Joe Negri, a jazz guitarist best known to generations of children and their parents as the kindly, music-loving handyman of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, died Saturday, May 30, at a senior living facility outside Pittsburgh. He was 99.
His death was announced by his family.
Beginning in 1968 and continuing through 2001, Negri, who had been friends with Fred Rogers since they worked together in the early 1960s on a local children’s TV show in Pittsburgh, Negri played “Handyman Negri” on the immensely popular PBS show Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. Often singing and playing his guitar, Handyman Negri would eventually become
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