The cause of death was melanoma and meningitis.
McCourt died Sunday in a hospice surrounded by close family and friends.
Malachy McCourt, for years the other half of a two-man act that he and his brother brought to the stage, said that even at the end, Frank had held fast to his humor and sense of whimsy.
Arrangements for a funeral and memorial were being finalized at presstime.
It is anticipated that the author of the bestselling “Angela’s Ashes” will be cremated, in accordance with his own wishes, and his ashes scattered on the River Shannon where it flows past the City of Limerick, whose lanes and alleyways McCourt made famous in his account of impoverished boyhood during the 1930s and 40s.
It is also understood that there will be a memorial in New York City in September.
“Angela’s Ashes” won the Brooklyn-born McCourt a Pulitzer Prize for biography in 1997 and it was later made into a movie directed by Alan Parker. Emily Watson played the young McCourt’s mother long-suffering mother, Angela.
McCourt was the eldest of seven children, only four of whom made it to adult life. He is immediately survived by his wife Ellen, daughter Maggie from his first marriage, three grandchildren and brothers Malachy, Alfie and Michael.
McCourt, who for years worked as a teacher in the New York City public school system, was an iconoclast who, ironically, became a literary icon somewhat late in life after he wrote “Angela’s Ashes.” The memoir was a riveting tale that sold over 10 million copies in North America alone and has been published in over 20 languages.
The success of the book often prompted McCourt to state that he had disproved F. Scott Fitzgerald’s adage that there were “no second acts in American lives.”
McCourt, indeed, seemed to enjoy a string of succeeding acts. He was born in New York in 1930, but the family returned to Limerick where McCourt lived in poverty until his teens.
As a young man, McCourt returned to the city of his birth, where he held a number of jobs including that of a stevedore. He also served in the U.S. Army in Germany. This part of his life was recounted in his second book “‘Tis,” which was also a bestseller.
McCourt later became an English teacher, and described his experiences in his third bestselling book, “Teacher Man.” His final published work was a children’s tale, “Angela and the Baby Jesus.”
In recent times, McCourt, who lived with his wife in both New York City and Roxbury, Connecticut, was still planning new works and often said that he wanted to write a novel that would be based around teaching.
Despite his fame, McCourt was generous with his time and appeared at many events and functions in New York and well beyond. At one point he traveled to Haiti to see for himself the work being carried out by the Irish aid agency, Concern Worldwide.
McCourt was known to be particularly well disposed towards other writers and artists and many first time authors benefited over the years from cover endorsements penned by him.
When it first became an international literary sensation, “Angela’s Ashes” angered many people, in part because it was heavily critical of the Catholic Church during his childhood years and portrayed the Limerick of the day in unflattering terms.
In time, McCourt’s humor and ability to make people laugh even at his frequent use of the word “miserable” to describe his early years, overcame much of this criticism.
This week, Limerick opened a book of condolences after the news of McCourt’s passing and the city’s political leaders are expected to be out in force for the eventual scattering of Angela’s son’s ashes on the Shannon waters.