Joseph G. (Joey) Giambra

Photo credit: Joey Giambra, poet and soul of Buffalo’s West Side. (Sharon Cantillon/Buffalo News)

Excerpt from Sean Kirst, “‘Buffalo lost a part of its soul’: Joey Giambra succumbs to Covid-19,” The Buffalo News, May 15, 2020. https://buffalonews.com/entertainment/books/buffalo-lost-a-part-of-its-soul-joey-giambra-succumbs-to-covid-19/article_a74156da-b176-5b78-af2f-4f2227f1e306.html

"Joey's life as an actor, musician, playwright, poet, chef and former detective would make an amazing film, from his start in the lower West Side to his brave struggle against the virus in the end, when he was really at the top of his game," said Darleen Pickering Hummert, a Buffalo actor, playwright and casting director who has known Giambra for many decades.

Giambra was born in 1933 on Georgia Street on Buffalo's lower West Side. His family recalls that he received his early passion for music and drama from Anne Rodenhoffer, an elementary school teacher at the old P.S. No. 2. He went on to Hutchinson Central High School, where he formed a band that maintained a steady business at weddings, parties and other events.

In 1963, he joined the Buffalo Police Department after a long stint as a trumpeter, composer and bandleader and a few years as an aspiring actor in New York City. At 44, Giambra would earn a degree in criminal justice from SUNY Buffalo State.

He also was a restaurateur who operated the Rib Crib on East Chippewa Street and founded the Hard Times Cafe, an Italian restaurant that started up in Allentown and later moved to Hertel Avenue. His long writing career included "Bread and Onions," a performance piece inspired by the West Side of his childhood, and "La Terra Promessa," a documentary that chronicles the Italian American immigrant experience in Western New York.

His many movie appearances included such films as "Hide in Plain Sight," "Buffalo '66" and "Marshall."