Today, Bank of America completes its acquisition of Countrywide Financial, and Angelo Mozilo, age 69, will retire as chief executive.

He will be missed—although not by customers now staggering under mortgages they cannot afford, or disappointed shareholders who saw their shares plunge, or the many regulators who are investigating Countrywide's practices and Mozilo's sales of stock.

Mozilo is a colorful character whose like we may not see again on the center stage of American business for some time to come. What other C.E.O. would take the time to read customer complaints or to help the friend of a friend of a friend? (For more on that, see Portfolio.com's complete coverage of Countrywide's V.I.P. loan program here.)

Sure, other entrepreneurs will emerge from this nation's working class to found giant companies, but they will certainly be more savvy about their public image or at least more circumspect than the brash and blunt Mozilo.

A self-made man, Mozilo was not afraid to shoot off his mouth and made no apologies for his huge pay packages. If he were a character in a film or a novel, he might be an unbelievable caricature with his stylish suits, cuffs and handkerchief, and that deep, lined tan. The son of a Bronx butcher, he has long carried a chip on both shoulders.

To mark his exit, here are some memorable Mozilo moments:

THE IMPERIAL C.E.O.: Union pension funds pushed for a resolution at Countrywide's 2007 annual meeting that would give shareholders a nonbinding vote on management compensation. Countrywide opposed the measure. "The shareholders have no clue," Mozilo said at the time, according to the Wall Street Journal.

THE THIN-SKINNED C.E.O.: Congressional investigators this spring released an October 2006 email from Mozilo to a compensation consultant for Countrywide: "Boards have been placed under enormous pressure by the left wing antibusiness press and the envious leaders of unions and other so-called C.E.O. comp watchers. I strongly believe that a decade from now, there will be a recognition that entrepreneurship has been driven out of the public sector, resulting in underperforming companies and unwillingness on the part of boards to pay for performance."

THE BROKEN PROMISE: In October, after Countrywide reported its first quarterly loss in 25 years, Mozilo sought to ease investors' worries, saying that the company would be back in the black in the next quarter. Countrywide had "laid the foundation for a return to profitability in the fourth quarter," he said. In January, after fending off rumors of an imminent bankruptcy filing, Countrywide posted a larger-than-expected loss of $422 million for the fourth quarter.

THE WAYWARD EMAIL: This May, Mozilo mistakenly replied to an email from a troubled Countrywide borrower who was seeking a loan modification. Mozilo wrote: "This is unbelievable. Most of these letters now have the same wording. Obviously they are being counseled by some other person or by the internet. Disgusting."