Richard J. Riordan, a Queens-born lawyer, businessman and former mayor of Los Angeles who led the city at a particularly divisive time and brought a free-enterprise approach to rebuilding the city’s infrastructure after a devastating earthquake in 1994, died on Wednesday at his home in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles.
Mr. Riordan, whose unfiltered speech occasionally got him into trouble, began his career in business and turned to politics later in life.
He was elected mayor in 1993, in his first effort at electoral politics, and served until 2001, prevented by term limits from seeking a third term.
A moderate Republican, Mr. Riordan came to politics in 1992, when it became clear that Tom Bradley, the Democratic five-term incumbent mayor, would not seek re-election.
Mr. Riordan, then 62, was encouraged by friends to run, in part because of his solid ties across the political spectrum.