Paul Caruso; Attorney for Celebrities

Paul Caruso, Los Angeles defense and divorce lawyer for about 45 years whose clients included actor and war hero Audie Murphy, boxer Art Aragon, used car dealer Ralph Williams and Charles Manson follower Susan Atkins, has died. He was 81.

Caruso died Tuesday in a Los Angeles residential care facility, said his son, attorney P. Carey Caruso.

“Call Paul” became a popular anthem among celebrities in trouble--whether actors, athletes or accountants--in the Los Angeles of the 1950s through the 1980s. Caruso, a Marine veteran of World War II and the Korean War, was one of the last lawyers admitted to the State Bar of California without attending law school. Nevertheless, he was adept in various areas of law, ranging from criminal cases to civil licensing disputes to divorce.

Probably best known for his criminal defense work, Caruso was elected president of the local Criminal Courts Bar Assn. in 1967, and the same year earned its Jerry Geisler award for winning three acquittals and one dismissal in four first-degree murder trials in a single year.

In 1985, he received the Joe Rosen Lifetime Achievement Award from the same organization.

Among the defendants Caruso represented on murder charges were Atkins, before lawyer Daye Shinn took over her defense in the Tate-La Bianca murders; Eddie Nash, who was accused of four Laurel Canyon slayings; KNXT sportscaster Stan Duke in the gunshot death of radio commentator Averill Berman in a dispute over Duke’s wife, and wealthy Tarzana housewife Carole Evelyn Mellinger, who was accused of killing her husband.

In lesser crimes, Caruso defended car dealer Williams against criminal charges of false advertising--and himself ran afoul of opponent Deputy Dist. Atty. Vincent T. Bugliosi, who accused Caruso of receiving court delays and other favors because he supported the reelection of the man Bugliosi was trying to unseat, Dist. Atty. Joseph P. Busch.

Caruso defended the soft-spoken war hero and actor Murphy against charges of firing a gun at a dog trainer, winning acquittal by knowing his client and choosing the right jury.

“I had 12 World War II veterans in the jury box,” Caruso told The Times years later. The lawyer, to illustrate his verbal arguments about Murphy’s worth, magnified a copy of the actor’s Medal of Honor certificate for the jury’s admiration.

Caruso also defended major financial fraud cases, including those of former Pepperdine University accounting instructor Joseph V. Nash, accused of bilking four Southern California banking institutions out of $900,000, and James P. Lund, charged with swindling the state out of $3 million in unemployment and workers’ compensation taxes, forgery and filing false tax returns.

Represented Boxing Figures

And then there were the sports guys. Caruso’s legal colleagues welcomed him to lunch at a popular downtown watering hole one day in 1970 by dropping their pants and dancing around the table in boxer shorts. The stunt was a salute to Caruso’s growing reputation as the “barrister of boxing.”

To earn that accolade, Caruso won reinstatement of the State Athletic Commission license for veteran fight promoter George Parnassus, defended Aragon on allegations of trying to bribe welterweight opponent Dick Goldstein to take a dive in their 1957 fight, and handled contract and other disputes for manager Willie Ketchum, heavyweight Jerry Quarry, lightweight champion Ismael Laguna and Panamanian fight promoter Jorge Panay.

The colorful lawyer worked out a trade for Angel pitcher Bo Belinsky after he was sent down to the Angels’ Hawaii farm club in 1964 after an altercation with a Times sportswriter. And Caruso sued UCLA and Lew Alcindor, later known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, for $1 million in 1969 on behalf of American Basketball Assn. player Dennis Grey, whose jaw was broken in a dust-up between the two at a pickup basketball game.

Caruso’s popularity among sports figures got him elected president of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Football Foundation and Hall of Fame in the mid-1960s.

Born to Sicilian immigrants in upstate New York, Caruso remained boastfully proud of his Italian heritage and in 1978 became founding president of the Italian American Lawyers Assn.

Caruso also headed and was a longtime supporter of Viking Charities, which benefits handicapped children.

He was well connected in the Los Angeles of his era, numbering friends among entertainers, politicians, newsmen and sports figures as well as lawyers and judges. When Caruso married model Lucille Anderson in 1950, actor Macdonald Carey hosted the wedding reception.

Known for sticking by his friends, Caruso in 1987 opened his home for a fund-raiser to help defray the legal defense costs of Beverly Hills Judge Charles D. Boags, who was accused of illegally suspending parking fines. “I happen to believe in Charlie Boags,” Caruso told critics, “and I want to help him any way I can.”

The lawyer loved the limelight and often sought the company and attention of the news media. But he also reacted like a lawyer--by filing slander suits--when he disliked the result. In 1985, he sued then-KNBC-TV legal reporter Harvey Levin and NBC for $50 million for stating on the air that “Caruso thinks in close cases, justice can be bought.”

Memorial Service

Caruso, whose first wife died in 1980, is survived by his second wife, Gloria Salamone Caruso; three sons, Carey, Doug and Vito; two daughters, Lucille Caruso Ball and Regina Caruso Jobling; one stepdaughter, Gina Salamone; two sisters, Rose Madden and Gloria Petrick, and nine grandchildren.

A memorial service is scheduled for 4 to 6 p.m. Sunday at Casa Italiana.

The family has suggested that, instead of flowers, memorial donations be made either to Viking Charities, 425 S. Beverly Drive, Beverly Hills, CA 90212-4401, or to the Italian American Lawyers Assn., 5455 Wilshire Blvd. Suite 1706, Los Angeles, CA 90036-4217.