Movie star-turned-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's first State of the State address and first budget overshadowed another historic political event this week: the retirement of Willie Brown after nearly 40 years in public office.

Brown ended eight years as mayor of San Francisco on Thursday, turning over the office to designated successor Gavin Newsom. His mayoral reign followed 31 years in the state Assembly, a record 15 of them as speaker and the self-proclaimed "ayatollah of the Legislature."

Newspaper articles have reviewed Brown's long, event-filled political career, celebrated his personal flamboyance -- his clothes, his dashing lifestyle, his parade of female companions -- and tried to assess his legacy, but even the most generous journalistic chroniclers could find precious little of the latter.

Brown was certainly a dominating persona in the Capitol, and an entertaining one, but he never displayed more than passing interest in public policy. Mostly, he used his huge talents to bolster personal and partisan control, and to broker deals on matters affecting major interest groups, especially those with millions of campaign dollars to disburse, the infamous "napkin deal" affecting personal injury lawsuits being a prime example.

Brown's wheeler-dealer ways encouraged the anything-goes atmosphere that infused the Capitol during the 1980s, leading to a federal undercover investigation of influence peddling that sent a flock of lobbyists, political staffers and politicians to prison. Brown may even have been the chief target of the investigation, although the ever-wily politician was careful, unlike less talented colleagues, not to provably cross the legal line separating politics-as-usual from bribery.

While Brown was not snagged in the feds' corruption net, the sensational series of cases so disgusted voters that they imposed term limits on the Legislature in 1990, and that, eventually, pushed Brown out of the Capitol and into City Hall. And in that new arena, he performed pretty much as he had in Sacramento, dispensing favors to his pals and sycophants, brokering deals on development projects and other matters, and walking the line.

The local media -- especially the late columnist Herb Caen -- had presented a false picture of Brown during his Sacramento days, dwelling on the bon vivant side and glossing over his less seemly political deals. As mayor, however, Brown found the local media to be more inquisitive about his deal-making, especially when it involved his pals, and eventually his public standing diminished. Had Brown's mayoral reign not been ended by term limits, it well may have been ended by voters.

Bedazzled by Brown's larger-than-life demeanor, those who attempt to assess his official career are missing both his true genius and his most debilitating weakness. The former is his uncanny ability to exploit the vulnerabilities of others with whom he deals, and thus bind them to him. Brown practiced Godfather-like patronage politics in Sacramento and San Francisco, dispensing favors and then collecting debts when he needed to.

Brown cultivated those loyalties, one suspects, because he never felt secure enough, personally or politically, to apply his talents to larger causes. His very flamboyance -- one writer once referred to him as a "piece of living art" -- is, in its own way, a clue to Brown's insatiable need for validation. He needs repetitive confirmation that he's the smartest, hippest, coolest politician around. He needs the spotlight, needs -- much like an actor -- the applause that accompanies each new performance.

Fatefully, Brown's departure from office coincides with the advent of Schwarzenegger, another born-poor, fortune-seeking immigrant to California, and the state's only political figure who could match, and even surpass, Brown's swagger and panache. Just as Brown was the sun around which lesser beings orbited during his many years in the Capitol, so Schwarzenegger has come, in just a few weeks, to dominate the consciousness of the building. And with Schwarzenegger's love of the spotlight, his deal-making and his somewhat devious tactics, one wonders whether Brown has been his tutor.

Could Arnold Schwarzenegger be Willie Brown's true legacy?