Richard Joseph Riordan (born 1930), a multimillionaire businessman and civic leader seeking public office for the first time, was elected mayor of Los Angeles on June 8, 1993. He had promised to revitalize the riot-torn city and put 3,000 more police on the streets. He won praise even from political adversaries for decisive leadership following the devastating January 17, 1994, Northridge earthquake.

Richard (Dick) Riordan was born to a wealthy family in Flushing, New York, on May 1, 1930, the youngest of eight children. Raised in comfortable surroundings in New Rochelle, he became an accomplished lawyer, businessman, and philanthropist.

Riordan attended Santa Clara, then transferred to Princeton, where he majored in philosophy and received his A.B. degree in 1952. Undecided between business and law, he made what he calls a "mental flip of the coin" and enrolled in the University of Michigan law school, graduating first in his class in 1956. That same year he was the...