Provincetown street artist Charles P. Duffy, who was known as “Duffy Did It,” died in his sleep on Nov. 13, 2024 at Cape Cod Acute Care in Brewster. He had been living on his own at the Maushope Building, a longtime “part of the woodwork of the town,” said his son, Scott, until the last two weeks of his life. The cause was cardiac arrest. He was 94.
Duffy, as he preferred to be called, was born on July 19, 1930 in Bayonne, N.J., the son of Patrick John Duffy, a Catholic born in Ireland, and Rose (O’Connell) Duffy, a Protestant born in Scotland. They had met in England but could neither get married in a church nor find good work, so they emigrated to the U.S. in search of a community that would accept them.
They settled in the Bronx, and Patrick worked as a riveter in the construction of the Holland Tunnel. Duffy attended St. Nicholas of Tolentine schools on Fordham Road, and he sang in the New York Boys Choir.
His high school years were tough, however. Duffy was rambunctious, which led to his removal from high school and placement in a work program upstate to get him out of the city. He did not return to high school but enlisted in the Navy and was assigned to the Submarine Force, a specialized and strategic unit. He did maintenance on batteries, sang in reviews, and played Teddy Roosevelt (Cousin Teddy) in a USN production of Arsenic and Old Lace.
Duffy was honorably discharged in March 1953, four months before the Korean War armistice.
Back in the States, he passed the GED test and attended the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, where he studied illustration, singing, and drama. Afterward, he worked for a time doing commercial art for the BBDO advertising agency in New York. In the late 1950s, he decamped to Atlantic City, N.J. to do caricatures on the Steel Pier.
It was there that Duffy met Donna Louise Forsyth, who was working as a waitress at Ben Cody’s Bar for the summer. They married in 1959 and rented a cold water flat in Manhattan. For their first Christmas, they “made a tree out of coat hangers,” Scott said, “and hung tinsel on it.” Their children were born in 1961 and 1963.
When Donna was offered a high school teaching job, they moved to Glassboro, N.J. Duffy earned a teaching degree from Glassboro State University (now Rowan University) in 1970; he also played Ed Keller in a production of James Thurber’s The Male Animal. After graduation, he taught art for a while and worked for a year as an art director for the New Jersey State Museum in Trenton.
In the late 1960s, Jim Green, a portrait painter with a studio at Whaler’s Wharf, invited Duffy to come to Provincetown to work as a caricaturist. The idea was that Green would continue to do expensive portraits, and Duffy would do more affordable caricatures. That invitation changed Duffy’s life.
“From the time I first began, in 1953, to 1993, I must have sat for at least five minutes with 150,000 people,” Duffy told K.C. Myers for a 1993 Cape Codder profile. “Somewhere in my memory are stored the hobbies, professions, and appearances of thousands of people.”
“My father was happy in Provincetown,” Scott said. “When I asked him to come live with me and my family in California as he got old, he said, no. ‘I’ll only leave Provincetown feet first.’ ”
Duffy and his family spent winters in Glassboro, where he worked on and showed his painting in a studio, and summers in Provincetown, where he did his street art and Donna ran the Satin Swan at Whaler’s Wharf, selling her handmade crafts. They bought a house in town in 1974.
Because Duffy did not make much money with his painting, he also worked corporate conferences and cruises as a caricaturist, the “paid entertainment,” Scott said. After Donna retired from teaching, the family moved to Florida. But Duffy hated Florida, they separated, and he moved back to Provincetown permanently in 1981.
Over the next 40 years, Duffy embraced Provincetown life. He continued to paint and to do caricatures. He also got involved in the Provincetown Theater Company, performing as James O’Neill in Frederic Glover’s The Mirror Darkens and as the ghost of Humphrey Bogart in Woody Allen’s Play It Again, Sam, among other productions.
Scott said his father was almost a mythic figure in Provincetown, “a kind of Yogi Berra-Buddha hybrid, a mix of offbeat but placid wisdom. We should all take lessons from him on how to enjoy life and be happy with the minimum.”
Duffy was a highly visible street artist in his cowboy hat, holding a shillelagh as tightly as he held on to his Irish identity. He was also a loving father. “He was understanding, not demanding,” said Scott. “He gave me room to be a teenager, to make mistakes, and his support never felt like pressure.
“He had a million stories,” Scott added. “He and Jim Greene were discussing the re-election campaign of Richard Nixon in 1972. My dad said the American people aren’t stupid. They’re not going to elect that crook. Jim said, if they re-elect Nixon you need to quit cigarette smoking.
“He quit by keeping a joint in his pocket. Every time he had an urge to smoke a cigarette, he would light up a joint and take a hit.”
Duffy is survived by his son, Scott Duffy of Sausalito and Mill Valley, Calif. and his daughter, Susan Duffy of Margate, Fla.; three grandchildren, Jonathan, Daniel, and Mia; and a sister, Joanne Mongan of Sparks, Nev.
He was predeceased by his sisters Kathleen Meadows, Rose Milando, and Mary Buchko.
A service for family and friends and scattering of ashes is being planned for June.
In lieu of flowers, donations in Duffy’s memory can be made to the Provincetown Theater.
