Melvin Mouron Belli (July 29, 1907 â€" July 9, 1996)[better source
needed] was a prominent American lawyer known as "The King of Torts"
and by insurance companies as "Melvin Bellicose". He had many
celebrity clients, including Zsa Zsa Gabor, Errol Flynn, Chuck Berry,
Muhammad Ali, The Rolling Stones, Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye Bakker,
Martha Mitchell, Maureen Connolly, Lana Turner, Tony Curtis, and Mae
West. During his legal career, he won over $600 million in damages for
his clients.[better source needed] He was also the attorney for Jack
Ruby, who shot Lee Harvey Oswald for the assassination of President
John F. Kennedy.Belli was born in the California Gold Rush town of
Sonora, California, in the Sierra Nevada foothills. His parents were
of Italian ancestry from Switzerland. His grandmother, Anna Mouron,
was the first female pharmacist in California. By the 1920s, the
family had moved to the city of Stockton, California where Belli
attended Stockton High School.Belli graduated from the University of
California, Berkeley in 1929. After traveling around the world, he
received his law degree from the Boalt Hall School of Law at Berkeley
in 1933.Following his admission to the California bar, his first job
was posing as a hobo for the Works Progress Administration and riding
the rails to observe the Depression's impact on the country's vagrant
population. His first major legal victory came shortly after
graduation, in a personal injury lawsuit representing an injured cable
car gripman. Over insurance lawyers' objections, Belli brought a model
of a cable car intersection, and the gear box and chain involved in
the accident, to demonstrate to jurors exactly what had happened.
needed] was a prominent American lawyer known as "The King of Torts"
and by insurance companies as "Melvin Bellicose". He had many
celebrity clients, including Zsa Zsa Gabor, Errol Flynn, Chuck Berry,
Muhammad Ali, The Rolling Stones, Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye Bakker,
Martha Mitchell, Maureen Connolly, Lana Turner, Tony Curtis, and Mae
West. During his legal career, he won over $600 million in damages for
his clients.[better source needed] He was also the attorney for Jack
Ruby, who shot Lee Harvey Oswald for the assassination of President
John F. Kennedy.Belli was born in the California Gold Rush town of
Sonora, California, in the Sierra Nevada foothills. His parents were
of Italian ancestry from Switzerland. His grandmother, Anna Mouron,
was the first female pharmacist in California. By the 1920s, the
family had moved to the city of Stockton, California where Belli
attended Stockton High School.Belli graduated from the University of
California, Berkeley in 1929. After traveling around the world, he
received his law degree from the Boalt Hall School of Law at Berkeley
in 1933.Following his admission to the California bar, his first job
was posing as a hobo for the Works Progress Administration and riding
the rails to observe the Depression's impact on the country's vagrant
population. His first major legal victory came shortly after
graduation, in a personal injury lawsuit representing an injured cable
car gripman. Over insurance lawyers' objections, Belli brought a model
of a cable car intersection, and the gear box and chain involved in
the accident, to demonstrate to jurors exactly what had happened.
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