Ed Lee, San Francisco's first Asian-American mayor, dies at 65

Lee, who had been mayor since 2011, suffered a heart attack while grocery shopping in his neighborhood, former Mayor Willie Brown told CNN affiliate KPIX that he had learned. Lee's office didn't immediately release his cause of death.

"I don't know San Francisco without Ed Lee," Brown told KPIX. "He clearly had ... a lot more to give to the city. I'm going to miss him personally, and I think the city will miss him."

Lee died at 1:11 a.m. at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital with relatives, friends and colleagues by his side, city officials said.

Board of Supervisors President London Breed became acting mayor upon Lee's death, the mayor's office said, citing succession rules in the city's charter.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with his wife Anita, his two daughters, Brianna and Tania, and his entire family," Breed said outside the hospital early Tuesday. She said she would speak with reporters later Tuesday at City Hall.

Lee had been expected to conduct meetings Tuesday at City Hall, according to his official schedule. On Monday, he was at a city event promoting a recycling program, and was seen smiling and shaking hands, CNN affiliate KGO reported.

Lee, a Seattle native, graduated from Maine's Bowdoin College in 1974 and earned his law degree at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1978.

After becoming a civil rights attorney, he began decades of work in city government in the late 1980s when he was named investigator for the city's first Whistle Blower's Ordinance. Serving under four mayors, he would become human rights commission director, city purchaser and public works director.

In 2011, the Board of Supervisors appointed Lee, then the city administrator, to fill the rest of the term of Mayor Gavin Newsom, who left to become California's lieutenant governor.

Lee was elected to his own term later in 2011 and re-elected in 2015 as mayor of the consolidated city-county government.

Serving as the first Asian-American mayor -- in a county where more than 35% of residents are of Asian descent -- is part of "the height of his legacy," said Brown, the mayor from 1996 to 2004.

"Unlike all the rest of us (who) got elected -- we got elected by our own skills to convince people and to sell people on us as an idea -- Ed Lee earned that title by demonstration of being an efficient person who could manage a huge enterprise like San Francisco," Brown told KPIX.