Hamill married his first wife, Ramona Negron, in 1962. Together, they had two daughters, Adrienne and Deirdre. They divorced in 1970. Seventeen years later, he married Fukiko Aoki, a fellow journalist from Japan. His work meant that he resided for long periods of time in Spain, Ireland, Saigon, San Juan, Puerto Rico, Rome, Los Angeles, and Santa Fe, New Mexico.[23][45]
A friend of Robert F. Kennedy, Hamill helped persuade the senator to run for the United States presidency. He subsequently worked for Kennedy's campaign and covered it as a journalist. He was one of four men who disarmed Sirhan Sirhan of his gun in the immediate aftermath of the senator's assassination.[46]
Hamill died on August 5, 2020, at NewYork–Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital. He was 85, and suffered from heart and kidney failure at the time of his death, in addition to having fractured his right hip in a fall.[47]
