New York's feisty, zany mayor from 1978 to 1989, Koch has been a lawyer, film critic, TV judge, crime novelist, and pitchman since retiring from politics.

Born to Russian-Jewish immigrants, Koch spent his childhood in New Jersey and attended City College before heading off to Europe to serve as an infantryman in WWII. Returning to New York after the war, Koch jumped into the political game in the 1950s as a volunteer for presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson. Koch soon fashioned a political career for himself, heading up a reform group called the Greenwich Village Independent Democrats before mounting a losing bid campaign for State Assembly in 1966. He did better the second time around. He ran for House in 1968 and won, and went on to spend four terms in Congress. In 1977, Koch entered the race for mayor and beat out Mario Cuomo in a particularly nasty primary to earn the Democratic nomination, then easily defeated Roy Goodman in the general election. His grand prize? A city on the edge of bankruptcy, saddled with a $1 billion deficit. Koch trimmed the budget and brought the city back from the brink, but after three terms in the office, Koch's popularly soon subsided. A series of scandals involving city officials eroded his popular support in the late '80s, and he ended up losing his fourth primary to then-Manhattan Borough President David Dinkins.

Outspoken, outrageous, and a little kooky, Koch's career since leaving Gracie Mansion has been equally quirky. He's done some of the things you'd expect a former mayor to do—he taught at NYU for a spell and joined a law firm. But he's also been a judge on The People's Court, reviewed films for a couple of community newspapers, made cameos in a bunch of TV shows and films, acted as a paid spokesman for Snapple and FreshDirect, and written both political missives and crime dramas.

Koch is gay. Although he's never publicly acknowledged his sexual orientation, it's been an open secret for years. (During the heated campaign of 1977, Cuomo supporters of tried to smear Koch by holding up signs that read, "Vote for Cuomo, not the homo," which generated years of animosity between the two Dems.) While in office, Koch routinely denied the rumors about his sexuality; nowadays he generally just laughs off questions when asked. (His record on gay rights as mayor, though, was mixed; many gay groups criticized him for inaction in the face of the AIDS crisis of the 1980s.) [Image via Getty]