Samuel William Yorty
Encyclopedia
Losing a 1940 bid for U.S. Senator
, when he ran unsuccessfully as a liberal internationalist
against isolationist
Republican and longtime incumbent Hiram Johnson
, Yorty left politics during World War II
to serve in the United States Army Air Forces
in the Pacific Theater
. He resumed his Assembly seat after his discharge. He was elected to the United States House of Representatives
in 1950 and was reelected in 1952, but again lost his race for the U.S. Senate in 1954. In that special election for the two years remaining of the term Richard M. Nixon, Yorty received 1,788,071 votes (45.5 percent) to Senator Thomas H. Kuchel's 2,090,831 (53.2 percent). Kuchel, a liberal Republican, had been appointed to the seat in 1953 by then Governor
Earl Warren when Nixon became vice president
.
for president. This angered many in the Democratic Party.
Although municipal elections in California are non-partisan, the resources of the party were directed against him when he ran for Mayor of Los Angeles the following year against incumbent Republican Norris Poulson
. The bitter campaign was marked by Poulson’s claim that Yorty was backed by members of organized crime, a comment that caused Yorty to sue Poulson for $3.3 million.
Yorty prevailed, however, running as a populist
. He railed against “a little ruling clique” of “downtown interests” and promised to revise the city charter, which had become unwieldy with the city's growth from a quiet West Coast
town to the third largest metropolis
in the country. He was a strong advocate of expanding the freeway network. Perhaps his most popular promise, however, was to end residents’ sorting of wet and dry garbage; dry garbage was typically burned in backyard incinerators
, contributing to the city’s notorious smog
. More accurately, there had been two collections independent of each other: wet garbage (including food waste), and bottles and cans; dry combustible trash was burned in incinerators until Los Angeles County ordered an end to backyard trash burning in 1957, when Poulson was still mayor. After that, there were three collections: wet garbage, bottles and cans, and dry trash and garbage, all independent of each other.
He made good on his waste management
and highway promises, and oversaw the emergence of Los Angeles as a major city. He was a backer of the Los Angeles Music Center
, business districts such as Little Tokyo, and of the Los Angeles Zoo
. He also made frequent appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
, which boosted his popularity. At the same time, he was a passionate anti-communist, a critic of the Civil Rights Movement
, and an outspoken opponent of desegregation busing
and feminism
.
In 1965, Yorty was reelected over Democratic Congressman James Roosevelt
, son of the late President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Roosevelt's campaign put up hundreds of billboards, handed out bales of bumper stickers and buttons, appeared often on television with 15-minute and half-hour shows, plus so many other spots that his electronic omnipresence became irksome. Roosevelt's campaign cost around $450,000. Yorty spent less than half that amount. Roosevelt called Yorty a stooge of Democrat Jesse ("Big Daddy") Unruh, the controversial California Assembly Speaker. He attacked Yorty's membership in a segregated private club, endlessly criticized Yorty for having a bad temper. Yorty was certainly irascible, but he held his temper throughout the campaign, seeming almost cool in contrast to Roosevelt. He pointed to the fact that he had cut city taxes, streamlined city government and improved garbage pickups. He outpolled Roosevelt 392,775 to 247,313, picked up 57.9% of the vote to Roosevelt's 36.5%, with the rest going to six other candidates on the ballot.
Although he was the first mayor to have a female deputy, and the first to have a racially integrated staff, his appeal did not extend to most of the city's large African-American population. Disaffection with high unemployment and racism contributed to the Watts Riots
of August 11–17, 1965. Yorty’s administration was criticized for failing to cooperate with efforts to improve conditions in neighborhoods such as Watts
, but he accused other leaders of raising false hopes and of action by communist agitators, having always categorically rejected any criticism of the city's police or fire departments.
After the riots, Yorty challenged incumbent Democratic Governor Edmund G. (Pat) Brown
in the 1966 gubernatorial primary
. He received 981,088 votes (37.6 percent) to Brown's 1,355,262 ballots (51.9 percent). Yorty’s politics shifted toward the right. This change became evident when he joined the election night celebration of Brown's successful opponent, Ronald W. Reagan. Yorty went to Vietnam
to support the American troops and was thereafter dubbed "Saigon Sam" by his liberal opponents.
In 1967, Yorty was forced to deal with scandal after the Los Angeles Times
published an expose on the city's harbor commission. The investigation led to the indictment and conviction of four city commissioners for bribery, while another was found dead in Los Angeles Harbor. The newspaper, which had long feuded with the mayor, noted that all of the individuals had been appointed by Yorty.
Support among the Anglo middle classes fell after he was embroiled in the controversy following the 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy
at the Ambassador Hotel after outraging prosecutors in the Kennedy case by freely commenting on the evidence. Ironically, Yorty's place in the history books had been assured when Kennedy had told his supporters only moments before he was shot, "Mayor Yorty has just sent me a message that we've been here too long already."
During the fall of 1968, Yorty refused to endorse Democratic presidential candidate Hubert Humphrey
. The strategy behind this approach was that Yorty would be rewarded with a Cabinet post by Richard Nixon for his non-support of Humphrey, but Nixon declined to offer him a position in the new administration.
In the 1969 mayoral primary, his popularity slipped well below that of Los Angeles City Council
member Tom Bradley
. The ensuing campaign between Yorty and Bradley, directed for Yorty by Henry Salvatori
, proved one of the most bitter in the city's history. Yorty painted his opponent as a dangerous radical, alternately of the black power or communist revolutionary varieties. The charges were not plausible since Bradley had spent much of his career in the Los Angeles Police Department
, but they resonated among fearful voters, and Yorty was re-elected.
Despite winning another four years, Yorty showed obvious signs of boredom in his position. He ran again for governor in 1970 but was handily defeated for the Democratic nomination by state House Speaker
Jess Unruh, 1,602,690 (61.4 percent) to 659,494 (26.3 percent). Unruh in turn was defeated by Reagan, who secured his second term as governor by a smaller margin than his 1966 plurality over Pat Brown. Yorty began to leave all but the most important decisions to his staff.
After spending almost 40 percent of his time away from Los Angeles during the last half of 1971, Yorty announced on November 15 of that year that he was running for the Democratic nomination for President
in 1972. Yorty had received strong support from influential New Hampshire
publisher William Loeb, stating that President Nixon had “caved in” to anti-war senators and that he had never agreed with the government's policy on the war. In response to what he would do, he noted that Dwight Eisenhower had helped bring an end to the Korean War by threatening to use nuclear weapons.
However, Yorty received just six percent of the vote in the New Hampshire primary
and was never able to gain any momentum in his bid for the nomination. He finally ended his bid shortly before the California primary in June 1972, asking voters to support Humphrey because of the “radical
” nature of anti-Vietnam War
candidate George McGovern
. Yorty picked up the support of a young Louisiana
delegate to the Democratic convention, Louis E. "Woody" Jenkins
, who subsequently served for twenty-eight years in his state's legislature but lost three bids for the United States Senate, the last as a Republican.
After McGovern won the Democratic nomination for President, Yorty began to support Republicans. But by then he was increasingly seen as a relic. His previous race-baiting demagoguery backfired when he was soundly defeated in his 1973 rematch with Bradley.
for five years, later complaining that he was cancelled in favor of the lowbrow television program Hee Haw
. After leaving work on the small screen, he returned to the political arena, but failed in a comeback bid for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate in 1980, having been defeated by the conservative Paul Gann
, who in turn was badly beaten by incumbent liberal Democrat Alan Cranston
. In 1981, Yorty failed again in a bid to unseat Bradley.
Afterwards, Yorty retired from public life, aside from being a rainmaker for several law firms. He suffered a stroke
on May 24, 1998, then contracted pneumonia
. After treatment at the Encino-Tarzana Regional Medical Center
, he was sent to his Studio City, California home, where he died on the morning of June 5.
In 1997, a survey of urban historians and political scientists conducted by Melvin Holli at the University of Illinois at Chicago
rated Yorty the third worst U.S. big-city mayor since 1960.
Yorty died on June 5, 1998, the thirtieth anniversary of Robert Kennedy's assassination and three months before Yorty's old rival, Tom Bradley, died. Prior to his death, Yorty had told his wife that he wanted no funeral service.
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
, when he ran unsuccessfully as a liberal internationalist
Internationalism (politics)
Internationalism is a political movement which advocates a greater economic and political cooperation among nations for the theoretical benefit of all...
against isolationist
Isolationism
Isolationism is the policy or doctrine of isolating one's country from the affairs of other nations by declining to enter into alliances, foreign economic commitments, international agreements, etc., seeking to devote the entire efforts of one's country to its own advancement and remain at peace by...
Republican and longtime incumbent Hiram Johnson
Hiram Johnson
Hiram Warren Johnson was a leading American progressive and later isolationist politician from California; he served as the 23rd Governor from 1911 to 1917, and as a United States Senator from 1917 to 1945.-Early life:...
, Yorty left politics during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
to serve in the United States Army Air Forces
United States Army Air Forces
The United States Army Air Forces was the military aviation arm of the United States of America during and immediately after World War II, and the direct predecessor of the United States Air Force....
in the Pacific Theater
Pacific Theater of Operations
The Pacific Theater of Operations was the World War II area of military activity in the Pacific Ocean and the countries bordering it, a geographic scope that reflected the operational and administrative command structures of the American forces during that period...
. He resumed his Assembly seat after his discharge. He was elected to the United States House of Representatives
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
in 1950 and was reelected in 1952, but again lost his race for the U.S. Senate in 1954. In that special election for the two years remaining of the term Richard M. Nixon, Yorty received 1,788,071 votes (45.5 percent) to Senator Thomas H. Kuchel's 2,090,831 (53.2 percent). Kuchel, a liberal Republican, had been appointed to the seat in 1953 by then Governor
Governor of California
The Governor of California is the chief executive of the California state government, whose responsibilities include making annual State of the State addresses to the California State Legislature, submitting the budget, and ensuring that state laws are enforced...
Earl Warren when Nixon became vice president
Vice President of the United States
The Vice President of the United States is the holder of a public office created by the United States Constitution. The Vice President, together with the President of the United States, is indirectly elected by the people, through the Electoral College, to a four-year term...
.
Mayoralty
In 1960, Yorty endorsed fellow Californian Richard Nixon over fellow Democrat, Massachusetts Senator John F. KennedyJohn F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
for president. This angered many in the Democratic Party.
Although municipal elections in California are non-partisan, the resources of the party were directed against him when he ran for Mayor of Los Angeles the following year against incumbent Republican Norris Poulson
Norris Poulson
C. Norris Poulson served as the 36th Mayor of Los Angeles, California from 1953 to 1961, after having been a California State Assemblyman and then a member of the United States Congress for eight years...
. The bitter campaign was marked by Poulson’s claim that Yorty was backed by members of organized crime, a comment that caused Yorty to sue Poulson for $3.3 million.
Yorty prevailed, however, running as a populist
Populism
Populism can be defined as an ideology, political philosophy, or type of discourse. Generally, a common theme compares "the people" against "the elite", and urges social and political system changes. It can also be defined as a rhetorical style employed by members of various political or social...
. He railed against “a little ruling clique” of “downtown interests” and promised to revise the city charter, which had become unwieldy with the city's growth from a quiet West Coast
West Coast of the United States
West Coast or Pacific Coast are terms for the westernmost coastal states of the United States. The term most often refers to the states of California, Oregon, and Washington. Although not part of the contiguous United States, Alaska and Hawaii do border the Pacific Ocean but can't be included in...
town to the third largest metropolis
Metropolitan area
The term metropolitan area refers to a region consisting of a densely populated urban core and its less-populated surrounding territories, sharing industry, infrastructure, and housing. A metropolitan area usually encompasses multiple jurisdictions and municipalities: neighborhoods, townships,...
in the country. He was a strong advocate of expanding the freeway network. Perhaps his most popular promise, however, was to end residents’ sorting of wet and dry garbage; dry garbage was typically burned in backyard incinerators
Incineration
Incineration is a waste treatment process that involves the combustion of organic substances contained in waste materials. Incineration and other high temperature waste treatment systems are described as "thermal treatment". Incineration of waste materials converts the waste into ash, flue gas, and...
, contributing to the city’s notorious smog
Smog
Smog is a type of air pollution; the word "smog" is a portmanteau of smoke and fog. Modern smog is a type of air pollution derived from vehicular emission from internal combustion engines and industrial fumes that react in the atmosphere with sunlight to form secondary pollutants that also combine...
. More accurately, there had been two collections independent of each other: wet garbage (including food waste), and bottles and cans; dry combustible trash was burned in incinerators until Los Angeles County ordered an end to backyard trash burning in 1957, when Poulson was still mayor. After that, there were three collections: wet garbage, bottles and cans, and dry trash and garbage, all independent of each other.
He made good on his waste management
Waste management
Waste management is the collection, transport, processing or disposal,managing and monitoring of waste materials. The term usually relates to materials produced by human activity, and the process is generally undertaken to reduce their effect on health, the environment or aesthetics...
and highway promises, and oversaw the emergence of Los Angeles as a major city. He was a backer of the Los Angeles Music Center
Los Angeles Music Center
The Music Center is one of the three largest performing arts centers in the nation. Located in downtown Los Angeles, the Music Center is home to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Ahmanson Theater, Mark Taper Forum and Walt Disney Concert Hall...
, business districts such as Little Tokyo, and of the Los Angeles Zoo
Los Angeles Zoo
The Los Angeles Zoo , is a zoo founded in 1966 and located in Los Angeles, California. The City of Los Angeles owns the entire zoo, its land and facilities, and the animals...
. He also made frequent appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson is a talk show hosted by Johnny Carson under the Tonight Show franchise from 1962 to 1992. It originally aired during late-night....
, which boosted his popularity. At the same time, he was a passionate anti-communist, a critic of the Civil Rights Movement
Civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a worldwide political movement for equality before the law occurring between approximately 1950 and 1980. In many situations it took the form of campaigns of civil resistance aimed at achieving change by nonviolent forms of resistance. In some situations it was...
, and an outspoken opponent of desegregation busing
Desegregation busing
Desegregation busing in the United States is the practice of assigning and transporting students to schools in such a manner as to redress prior racial segregation of schools, or to overcome the effects of residential segregation on local school demographics.In 1954, the U.S...
and feminism
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
.
In 1965, Yorty was reelected over Democratic Congressman James Roosevelt
James Roosevelt
James Roosevelt was the oldest son of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He was a United States Congressman, an officer in the United States Marine Corps, an aide to his father, the official Secretary to the President, a Democratic Party activist, and a businessman.-Early life:Roosevelt was...
, son of the late President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Roosevelt's campaign put up hundreds of billboards, handed out bales of bumper stickers and buttons, appeared often on television with 15-minute and half-hour shows, plus so many other spots that his electronic omnipresence became irksome. Roosevelt's campaign cost around $450,000. Yorty spent less than half that amount. Roosevelt called Yorty a stooge of Democrat Jesse ("Big Daddy") Unruh, the controversial California Assembly Speaker. He attacked Yorty's membership in a segregated private club, endlessly criticized Yorty for having a bad temper. Yorty was certainly irascible, but he held his temper throughout the campaign, seeming almost cool in contrast to Roosevelt. He pointed to the fact that he had cut city taxes, streamlined city government and improved garbage pickups. He outpolled Roosevelt 392,775 to 247,313, picked up 57.9% of the vote to Roosevelt's 36.5%, with the rest going to six other candidates on the ballot.
Although he was the first mayor to have a female deputy, and the first to have a racially integrated staff, his appeal did not extend to most of the city's large African-American population. Disaffection with high unemployment and racism contributed to the Watts Riots
Watts Riots
The Watts Riots or the Watts Rebellion was a civil disturbance in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, California from August 11 to August 15, 1965. The 5-day riot resulted in 34 deaths, 1,032 injuries, and 3,438 arrests...
of August 11–17, 1965. Yorty’s administration was criticized for failing to cooperate with efforts to improve conditions in neighborhoods such as Watts
Watts, Los Angeles, California
Watts is a mostly residential neighborhood in South Los Angeles, California.-History:The area now known as Watts is located on the Rancho La Tajauta Mexican land grant...
, but he accused other leaders of raising false hopes and of action by communist agitators, having always categorically rejected any criticism of the city's police or fire departments.
After the riots, Yorty challenged incumbent Democratic Governor Edmund G. (Pat) Brown
Pat Brown
Edmund Gerald "Pat" Brown, Sr. was the 32nd Governor of California, serving from 1959 to 1967, and the father of current Governor of California Jerry Brown.-Background:...
in the 1966 gubernatorial primary
Primary election
A primary election is an election in which party members or voters select candidates for a subsequent election. Primary elections are one means by which a political party nominates candidates for the next general election....
. He received 981,088 votes (37.6 percent) to Brown's 1,355,262 ballots (51.9 percent). Yorty’s politics shifted toward the right. This change became evident when he joined the election night celebration of Brown's successful opponent, Ronald W. Reagan. Yorty went to Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
to support the American troops and was thereafter dubbed "Saigon Sam" by his liberal opponents.
In 1967, Yorty was forced to deal with scandal after the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
published an expose on the city's harbor commission. The investigation led to the indictment and conviction of four city commissioners for bribery, while another was found dead in Los Angeles Harbor. The newspaper, which had long feuded with the mayor, noted that all of the individuals had been appointed by Yorty.
Support among the Anglo middle classes fell after he was embroiled in the controversy following the 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy
Robert F. Kennedy
Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy , also referred to by his initials RFK, was an American politician, a Democratic senator from New York, and a noted civil rights activist. An icon of modern American liberalism and member of the Kennedy family, he was a younger brother of President John F...
at the Ambassador Hotel after outraging prosecutors in the Kennedy case by freely commenting on the evidence. Ironically, Yorty's place in the history books had been assured when Kennedy had told his supporters only moments before he was shot, "Mayor Yorty has just sent me a message that we've been here too long already."
During the fall of 1968, Yorty refused to endorse Democratic presidential candidate Hubert Humphrey
Hubert Humphrey
Hubert Horatio Humphrey, Jr. , served under President Lyndon B. Johnson as the 38th Vice President of the United States. Humphrey twice served as a United States Senator from Minnesota, and served as Democratic Majority Whip. He was a founder of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and...
. The strategy behind this approach was that Yorty would be rewarded with a Cabinet post by Richard Nixon for his non-support of Humphrey, but Nixon declined to offer him a position in the new administration.
In the 1969 mayoral primary, his popularity slipped well below that of Los Angeles City Council
Los Angeles City Council
The Los Angeles City Council is the governing body of the City of Los Angeles.The Council is composed of fifteen members elected from single-member districts for four-year terms. The president of the council and the president pro tempore are chosen by the Council at the first regular meeting after...
member Tom Bradley
Tom Bradley (politician)
Thomas J. "Tom" Bradley was the 38th Mayor of Los Angeles, California, serving in that office from 1973 to 1993. He was the first and to date only African American mayor of Los Angeles...
. The ensuing campaign between Yorty and Bradley, directed for Yorty by Henry Salvatori
Henry Salvatori
Henry Salvatori was an American geophysicist, businessman, philanthropist, and political activist. Salvatori founded Western Geophysical in 1933, and after selling the company in 1960, pursued a second career as a philanthropist and conservative political activist...
, proved one of the most bitter in the city's history. Yorty painted his opponent as a dangerous radical, alternately of the black power or communist revolutionary varieties. The charges were not plausible since Bradley had spent much of his career in the Los Angeles Police Department
Los Angeles Police Department
The Los Angeles Police Department is the police department of the city of Los Angeles, California. With just under 10,000 officers and more than 3,000 civilian staff, covering an area of with a population of more than 4.1 million people, it is the third largest local law enforcement agency in...
, but they resonated among fearful voters, and Yorty was re-elected.
Despite winning another four years, Yorty showed obvious signs of boredom in his position. He ran again for governor in 1970 but was handily defeated for the Democratic nomination by state House Speaker
Speaker (politics)
The term speaker is a title often given to the presiding officer of a deliberative assembly, especially a legislative body. The speaker's official role is to moderate debate, make rulings on procedure, announce the results of votes, and the like. The speaker decides who may speak and has the...
Jess Unruh, 1,602,690 (61.4 percent) to 659,494 (26.3 percent). Unruh in turn was defeated by Reagan, who secured his second term as governor by a smaller margin than his 1966 plurality over Pat Brown. Yorty began to leave all but the most important decisions to his staff.
After spending almost 40 percent of his time away from Los Angeles during the last half of 1971, Yorty announced on November 15 of that year that he was running for the Democratic nomination for President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
in 1972. Yorty had received strong support from influential New Hampshire
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...
publisher William Loeb, stating that President Nixon had “caved in” to anti-war senators and that he had never agreed with the government's policy on the war. In response to what he would do, he noted that Dwight Eisenhower had helped bring an end to the Korean War by threatening to use nuclear weapons.
However, Yorty received just six percent of the vote in the New Hampshire primary
New Hampshire primary
The New Hampshire primary is the first in a series of nationwide political party primary elections held in the United States every four years , as part of the process of choosing the Democratic and Republican nominees for the presidential elections to be held the subsequent November.Although only a...
and was never able to gain any momentum in his bid for the nomination. He finally ended his bid shortly before the California primary in June 1972, asking voters to support Humphrey because of the “radical
Far left
Far left, also known as the revolutionary left, radical left and extreme left are terms which refer to the highest degree of leftist positions among left-wing politics...
” nature of anti-Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
candidate George McGovern
George McGovern
George Stanley McGovern is an historian, author, and former U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator, and the Democratic Party nominee in the 1972 presidential election....
. Yorty picked up the support of a young Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
delegate to the Democratic convention, Louis E. "Woody" Jenkins
Woody Jenkins
Louis Elwood "Woody" Jenkins is a newspaper editor in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, who served as a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives from 1972–2000 and waged three unsuccessful races for the United States Senate....
, who subsequently served for twenty-eight years in his state's legislature but lost three bids for the United States Senate, the last as a Republican.
After McGovern won the Democratic nomination for President, Yorty began to support Republicans. But by then he was increasingly seen as a relic. His previous race-baiting demagoguery backfired when he was soundly defeated in his 1973 rematch with Bradley.
Later career
After leaving office, Yorty hosted a talk show on KCOP-TVKCOP-TV
KCOP-TV, channel 13, is a television station in Los Angeles, California. Owned by Fox Television Stations, a division of the News Corporation, KCOP is a sister station to Fox network outlet KTTV , and is affiliated with the MyNetworkTV programming service...
for five years, later complaining that he was cancelled in favor of the lowbrow television program Hee Haw
Hee Haw
Hee Haw is an American television variety show featuring country music and humor with fictional rural Kornfield Kounty as a backdrop. It aired on CBS-TV from 1969–1971 before a 20-year run in local syndication. The show was inspired by Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, the major difference being...
. After leaving work on the small screen, he returned to the political arena, but failed in a comeback bid for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate in 1980, having been defeated by the conservative Paul Gann
Paul Gann
Paul Gann was a Sacramento, California-based conservative political activist and founder of People's Advocate, Inc...
, who in turn was badly beaten by incumbent liberal Democrat Alan Cranston
Alan Cranston
Alan MacGregor Cranston was an American journalist and Democratic Senator from California.-Education:Cranston earned his high school diploma from the old Mountain View High School, where among other things, he was a track star...
. In 1981, Yorty failed again in a bid to unseat Bradley.
Afterwards, Yorty retired from public life, aside from being a rainmaker for several law firms. He suffered a stroke
Stroke
A stroke, previously known medically as a cerebrovascular accident , is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia caused by blockage , or a hemorrhage...
on May 24, 1998, then contracted pneumonia
Pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...
. After treatment at the Encino-Tarzana Regional Medical Center
Encino-Tarzana Regional Medical Center
The Encino-Tarzana Regional Medical Center consisted of two hospitals, one in Tarzana and the other in Encino, California. Together, the two hospitals had approximately 400 beds. The hospitals were owned by Tenet Healthcare until 2008...
, he was sent to his Studio City, California home, where he died on the morning of June 5.
In 1997, a survey of urban historians and political scientists conducted by Melvin Holli at the University of Illinois at Chicago
University of Illinois at Chicago
The University of Illinois at Chicago, or UIC, is a state-funded public research university located in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its campus is in the Near West Side community area, near the Chicago Loop...
rated Yorty the third worst U.S. big-city mayor since 1960.
Yorty died on June 5, 1998, the thirtieth anniversary of Robert Kennedy's assassination and three months before Yorty's old rival, Tom Bradley, died. Prior to his death, Yorty had told his wife that he wanted no funeral service.
See also
- Eighty-second United States Congress
- Eighty-third United States Congress
- Membership discrimination in California social clubs
- Norris PoulsonNorris PoulsonC. Norris Poulson served as the 36th Mayor of Los Angeles, California from 1953 to 1961, after having been a California State Assemblyman and then a member of the United States Congress for eight years...
- Tom BradleyTom Bradley (politician)Thomas J. "Tom" Bradley was the 38th Mayor of Los Angeles, California, serving in that office from 1973 to 1993. He was the first and to date only African American mayor of Los Angeles...
- Watts RiotsWatts RiotsThe Watts Riots or the Watts Rebellion was a civil disturbance in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, California from August 11 to August 15, 1965. The 5-day riot resulted in 34 deaths, 1,032 injuries, and 3,438 arrests...
- City Council President L.E. Timberlake, often the acting mayor while Yorty was away from the state
External links
- TimeTime (magazine)Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
: Mayor Yorty Cover, September 2, 1966 - "Yorty's Chortle", Time Magazine. April 16, 1965
- Author, Jennifer. "Sam Yorty Dead At 88", CNN, June 5, 1998
- Meyerson, Harold. "Sam Yorty, 1909-1998", LA Weekly, June 12, 1998
- Pearson, Richard. "Combative Politician Sam Yorty Dies at 88", The Washington Post, June 7, 1998