Gov. Mario Cuomo passed away on New Year’s Day, according to CNN. He was 82.
The elder Cuomo is the father of current New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Chris Cuomo, the host of CNN’s “New Day.” Chris Cuomo confirmed his father’s death to CNN.
Mario Cuomo had been hospitalized recently for a heart condition. On Thursday he died at his home around 5 p.m. “from natural causes due to heart failure,” his family said.
He was married to his wife, Matilda, for more than six decades, and together they had five children. In 1993, Cuomo passed up the opportunity to be appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, choosing instead to run for a fourth term as governor. He lost in 1994.
Mario Cuomo once said when he was asked how he wanted to be remembered: “One of the simple things I wanted to achieve is — I want to be governor. I want to be the hardest working there ever was. And I want, when it’s over — and I figured on four years at first — I want people to say, now, there was an honest person.”
His son was inaugurated for his second term as governor earlier on New Year’s Day. He referenced his father during his speech, according to CNN:
We’re missing one family member. My father is not with us today. We had hoped that he was going to be able to come; he is at home and he is not well enough to come. We spent last night with him, changed the tradition a little bit. We weren’t in Albany last night; we stayed at my father’s house to ring in the New Year with him. I went through the speech with him. He said it was good, especially for a second-termer. See, my father is a third-termer. But he sends his regards to all of you. He couldn’t be here physically today, my father. But my father is in the room. He is in the heart and mind of every person who is here. He is here and he is here, and his inspiration and his legacy and his experience is what has brought this state to this point. So let’s give him a round of applause.
