Lawyer Melvin Belli, The `King Of Torts,' Dies At Home At 88

SAN FRANCISCO - On the roof of the city's elegant Belli Building, a cannon and flagpole stood ready. Over the years, the raising of the flag and the boom of the cannon meant one thing: Melvin Belli had won another case.

The feisty barrister, whose clients ranged from Mae West to Muhammad Ali to Jack Ruby, died yesterday surrounded by family at his San Francisco home. He was 88.

Mr. Belli had pancreatic cancer, had a stroke last week and developed pneumonia last weekend, said his fifth wife, Nancy Ho Belli.

The "King of Torts" claimed to have won more than $600 million in damages for his clients, keeping a third for himself as commission. Though in the end, he filed for personal bankruptcy.

Mr. Belli wrote or co-wrote 72 books, including five volumes of "Modern Trials," widely used in law classes.

Despite a client list that included Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, Lana Turner and the Rolling Stones, Mr. Belli also took pride in defending people who weren't famous.

He sought damages for 24,000 victims of a toxic gas disaster in Bhopal, India, and for families of sailors killed in an Iraqi jet attack on a U.S. Navy frigate.

The only son of a banker, Mr. Belli was born July 29, 1907, in the Gold Rush town of Sonora. His father sued to get his son's high-school diploma after Mr. Belli, the valedictorian, was expelled for vandalism.

He began his career defending insurance companies for $50 a week, then moved into criminal law.

In the late 1930s, Mr. Belli became well-known for his pioneering use of "demonstrative evidence" after his representation of an injured cable-car gripman. The client won his case after Mr. Belli dragged a large model of a cable-car intersection into court.

Mr. Belli would do almost anything, even ask a client disfigured by breast surgery to disrobe before a jury, to win a case. The woman won substantial damages in 1949.

When asked what he was thinking when the woman disrobed, Mr. Belli said, "I could hear the angels sing and the cash register ring."

When Mr. Belli won a case, the flag on the roof of the Belli Building was raised and the cannon fired, telling the neighborhood he had done it again. On Friday, the cannon will be fired in his memory, and the flag may be raised, too.

"We might do that - run up on the roof and hoist the old Jolly Roger," Mr. Belli's son, Melvin Caesar Belli, said today.

Mr. Belli filed for personal bankruptcy last December, and his firm was being managed by an examiner.

His finances had suffered from an expensive 1991 divorce from his fourth wife and his firm's failure to collect $200 million from Dow Corning after a lawsuit over silicone breast implants.

Mr. Belli is survived by his wife, three sons, three daughters, two stepchildren, 10 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.