NEW YORK (AP) — Fellow former hostages, family and coworkers celebrated the life of journalist and philanthropist Terry Anderson Wednesday, remembering a man who helped others while struggling to heal himself.

The news writer became a news subject when he was taken hostage in Lebanon by members of an Islamic extremist group in 1985. At the time, he was chief Middle East correspondent for The Associated Press, had one daughter and his future wife was six months pregnant. He was one of the longest-held hostages in U.S. history, captive for 2,454 days.

Anderson died on April 21 at his home in Greenwood Lake, New York. He was 76. The memorial on Wednesday was shown on YouTube by the Overseas Press Club.

More than a year into captivity, two new hostages were moved into his jail, men from Northern Ireland and England who spoke at his memorial from the AP office in New York. They said Anderson’s hunger for intellectual stimulation had him verbally pounce on them, squeezing them for knowledge of current events, histories of their homelands and any shred of literature they could share.