Sunday, March 18, 2007

Politics

USN Current Issue

10 Things You Didn't Know About Rudy Giuliani

By Danielle Burton
Posted 2/7/07

Compiled by the U.S. News library staff

1. Rudolph William Giuliani was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., on May 28, 1944. Rudy was the only child of Harold and Helen Giuliani – a Roman Catholic, Italian, working-class couple.

Rudy Giuliani

2. Rudy attended Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School in Brooklyn. He loves the New York Yankees and opera–enough to start an opera club while in high school. He seriously considered entering the priesthood but ultimately changed his mind. He spent his undergraduate years at Manhattan College in the Bronx, studying political science and philosophy. In 1968, he graduated from New York University Law School with honors.

3. Giuliani began his career as a law clerk for a federal judge in New York, before moving over to the U.S. attorney's office. A stint in Washington with the attorney general's office was followed by a few years in private practice back in New York. In 1981, he was named associate attorney general in President Ronald Reagan's administration. And in 1983, he was appointed U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.

4. Originally a registered Democrat (he admired the Kennedy family during his youth), Giuliani eventually grew impatient with the party's "naive" policies. He abandoned the party, explaining that "by the time I moved to Washington, the Republicans had come to make more sense to me."

5. Giuliani was a key prosecutor in the police corruption case that Robert Daley's book Prince of the City is based on. The story was later made into a movie starring Treat Williams and Jerry Orbach. Giuliani was quoted saying that the movie was "dramatically accurate, factually inaccurate" and that "I can't believe how well I came off."

6. Giuliani lost his first New York mayoral race to David Dinkins in 1989 by a slim margin. The next time around, in 1993, he beat Dinkins to become the city's first Republican mayor in over 20 years. He was re-elected in 1997, carrying four of the five boroughs of New York City.

7. In early 2000, when New York Sen. Daniel Moynihan announced he would not seek re-election, speculation grew that Giuliani might run for the seat. Soon after, however, Giuliani announced he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer (his father died of the disease in 1981) and would not run. Giuliani also later revealed that he and his wife were separating..

8. Giuliani gained international recognition for his leadership in New York City after the September 11 terrorist attacks. During this time of crisis, he vowed: "To those who say our city will never be the same, I say, you are right. It will be better." He was dubbed "America's Mayor," named Time's person of the year in 2001, and received an honorary knighthood from Britain.

9. Giuliani's first marriage (of 14 years to Regina Peruggi) was annulled by the Roman Catholic Church because they had not obtained the required church dispensation necessary when second cousins marry. His second marriage, to Donna Hanover, ended in a bitter, public divorce in 2002. Giuliani has two children, Andrew and Caroline, from his marriage to Hanover. In late 2002, Giuliani proposed to Judith Nathan while on a business trip in Paris. The couple married the following May in a ceremony at Gracie Mansion (the official mayoral residence), presided over by his successor, Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

10. Giuliani reportedly gets by on only four or five hours of sleep a night. Decorations in his offices have included a small portrait of Theodore Roosevelt as well as an old wooden seat from Yankee Stadium.

Sources:

Agence France Presse

Associated Press

Contemporary Authors Online

Encyclopedia of World Biography

New York Times

New York City website

Time

Washington Post

World of Criminal Justice

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