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Kenny Kahn Dies at 66
L.A. Defense Attorney Moonlighted as a Comedian
A reception and celebration of Kenny's life
was held on
his 67th birthday, June 17, 2009, in Venice, CA.
Click here to view
the FOX News video coverage (about 30 seconds load time)
Kahn, a Santa Monica resident, had a side career as a suit-wearing, briefcase-toting stand-up comic. As a lawyer, he
may be best known for representing convicted spy Andrew Daulton Lee.
 Kenneth
Kahn, a Los Angeles criminal defense attorney who had a side career as a briefcase-toting comic in a double-breasted suit who
irreverently poked fun at the legal system, has died. He was 66.
Kahn, a Santa Monica resident, died Wednesday, May 27, 2009 in a hospital in Cuzco, Peru, after suffering massive internal injuries in a fall while
climbing the mountain above the Incan ruins of Machu Picchu alone, according to information provided to Bob Mazza, Kahn's public
relations consultant.
Kahn had retired from his full-time law practice earlier this year and decided to fulfill a dream of traveling to South America, Mazza
said.
As a lawyer, Kahn may be best known for representing convicted spy Andrew Daulton Lee, whom Sean Penn portrayed in the 1985 movie "The
Falcon and the Snowman."
He also represented musician Ike Turner for a probation violation and Larry Flynt when the Hustler magazine publisher was charged with
desecrating an American flag after showing up in a courthouse wearing a flag as a diaper.
But there was that other side of Kahn, who began moonlighting as a stand-up comic in the mid-'90s and carried a business card that
boasted: Kenny Kahn. World's Funniest Attorney.
"Kenny was a unique blend as a lawyer and comedian," attorney Robert Shapiro said in a statement. "He grew up in a horrific childhood
and achieved tremendous success in the legal profession. He will be missed by all of us."
Kahn chronicled his childhood in his 2005 book "The Carny Kid: Survival of a Young Thief."
Born in Los Angeles on June 17, 1942, he spent his early years on the midway at Ocean Park Pier, a Santa Monica amusement area. His
father was a carnival hustler who rigged pinball machines and games of chance, he wrote in his book, and both of his parents were
heroin addicts.
When he was 8, Kahn wrote, his mother was jailed for having sex with a minor. His father left the family, and Kahn and his younger
brother, Ricki, were sent to a foster home.
The boys' parents reentered their lives a year later, taking them along for a summer of rigging carnival games at county fairs.
By 1952, Kahn was earning up to $40 a day shortchanging customers at the dime-toss booth.
In 1954, the family moved to Ramona Gardens, an Eastside public housing project, where their apartment quickly became a shooting
gallery for junkies.
Two years later, while attending Lincoln High School, the 15-year-old Kahn was stricken with non-paralytic polio. After time as a
patient at White Memorial Hospital in Boyle Heights, he returned to school on crutches.
At Lincoln High, social studies teacher Raymond Lopez provided a positive role model.
"I didn't see any people living in the projects with college degrees," Kahn told The Times in 2005. "Lopez set off a spark in me that
ignited a thirst for knowledge."
While in high school, Kahn won speech contests and was elected student body president in 1958.
When he graduated, his mother -- now drug-free -- was there to see him accept the American Legion "Boy of the Year" award.
While continuing to spend summers with his father on the carnival circuit, Kahn worked his way through Los Angeles City College and
UCLA, where he studied political science and graduated in 1962.
He went on to graduate from UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law in 1965. |
