Mr. Brizola was born Jan. 22, 1922, in Carazinho, Rio Grande do Sul state. An engineer by training, he began his political career in 1947, when he won a seat in the Rio Grande do Sul Legislature for the Brazilian Labor Party, which he had joined two years earlier.
He rose quickly through the party ranks and in 1954 was elected to the federal congress. One year later, he was elected mayor of Porto Alegre, the capital of Rio Grande do Sul. In 1958, he won the state's gubernatorial race and during his four-year tenure expropriated, without compensation, US-owned utility companies.
In 1962, he was once again elected to the lower house Chamber of Deputies, this time for the state of Guanabara, now Rio de Janeiro. In 1964, the armed forces overthrew leftist President Joao Goulart, fearing he would install a Fidel Castro-like regime in Brazil. Goulart went into exile in neighboring Uruguay and so did Mr. Brizola, his brother-in-law. Mr. Brizola had married Neuza Goulart in 1950.
Mr. Brizola, one of Brazil's most skilled public speakers, was widely viewed as Goulart's successor in the presidential elections scheduled for 1965. According to historian Helio Gaspari, Mr. Brizola created and armed the "Groups of 11" cells designed to resist the military dictatorship.
In many conservative circles, Mr. Brizola was feared more than Goulart, according to the late columnist Carlos Castello Branco.
"The 1964 coup d'etat was really aimed at Mr. Brizola, who was considered by the military far more dangerous than Goulart, " Branco once wrote.
After living in exile in Uruguay, the United States, and Portugal, Mr. Brizola returned to Brazil in 1979, when former President Joao Figueiredo signed an amnesty law.
He quickly returned to politics, founding the Democratic Labor Party and getting elected as governor of Rio de Janeiro state in 1982 and 1990.
He ran for president in 1989, but was narrowly edged out from the runoff second round by Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, then making his first bid for the presidency. That election was won by Fernando Collor de Mello, who was impeached for corruption in 1992.
He took another stab at the presidency in 1994 and lost, and in 1998 was Silva's running mate in an election won by Fernando Henrique Cardoso. He ran for mayor of Rio de Janeiro in 2000 but got just 9 percent of the vote.
Silva, who decreed three days of official mourning, said: "For more than half a century, he was one of the most important political figures in our country."
Mr. Brizola leaves three sons; his wife, Neuza Goulart, died in April 1993.
He was to lie in state in the Governor's Palace of Rio de Janeiro yesterday, and in the governor's palace of Rio Grande do Sul today.
Burial was scheduled for this afternoon in Sao Borja, Rio Grande do Sul state.
