Best way to allocate memory in the constructor

Hi,

What's the best way to allocate memory in the constructor and avoid
memory leaks if the constructor fails?

Let's say that in my constructor, I have to allocate memory
with malloc (i.e. an array of char *)several times, and one
of them fails.

What's the best way to deallocate the previously allocated memory?
Is the destructor being called if I "return" in the middle of
the constructor body? If not, is it a good idea to call explicity
the constructor in order to clean the memory?

At the moment, I simply check every allocation and if the check fails
I deallocate all the memory previously allocated, but this produces
a lot of code duplication.

Example:
    if ((first = (char *)malloc(sizeof(....)) == NULL)
        return;
    if ((second = (char *)malloc.... )) == NULL) {
        free(first); return;
    }
    if ((third = (int *)malloc... )) == NULL) {
        free(second);
        free(first);
        return;
    }
    // and so on!

Thanks in advance for your help.
Salvo

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