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 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.
