About Melvin Belli
Melvin Mouron Belli ( BEL-eye; July 29, 1907 – July 9, 1996) was an American lawyer and writer 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. He was also the attorney for Jack Ruby, who shot Lee Harvey Oswald days after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. == Early life == 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 Central Valley city of Stockton, California, where Belli attended the now-defunct Stockton High School. Belli graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1929. After traveling around the world, he returned to the U.C. Berkeley School of Law from which he earned his law degree in 1933.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.