American lawyer, TV judge, politician and author. He was the ebullient Mayor of New York City from 1977 to a third four-year term November 1985. A corruptions scandal rocked his career in 1986 but did not sully his clean record. A politician since the late 1950s, a Congressman in 1968, serving for nine years and New York’s 105th Mayor for 12 years, he left office December 1989, replaced by David Dinkins.
Born during the depression, the son of Polish Jewish immigrants Louis Koch, a furrier and hatcheck and his wife Joyce Silpe, he was working by age 12. A combat soldier in WW II, he attended New York University law school. Known as confident, entertaining, energetic and brash, his days were crammed with TV, public ceremonies, City Hall and writing two memoirs, “Mayor,” 1985 and “Politics,” December 1985.
After leaving mayorship in 1989 he has become a one-man media circus, with an annual seven-figure salary. He lectures around the country, is a partner in a law firm, hosts a daily radio show, writes movie reviews for local newspapers and is host-judge of his TV series “The People’s Court.”
Though he suffers from arrhythmia and had a mild stroke in 1987, he maintains a hectic daily schedule, working a session with his personal trainer for an hour each day. Eight years removed from office and Koch is still recognized everywhere he goes and revels in it. He’s quoted, “You never lose the title. But for some, I’m now The Judge. I like that too.”
On 1 July 1999, he underwent an emergency angioplasty to relieve chest pain, Manhattan, NY.
Koch died at New York-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City on the morning of 1 February 2013, after a period of repeated hospitalization.
Link to Wikipedia biography