David Goldfinger, founder of G&G Variety Stores, father-in-law to Billy Crystal, dies at 89

David Goldfinger, a former Long Beach resident, founder of a chain of popular variety stores and the father of actor Billy Crystal’s wife, Janice, died peacefully in his sleep on July 9 at his home in Laguna Woods, Calif. He was 89.

A native New Yorker, Goldfinger graduated from Morris High School in the Bronx in 1942 and was a graduate of Pace College in New York City. He began a career in advertising at the publications Men’s Reporter and Television Age.

For 25 years, his G&G Variety Stores were popular and successful businesses in the Bronx and on Avenue U in Brooklyn. A World War II veteran, Goldfinger served as a sergeant in the Air Force. After the war, he met and fell in love with Irma Giniger, and they were married for 65 years.

Goldfinger moved to Long Beach in 1965, and all three of his children attended Long Beach schools. His son-in-law is Long Beach native Billy Crystal, whose family lived at 549 E. Park Ave.

The two families shared a long history together, said Crystal’s brother, Joel, a former Long Beach City Council president. Billy and Janice were high school sweethearts, Crystal said, and the couple married in 1971.

“We’re a very close family,” he said. “Dave and Irma were part of our senior group that we’re slowly losing now — the last 10 years have been difficult for the family in losing our dear ones. It’s a great loss to our family — he became a patriarch over the years. He was a great-grandfather and a wonderful father-in-law to Billy, and it’s a great loss.”

When Billy Crystal moved to California in 1976 and his career began to flourish, Joel said, Goldfinger and the entire family were extremely proud. “Like all of us, he was very proud of him,” Crystal said.

An accomplished athlete, Goldfinger once bowled a 299 at the old Long Beach Bowl on Shore Road, between Long Beach Road and Riverside Boulevard, which is now part of the vacant Superblock. There he would often socialize with friends, Crystal said.

“When we used to have the bowling alley he was quite the bowler,” Crystal said. “And in his youth he was a good athlete.”