Stuart M. Kaminsky, Northwestern alumnus, professor emeritus and notable mystery novelist, died last Friday at a St. Louis hospital. He was 75.
Kaminsky died from complications from hepatitis C. He moved to St. Louis earlier this year to receive a liver transplant but suffered a stroke 36 hours after the move and became ineligible for the surgery. His wife, Enid Perll, said he lived most of the rest of his life at home.
“He lived up until the moment his body gave out on him,” Perll said. “He lived his life the way he wanted to live his life.”
After graduating from NU in 1972 with a Ph.D., Kaminsky stayed at the university to teach film. He remained at NU until 1989.
“He loved Northwestern so much because he could study what he wanted to study,” Perll said. “He was very happy there.”
While teaching at NU, Kaminsky showed a deep understanding of the commercial aspects of the television and film industry, said Communication Prof. Irv Rein, who worked alongside Kaminsky in the 1980s.
Rein said it was this “understanding of New York and Hollywood” that allowed Kaminsky to cross over so successfully from academics to commercial entertainment.
Kaminsky authored more than 70 novels, starting with history and biographies and moving on to mystery novels. Perll said her husband usually wrote a minimum of 10 pages a day.”It’s one thing to do something substantial,” Rein said. “But it’s another to continuously be at the top of your game while teaching.”
Kaminsky was a member of the Mystery Writers of America and was named a Grand Master by the guild in 2006. His novel “A Cold Red Sunrise” won Best Novel from the association in 1989.
Kaminsky published his first mystery novel in 1977, “Bullet for a Star,” while he was working as a senior member of the Radio-TV-Film department faculty. It was also the first year RTVF professor emeritus Chuck Kleinhans started teaching at NU.
“I remember Stuart once remarking that growing older and more mature didn’t mean that you had to give up the things that delighted you as a child,” Kleinhans wrote in an e-mail. Kaminsky left NU in 1989 to teach at Florida State University, and his presence was missed in the School of Communication, Rein said.
“We lost someone really important when Stuart left NU,” Rein said.
“He was a funny guy with a great sense of humor. He was intense in everything he did.”Kaminsky’s daughter, Tasha Kaminsky, said her father had a great sense of humor and treated everyone with respect, especially his family.
“You wouldn’t know he had stuff going on outside of his family the way he paid attention to us,” she said.
Kaminsky is survived by four children, Peter, Toby, Lucy and Tasha; three grandchildren; his wife, Enid Perll; his mother, Dorothy; his sister, Sara Rashkow; and his ex-wife, Merle Gordon. A graveside service was held Monday.
