Frank L. Rizzo, the cop-turned-mayor who charmed and infuriated Philadelphians for two contentious decades, is dead of a heart attack at age 70.
The "Big Bambino" was stricken Tuesday at his campaign headquarters two months after winning the Republican primary in his third attempt to regain his old job.Rizzo, also nicknamed the "Cisco Kid" as a police officer for throwing his 6-foot-2,250-pound frame into a gang fight, served two terms as a Democrat in the 1970s before switching to the GOP.
His death throws the mayoral race into turmoil. A state law under which GOP leaders would choose a replacement is being challenged in a lawsuit. An appeals court ruling expected next week could force a new primary for the November election.
"If you asked anybody in the country who was the one person most associated with the city of Philadelphia, the answer would be Frank Rizzo," said Ron Castille, the former district attorney who lost to Rizzo in the May primary.
Rizzo, a blunt and charismatic figure who was a beat cop and police commissioner before becoming mayor, was "a legend throughout the city," said Rep. William H. Gray III, D-Pa.
"Though sometimes controversial, he never hesitated to speak his mind. Frank Rizzo was in particular an advocate for effective law enforcement and for the rights of law-abiding citizens," said Attorney General Dick Thornburgh.
But critics remembered his police force as corrupt and brutal and said Rizzo alienated minorities both as police commissioner and mayor.
In the 1983 campaign, Rizzo boasted to a reporter that he would "make Attila the Hun look like a faggot."
Rizzo, the son of an Italian immigrant who also was a police officer, was born in Philadelphia. A high school dropout, he served in the Navy and worked at a steel plant before joining the police force at age 22.
He gained prominence in the 1960s when he led raids on gambling houses, after-hours clubs and brothels. He became commissioner in 1967.