Tracy Hurley Martin — co-founder and CEO of the Morbid Anatomy Museum, comedy booking agent, film producer and publicistfor Prince, George Michael, Depeche Mode, the Cure and others — has died following a two-year battle with cancer, her brother in law Michael Pagnotta confirmed to PvNew. She was 53.
She is survived by her husband of 20 years, Depeche Mode/ Yaz/ Erasure cofounder Vince Clarke (pictured above with her in 2016); a son, Oscar; a niece, Isabelle Pagnotta; and her identical twin sister, author and screenwriter Tonya Hurley.
Clarke’s Erasure bandmate Andy Bell posted a tribute to Martin on social media: “There are no words. My heart, my soul, and all of my love goes to Vincent and Oscar, Tonya, Michael and Isabelle and all of Tracy’s family and friends. May God bless our precious Tracy.”
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Hurley-Martin also represented “Goosebumps” and the Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen brand, and several films she produced were screened at the Tribeca and Edinborough film festivals. Hurley Sisters Productions recently optioned the film rights to Mark Dery’s Edward Gorey biography, as well as the assisted-suicide story of Phillip and Becky Benight.
The twins had moved to New York to become musicians and instead ended up working at the publicity firm founded by Tonya’s future husband, Michael Pagnotta. Hurley-Martin’s unusual museum — filled with “Victorian taxidermy, illustrations of medical pathologies and preserved insects, among other cultish curiosities,” according to a New York Times article —was located in the Gowanus neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y. from 2014 through 2016. It stemmed from her family’s background operating funeral homes.
“We find joy in the macabre,” Hurley-Martin said of herself and her sister, adding of their relationship with a laugh, “I feel like we’re so intertwined, I don’t know who I am on my own.”
