Joseph Brendan Cunningham, a veteran Post copy editor whose sharp, caustic wit produced some of the paper’s most memorable front-page headlines in recent years, died Thursday of complications following a stroke. He was 43.
A New York native, Cunningham grew up in Little Neck, Queens and graduated from St. Francis Prep and Queens College.
But journalism wasn’t much on his mind in those days — he dreamed of becoming a rock star, and spent much of the ’90s as the lead singer of Sub Rosa, performing at such venues as CBGB.
He joined The Post in 1997 as a city desk assistant. Before long, he began contributing articles to the paper, then was given a tryout as a copy editor.
Over the years, many of his suggestions for the “wood” — the paper’s celebrated lead headline — found their way onto Page One.
Among them: “Let’s Mecca Deal,” about financial questions surrounding the Ground Zero mosque; “Freakin’ Flyer,” about the JetBlue attendant who went berserk at JFK; and “Screw U.,” about a professor caught pimping out girls on the Web.
His most famous headline ran on Jan. 24, 2003: “Axis of Weasel” — a play on then-President George W. Bush’s denunciation of the “axis of evil” — and described the reluctance of US allies Germany and France to support the planned invasion of Iraq.
As Chris Shaw, then the paper’s managing editor, recalled to NPR several years later, Editor-in-Chief Col Allan was looking for headline suggestions when “Joe, a copy kid who shouldn’t be saying anything to anyone, just chimes up in the background of the newsroom: ‘Axis of Weasel.’
“The boss points at him: ‘He nailed it’ — and he got himself a job.”
Barry Gross, the paper’s chief copy editor, recalled Cunningham’s “explosive wit,” saying, “He just blew me away with how he could come up with five or six great headlines each day.
“He was like a shooting star,” said Gross. “He was a wonderful, incredible colleague.”
Cunningham is survived by his wife, Johanna Huden, a former Post features writer, and their children, Jane, 6, and Calvin, 3. A public memorial service will be held later this month.