Joseph L Alioto

Mr. Alioto's father, Giuseppe, had sailed from Palermo at the age of 9 and later found work on fishing boats in San Francisco Bay. As a young man, he married Domenica Lazio, the daughter of Sicilian immigrants. In fact, he was one of three Alioto brothers who married three Lazio sisters, and they and their many children lived in the same three-story apartment building, making it almost impossible for neighbors to sort out which child went with which couple. Giuseppe Alioto next started his own wholesale fish business and his brothers opened restaurants. Joseph Alioto went on to graduate magna cum laude from St. Mary's College in Moraga, Calif., in 1937 and was awarded a scholarship to law school at Catholic University in Washington. After graduating in 1940, he became an antitrust lawyer for the Government and then, when the United States entered World War II, he went to the Board of Economic Warfare, where he studied German, Italian and Japanese cartels to help determine which factories to bomb. After the war, Mr. Alioto used his antitrust experience to represent movie producers Samuel Goldwyn, Walt Disney and Walter Wanger in suits against the studios and theaters that charged them with monopolistic practices. From 1964 to 1966, he won more than $61 million in damages, mostly for clients challenging big companies in price-fixing cases. The fees made him wealthy and he invested in businesses through his company, Alioto Enterprises. Mr. Alioto married the former Angelina Genaro of Dallas in 1941 and they had six children. He was little known as a candidate when he entered the 1967 race for mayor of San Francisco but he staged a whirlwind 56-day campaign to become only the third Democratic mayor of the city in 60 years.In 1968, Mr. Alioto was regarded as a bright newcomer to the Democratic Party and he was chosen to nominate Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey that year at the Democratic Party Convention in Chicago; there was even talk of a Vice Presidential nomination. In 1969, Mr. Alioto was described by Look magazine as ''enmeshed in a web of alliances with at least six leaders of La Cosa Nostra.'' Alioto denied any wrongdoing and in 1972 a Federal judge in Tacoma announced a directed order of acquittal for Mayor Alioto and the Washington officials. Mr. Alioto lost the Democratic nomination for Governor to Jerry Brown. He also lost his wife. The couple were divorced in 1977. Two years earlier, barred by law from seeking a third term as Mayor, Mr. Alioto returned to his family law practice at Alioto & Alioto. In 1978 he married the former Kathleen Sullivan, an unsuccessful Senate candidate in Massachusetts and a daughter of William H. Sullivan Jr., the then owner of the New England Patriots football team and one of Mr. Alioto's clients. His sons John and Joseph left the family law firm in the early 1990's in but the children reconciled with their father as he neared death. In addition to his wife, Kathleen, his daughter, Angela, his sons John and Joseph, Mr. Alioto is survived by three other sons from his first marriage, Lawrence, Thomas and Michael; two children from his second marriage, Patrick and Domenica, and 11 grandchildren.