He no longer regrets not being mayor....

He no longer regrets not being mayor. ‘I don’t miss it at all. I’m happy.’

The man critics used to call the Traveling Mayor of Los Angeles still has his suitcases packed and his itinerary full of international stopovers. But Sam Yorty’s wanderlust days are now spent solely as a tourist, an ex-politician without portfolio.

In the last few years, Yorty and his wife, Gloria, have ventured to China, Sri Lanka, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates. They returned recently from a South American trip up the Amazon River and a stay in South Africa, a country that Yorty said has been maligned by the media.

“We loved the place. It was so beautiful,” said Yorty, who deplores the City of Los Angeles policy that restricts the city from dealing with businesses that have ties to South Africa, calling it “so dumb.” “Apartheid was being dissolved there” when he visited, he said.

At 78, Yorty has not softened his criticism of the “liberal” press, communism or his political foes, including the man who replaced him as mayor of Los Angeles--Tom Bradley, one of the principal proponents of the city’s anti-apartheid policy.

It was Bradley who defeated Yorty in his final election campaign in 1981, ending a political career that spanned more than four decades and included three terms as mayor and, before that, stints as a state assemblyman and U.S. congressman. He also ran twice for governor, four times for the U.S. Senate and once for President.

As a celebrity politician, Yorty as mayor made occasional television appearances on Johnny Carson’s “Tonight Show,” playing his banjo or bantering with his host. As a well-known ex-mayor, he hosted a weekly television show on KCOP-TV.

His City Hall career started out in 1961 by his winning the mayor’s office largely on one issue. Yorty campaigned on a promise to allow homeowners to put all their garbage in a single can, rather than having to discard cans, bottles and paper in separate containers as they had done for years.

Yorty still smiles about that political triumph, and he said recently that his chief legacy as mayor was transforming Los Angeles into an international city, a move that he credited to his globe-trotting as mayor.

As he spoke, Yorty sat comfortably in the living room of his Studio City home that he bought 26 years ago from actor Mickey Rooney in a foreclosure sale. And he proudly displays the photographs of himself with world leaders, his decorations from foreign governments and other memorabilia from a long political life.

Although largely retired, Yorty said he still occasionally practices law and dabbles in politics. But for the most part, he reads, travels and sees old friends, among them City Council President John Ferraro, actor Buddy Rogers and broadcaster George Putnam.

Last year, Yorty remarried. His first wife, Elizabeth Louise (Betts) Yorty, died in 1984, and a year before, his son, William Egan Yorty, died of cancer at 37.

About his City Hall days, Yorty said he has few regrets and no yearning to turn back the clock.

“I don’t miss it at all,” Mayor Sam said. “I’m happy.”