Albert V. Gaudiosi, 86, key Rizzo cabinet officer

Albert V. Gaudiosi, 86, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who was the architect of Frank L. Rizzo's first successful mayoral election and played a key role in the Rizzo administration, died of complications from lymphoma Wednesday, April 7, at Life Signs Plaza in Houston.

In the early 1960s, Mr. Gaudiosi was an investigative reporter with the Evening Bulletin, working on an expose about a South Philadelphia numbers racket operation with police collusion. In the course of his reporting, Mr. Gaudiosi met Rizzo, a chief inspector in the Philadelphia Police Department.

Though the men might have been adversaries, they became friends, said Ken Mugler, who later became Rizzo's press secretary. Rizzo nicknamed the 5-foot-5 Gaudiosi "the Bullfrog."

In 1964, Mr. Gaudiosi and two other Bulletin staffers won a Pulitzer for the series on the racket, which resulted in arrests and a cleanup of the Police Department.

Mr. Gaudiosi later left the Bulletin to run Rizzo's mayoral campaign.

"He had an analytical mind and was three steps ahead of everyone else when there was a problem that had to be solved. He protected Rizzo and kept him away from controversy," said Mugler, who did the advertising for the Rizzo campaign.

After Rizzo became mayor in 1972, Mr. Gaudiosi helped run Richard M. Nixon's presidential campaign in Pennsylvania. He was offered a job in the Nixon administration, but did not want to uproot his family in Lower Merion, Mugler said.

Mr. Gaudiosi was deputy director of Philadelphia '76, helping to plan the Bicentennial celebration, when Rizzo tapped him in 1976 to assume the roles of city commerce director and city representative. Mr. Gaudiosi asked Mugler to be Rizzo's press secretary.

During the Bicentennial events, "he was on top of everything," Mugler said, including visits to Philadelphia by Queen Elizabeth II and President Gerald R. Ford.

Mr. Gaudiosi also orchestrated the city's response to the Legionnaires' disease crisis in the summer of 1976 and the school funding crisis in the summer of 1977. He put together the final push for federal funding for the Center City commuter tunnel and dealt with the corruption-plagued Redevelopment Authority.

He was a powerful member of the mayor's cabinet, Mugler said, because he was the one person who could respectfully say no to Rizzo.

In 1977, when Rizzo ignored Mr. Gaudiosi's advice and decided to fight to change the City Charter so that he could run for a third term, Mr. Gaudiosi resigned.

Rizzo lost the fight and in 1978, Mr. Gaudiosi announced he would become a Democratic candidate for mayor. He withdrew his name before the primary.

Mr. Gaudiosi went on to become a political consultant and a public relations adviser. For several years, he was editor of the Legal Intelligencer, before retiring in the early 1990s. He and his wife, Cecilia Truxell Gaudiosi, lived in the Packer Park section of the city until moving to Houston three years ago to be close to their daughter, Monica.

Growing up with eight older siblings in West Philadelphia, Mr. Gaudiosi helped out in his mother's grocery store. His father died when he was 8. He graduated from St. Thomas More High School in Overbrook. More, martyred for defying King Henry VIII, "was Al's role model," Mugler said.

Mr. Gaudiosi attended St. Joseph's University before serving in the Navy in the Seabees in the Pacific during World War II.

After his discharge, he earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Pennsylvania while working as a copy boy at The Inquirer. He later became a reporter at The Inquirer, where he met his future wife, who was a secretary there. Mr. Gaudiosi loved betting on the horses, and when he and his wife married in 1960, a guest quipped that "Al finally got a winner," longtime friend Lawrence Campbell said.

Mr. Gaudiosi told a reporter in 1971 that he was the worst horse player in the history of the Western world. For years, all his money went to the horses, he said. All this stopped when a filly he had bet on suddenly jumped the inside fence during a race in Atlantic City. "She then dived into the lake, jockey and all," Mr. Gaudiosi said. The horse, with the name Nautical Gal, drowned.

Mr. Gaudiosi was an Eagles and Phillies fan and loved vacationing at the Jersey Shore with his family, his son, Eric, said.

In addition to his wife and children, Mr. Gaudiosi is survived by a grandson.

Services will be private.