On July 1, 2013, EricGarcetti became the 42nd elected Mayor of American Los Angeles and the 86th person to lead the city since its founding in 1781 as a Spanish settlement. Garcetti was born in Los Angeles in 1971. His father, Gil Garcetti, served as Los Angeles County District Attorney from 1992 to 2000. His mother is Jewish, making Garcetti the first elected Jewish mayor of Los Angeles (in 1878, Bernard Cohn, who was Jewish, served briefly as mayor of Los Angeles after the elected mayor died in office). At the time of his election, Garcetti, age 42, also became the youngest mayor of Los Angeles in more than 100 years.
In college, Garcetti served on the Student Council at Columbia University. In 1993, he received a Masters of International Affairs from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. He became a Rhodes Scholar at The Queen's College, Oxford, and further studied at the London School of Economics.
Garcetti was a visiting instructor of International Affairs at the University of Southern California and assistant professor of Diplomacy and World Affairs at Occidental College. He served on the California Board of Human Rights Watch.
Garcetti was first elected to the Los Angeles City Council in 2001. He was reelected in 2005 and again in 2009. During that time, he served as Los Angeles City Council President from 2006 to 2012. He declared his candidacy for mayor of Los Angeles on September 8, 2011.
From 2010-2012, Garcetti appeared as "Ramon Quintero", the Mayor of Los Angeles on the fictional TNT television show The Closer and its spin-off Major Crimes. Garcetti's father, Gil Garcetti served as a consulting producer on both series.
Garcetti lives in Echo Park with his wife Amy Elaine Wakeland, whom he wed in January 2009. He also serves as a Lieutenant in the United States Navy Reserve.
