Spouse Patricia Cepeda | Succeeded by William Brownfield | |
President Bill ClintonGeorge W. Bush Children Alejandra Cepeda O'Leary and Gabriela Joyce O'Leary Education Clare College, Cambridge, University of Cambridge, Yale University, Yale Law School | ||
John O'Leary (January 16, 1947 – April 2, 2005) served as mayor of Portland, Maine, and as United States ambassador to Chile under President Bill Clinton.
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Personal life
O'Leary was born in Portland and graduated from Yale University in 1969. He later attended Clare College, Cambridge University, on a Mellon fellowship and received a master's degree in 1971. He received a degree from Yale Law School in 1974. While studying at Yale Law, O'Leary acted as a coach for the Yale debate team. He then went on to a private law practice.
O'Leary married a fellow Yale student, Patricia Cepeda, the daughter of Colombian writer Álvaro Cepeda Samudio, a friend of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the Colombian Nobel Prize-winning novelist, journalist and short story writer, for whom Patricia Cepeda O'Leary worked as a translator. John and Patricia O'Leary had two daughters, the eldest of whom is the goddaughter of Marquez. The O'Learys endowed the John O'Leary and Patricia Cepeda Fellowship for the Study of Latin America at Yale College.
Political career
He served as a member of the Portland City Council and for a term as that city's Mayor. He ran unsuccessful candidate for the U.S. House from Maine's First Congressional District in 1982, losing in the Democratic primary.