Richard Riordan, an investment mogul who seized a political moment with Los Angeles on edge, winning a long-shot bid in 1993 to become mayor and help the city rebound after the police beating of Black motorist Rodney King and the riots that followed, died April 19 at his home in the city’s Brentwood section. He was 92.
The family announced the death but did not provide a cause.
Mr. Riordan’s victory marked one of the first major successes of the modern entrepreneur-to-politician path carved out by figures such as Ross Perot in his failed 1992 presidential run and later by Mike Bloomberg in his triumphant bid for New York mayor.
Mr. Riordan (pronounced REAR-din) was relatively unknown to many voters when he joined the mayoral race, plowing millions of dollars of his own money into the campaign and promising to take a token $1-a-day salary. He came off as brash and sometimes hard to fact-check, such as when he told reporters he had jumped out of his car to save a blind man from falling into an open manhole.
Still, he began to resonate with voters. “I’m a rescuer,” he said. “I can’t stand to see vacuums where nothing’s being done.” At another campaign stop, he declared: “Fear is paralyzing the city and driving out the middle class … This is intolerable.”
There were no quick fixes for the Los Angeles Police Department and the public anger simmering over the March 1991 beating of King after a traffic stop. The incident was captured on video and widely broadcast on television in a time before social media ruled. King was left with broken bones and extensive bruises from police officers who used batons and a stun gun to subdue him.
When a California jury in 1992 acquitted the four officers charged in the beating, riots again flared — leaving more than 60 people dead and over 2,000 injured. (In a subsequent federal trial, two Los Angeles police officers were convicted of violating King’s civil rights.)
The aftermath left many in Los Angeles fearing what could come next. The city’s first Black mayor, Tom Bradley, decided to retire after 20 years in the job. Mr. Riordan ran on the motto: “Tough enough to turn L.A. around.”
After the primary, 63-year-old Mr. Riordan defeated City Council member Mike Woo in a runoff — a surprising outcome that Mr. Riordan’s critics said turned the city over to a candidate who capitalized on the tensions over the riots.
Mr. Riordan struggled with the learning curve. He displayed frustration with the slow pace of bureaucracy and the give-and-take required with the City Council. He never fully mastered the finesse needed by a big-city mayor during his two terms and eight years in office.
But the take-charge instincts from his business side served him well in times of crisis. He earned praise for his fast-paced response following a January 1994 earthquake that killed at least 57 people.
Within an hour of the 6.7-magnitude quake, Mr. Riordan was at an underground command center mobilizing state and federal relief efforts. He visited rescue sites and repair crews at sites such as buckled and collapsed freeways, which had paralyzed movement around the region.
One morning, he brought a team of relief workers 250 breakfast boxes of scrambled eggs and bacon. They came from a 1920s-era restaurant, the Original Pantry, that he had bought to save from demolition before becoming mayor.
Although a Republican, Mr. Riordan lauded the assistance by the Clinton administration — laying the groundwork for close ties with President Bill Clinton. (The former president later wrote the foreword for Mr. Riordan’s 2014 memoir, “The Mayor,” ghostwritten by Patrick Range McDonald.)
“I believe in making decisions,” Mr. Riordan said a day after the quake. “It’s easier to get forgiveness later than to get permission now.”
He made gains on some fronts after being elected. He contacted his friend, philanthropist Eli Broad, to help raise money to restart the stalled Walt Disney Concert Hall, which opened in 2003. Mr. Riordan managed to calm political activists in the San Fernando Valley who wanted to split from sprawling Los Angeles.
Mr. Riordan brought some levity, too, to a city in need of it. He joined clowns to launch an environmental cleanup initiative in Hollywood. He liked to kick off his shoes and walk around his office in socks.
With policing, however, his successes were limited. He raised landing fees at Los Angeles International Airport and used the funds to expand police hiring and training. Yet the police department was sent reeling again in the late 1990s by revelations that a cadre of rogue officers in an anti-gang unit had beaten handcuffed suspects, shot unarmed people and framed at least 99 defendants.
The Justice Department sought to take the extraordinary step of overseeing changes at the department. Mr. Riordan strongly opposed allowing federal control even as the City Council moved toward accepting the consent decree. Finally, in March 2000, it was clear that Mr. Riordan was on the losing side.
Mr. Riordan and the police chief, Bernard Parks, agreed to federal oversight. “We believe that reform of the Los Angeles Police Department must move forward,” Mr. Riordan wrote in a joint letter with council members. (The federal oversight ended in 2009, eight years after Mr. Riordan left office.)
In 1995, Mr. Riordan rushed back to Los Angeles from a trade mission trip to Asia just before a jury acquitted O.J. Simpson of murder charges in the death of his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman. The mayor went quickly into action, fearing the verdict could rekindle the racial tensions brought up by the police investigation and trial.
“Whether you agree or disagree,” he said publicly, “we must accept the decision.” Behind the scenes, he and police officials had put together an emergency riot plan that, to their relief, was not needed.
Family of 10
Richard Joseph Riordan was born May 1, 1930, in the New York City borough of Queens and grew up in New Rochelle, N.Y., the youngest of eight children. His father became head of Stern Bros., a New York department store, and worked in various charities and legal aid services. His mother was a homemaker who was known to help a neighbor or passerby with food during the Depression.
Mr. Riordan received a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Princeton University in 1952. He served as an artillery officer during the Korean War, then graduated at the top in his class from the University of Michigan law school in 1956.
He took a job with the Los Angeles law firm O’Melveny and Myers, specializing in tax law and stock market regulations. Mr. Riodran founded his own firm in 1975 and, through a stock adviser, began to parlay an $80,000 inheritance into an estimated $100 million through investments in real estate and emerging high-tech firms.
Among the investments was Syntex, a pharmaceutical company involved in the development of the birth control pill. Although Catholic, Mr. Riordan remained solidly in support of abortion rights.
He and partners moved into leveraged buyouts — acquiring companies using borrowed capital — that put the future of some businesses in his hands. There were job losses after several companies collapsed. In the 1980s, Mr. Riordan’s group helped save financially troubled toymaker Mattel and its brands, which include Barbie.
Mr. Riordan stepped away from the firm in 1988, seeking to pursue smaller deals and philanthropy. He headed a group that donated more than 4,500 computers to Catholic schools around the country. The Riordan Foundation remains involved in education programs in city schools.
After his mayoral terms were over, he tried for governor in 2002 but suffered an upset loss to investor Bill Simon Jr. — son of the former treasury secretary — in the Republican primary. Simon then lost the general election to incumbent Gray Davis.
Mr. Riodran was married four times. His marriage to Eugenia Warady ended in an annulment; his marriages to Jill Noel and Nancy Daly ended in divorce. He married Elizabeth Gregory in 2017.
Two children from his first marriage died: Billy Riordan in 1978 in a scuba diving mishap, and Carol Riordan in 1982 from health complications related to an eating disorder. Survivors include his fourth wife; three daughters from his first marriage, Mary Elizabeth Riordan, Kathleen Ann Riordan and Patricia Riordan Torrey; a sister; and three grandchildren.
Mr. Riordan was asked in 2001 by a New York Times journalist about suggestions for anyone thinking of going from business to politics. He described meeting a wealthy executive who asked the same question. Mr. Riordan said he noticed that the man wore a very expensive suit. Ditch it, he advised. No one wants to see a well-heeled politician in clothes the average voter can’t afford.
“I told him to take the suit off,” Mr. Riordan said, “and go to J.C. Penney.”
