes and Midge Marshall.
“Mr. Baynes and Midge Marshall, who was the theater teacher of Philip Seymour Hoffman and my English teacher in 11th grade, much later, both of them were very gracious, very willing to share their memories of a student in Philip Seymour Hoffman who as very important to them.”
Martino says interviewing Baynes and Marshall made for a strong emotional connection for him.
“It was a very powerful experience for me in a personal standpoint because I’m in this very weird reporting situation of being in my old high school and interviewing my old high school teachers and John Baynes, who was a legendary teacher at Fairport for more than 30 years and is still there, he ran the school paper in the late 90s when I was there, " Martino told WXXI News.
Martino says obviously he felt a connection to Hoffman, since they both went to Fairport High School. But he also says his article in the Daily News was about appreciating the fact that most people agree Hoffman was one of the great actors of our times.
