Actor

1944-05-28 · United States · Male

3 series in the catalog

Rudolph William Louis Giuliani (, Italian: [dʒuˈljaːni]; born May 28, 1944) is an American politician and disbarred lawyer who served as the 108th mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001. He previously served as the U.S. Associate Attorney General from 1981 to 1983 and the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 1983 to 1989. Giuliani led the 1980s federal prosecution of New York City mafia bosses as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. After a failed campaign for mayor of New York City in the 1989 election, he succeeded in 1993, and was reelected in 1997, campaigning on a "tough on crime" platform. He led New York's controversial "civic cleanup" from 1994 to 2001, and appointed William Bratton as New York City's new police commissioner. In 2000, he ran against First Lady Hillary Clinton for a U.S. Senate seat from New York, but left the race once diagnosed with prostate cancer. For his mayoral leadership following the September 11 attacks in 2001, he was called "America's mayor" and was named Time Person of the Year for 2001.

In 2002, Giuliani founded a security consulting business, Giuliani Partners, and acquired, but later sold, an investment banking firm, Giuliani Capital Advisors. In 2005, he joined a law firm, renamed Bracewell & Giuliani. Vying for the Republican Party's 2008 presidential nomination, Giuliani was an early frontrunner, yet did poorly in the primary election; he later withdrew and endorsed the party's subsequent nominee, John McCain. After declining to run for New York governor in 2010 and for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, Giuliani turned his focus to his business firms. After advising Donald Trump during his 2016 presidential campaign and early administration, Giuliani joined President Trump's personal legal team in April 2018, remaining on it during the 2020 presidential election. His activities as Trump's attorney led to allegations that he engaged in corruption and profiteering. In 2019, Giuliani was a central figure in the Trump–Ukraine scandal.

Following the 2020 election, Giuliani represented Trump in many lawsuits filed in attempts to overturn the election results, making false and debunked allegations about rigged voting machines, polling place fraud, and an international communist conspiracy. Giuliani spoke at the rally preceding the January 6 United States Capitol attack, where he made false claims of voter fraud and called for "trial by combat". He was later also listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in the federal prosecution of Trump's alleged attempts to overturn the election. In August 2023, he was indicted in the prosecution related to the 2020 election in Georgia. Later in 2023, Giuliani lost a $148-million defamation lawsuit for his false claims about two election workers in Georgia, and unsuccessfully attempted to declare bankruptcy; he later reached a settlement to pay damages awarded to the election workers. In April 2024, he was indicted on charges related to the 2020 election in Arizona. He was disbarred in the state of New York in July and in the District of Columbia in September. In November 2025, Trump issued a federal pardon to Giuliani.

Early life and education

Giuliani was born on May 28, 1944, in the East Flatbush section of Brooklyn, New York City, which at the time of his birth was a largely Italian American enclave of Brooklyn. He is the only child of working-class parents Helen (née D'Avanzo) and Harold Angelo Giuliani, both children of Italian immigrants. Harold Giuliani, a plumber and a bartender, had trouble holding a job, was convicted of felony assault and robbery, and served prison time in Sing Sing. Once released, Harold worked as an enforcer for his brother-in-law Leo D'Avanzo, who operated an organized crime-affiliated loan sharking and gambling ring from a restaurant in Brooklyn.

Giuliani was raised a Roman Catholic. When he was seven years old, his family moved from Brooklyn to Garden City South on Long Island, where he attended the local Catholic school, St. Anne's. Later, he commuted back to Brooklyn to attend Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School, from which he graduated in 1961. Giuliani attended Manhattan College in Riverdale, Bronx, where he majored in political science with a minor in philosophy. Giuliani was elected president of his class in his second year, but was not re-elected in his junior year. He joined the Phi Rho Pi college forensic fraternity and honor society. He graduated in 1965. Giuliani considered becoming a priest but decided to attend New York University School of Law in Manhattan, where he was a member of the New York University Law Review, and graduated cum laude with a Juris Doctor degree in 1968.

Legal career

Giuliani started his career and political life as a Democrat, working as a Democratic Party committeeman on Long Island in the mid-1960s. In 1968, he volunteered for Robert F. Kennedy's campaign in the 1968 U.S. presidential election, and voted for George McGovern in the 1972 U.S. presidential election. After graduating from law school, Giuliani clerked for Judge Lloyd Francis MacMahon, U.S. district judge for the Southern District of New York.

Giuliani did not serve in the military during the Vietnam War. His conscription was deferred while he was enrolled at Manhattan College and NYU Law. Upon graduation from law school in 1968, he was classified 1-A (available for military service), but in 1969 he was reclassified 2-A (essential civilian) as Judge MacMahon's law clerk. In 1970, Giuliani was reclassified 1-A but received a high 308 draft lottery number and was not called up for service.

U.S. associate deputy attorney general

Giuliani switched his party registration from Democratic to independent in 1975. This occurred during a period of time in which he was recruited for a position in Washington, D.C., with the Ford administration. Giuliani served as the associate deputy attorney general and chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Harold "Ace" Tyler.

His first high-profile prosecution was of Democratic U.S. representative Bertram L. Podell (NY-13), who was convicted of corruption. Podell pleaded guilty to conspiracy and conflict of interest for accepting more than $41,000 in campaign contributions and legal fees from a Florida airline to obtain federal rights for a Bahama route. Podell, who maintained a legal practice while serving in Congress, said the payments were legitimate legal fees. The Washington Post later reported, "The trial catapulted future New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani to front-page status when, as assistant U.S. attorney, he relentlessly cross-examined an initially calm Rep. Podell. The congressman reportedly grew more flustered and eventually decided to plead guilty."

From 1977 to 1981, during the Carter administration, Giuliani practiced law at the Patterson, Belknap, Webb and Tyler law firm as chief of staff to his former boss Ace Tyler. In later years, Tyler became "disillusioned" by what Tyler described as Giuliani's time as U.S. attorney, criticizing several of his prosecutions as "overkill". On December 8, 1980, one month after the 1980 U.S. presidential election brought Republicans back to power in Washington, he switched his party affiliation from independent to Republican. Giuliani later said the switches were because he found Democratic policies "naïve", and that "by the time I moved to Washington, the Republicans had come to make more sense to me." Others suggested that the switches were made to get positions in the Justice Department. Giuliani's mother maintained in 1988 that he "only became a Republican after he began to get all these jobs from them. He's definitely not a conservative Republican. He thinks he is, but he isn't. He still feels very sorry for the poor."

U.S. associate attorney general

In 1981, Giuliani was named U.S. Associate Attorney General in the Reagan administration, the third-highest position in the U.S. Department of Justice…