ANTHONY FONSECA '04-'05

Anthony Fonseca ’04-’05 died in an apparent suicide in Winthrop House on Feb. 22.

Fonseca, an economics concentrator from Lawton, Okla., known to friends as “Deuce,” is remembered for his passion for filmmaking and his skills as a deejay.

Friends said they were shocked by the apparent suicide and said Fonseca had not been acting unusually in the time preceding his death.

Fonseca was active in Harvard-Radcliffe Television (HRTV), serving as vice president of the executive board and as a director of HRTV’s soap opera, “Ivory Tower.”

HRTV President Debra T. Mao ’05 said the news of Fonseca’s death came as “a shock.”

“None of us thought he was troubled,” Mao said. “In general, he wasn’t a depressed person.”

Mao said she would miss Fonseca’s “devil-may-care presence and good-natured dedication” and called him “a very talented filmmaker.”

Friends described Fonseca as easygoing and friendly, and several remembered his witty, sarcastic sense of humor.

Lisa H. Feigenbaum ’04, who went to several formals with Fonseca, described him as “very self-confident in the way he talked about himself.”

But Feigenbaum said that at times, Fonseca could also be reserved, particularly about personal issues.

“He held a lot of stuff back, he wasn’t very open about a lot of things,” she said. “He would selectively have short responses to certain types of questions, he was sort of evasive about certain questions. He would joke things off rather than giving you a straightforward answer.”

Fonseca returned to school this fall after taking the 2002-2003 academic year off, but several friends said they did not know why he left or what he did during his time off.

“[The year off] is definitely one of the mysteries of Anthony Fonseca,” said Thomas D. O’Dell ’04-’05, who lived in the J-entryway of Winthrop with Fonseca. “A lot of us would ask him, and he wouldn’t say.”

Fonseca spent intersession in Los Angeles, Calif., participating in the Harvardwood program, where he was able to observe filmmaking firsthand and meet people who worked in the movie business.