Bertram “Bert” Fields, the older entertainment lawyer whose list of clients and studio stars spoke to a penchant for legal threats with rhetorical flourishes, along with the ability to win lucrative settlements, has died at his Malibu home, his representative confirmed to diverse. He was 93 years old.
Fields thrived on the idea that he never lost a trial, and even if Perry Mason’s reputation wasn’t quite right, he was a relentless litigant who set some of the industry’s most famous cases in the ’80s and ’90s, with clients that included Warren Beatty, Tom Cruise , The Beatles, Edward J. Robinson, Michael Jackson, Rupert Murdoch, and, at one time or another, almost all the major studios.
Defining his style as akin to military combat, Fields told Ken Olita of The New Yorker in 2006, “If I were a general, I would attack, keep pressing on the attack, to throw the opponent off balance, to change the odds and make compromise your way more convenient.”
When Jeffrey Katzenberg sued The Walt Disney Company, and the case went to trial in 1999, Fields pressed the company’s CEO Michael Eisner about referring to his former lieutenant as “that little dwarf.” Eisner called Fields’s line of questioning “unwise,” but the thorny Mughal testimony seemed to discredit Disney, and the studio soon settled, reportedly, for a whopping $250 million.
talk about the case for diverse In July 2012, Katzenberg said, “There was a proverbial smoke gun. Burt was able to find it and then you know what to do with it. He was a real Perry Mason.”
Harvey Weinstein, who used Fields to unlink his company from Disney, told the New York Times in 2005, “In entertainment, going into a lawsuit without Burt Fields is like walking in the North Pole without a jacket.”
He searched for a time when the zeal he brought on on behalf of clients would be used against him. During the federal government’s investigation of Special Counsel Anthony Pellicano and the wiretapping scandal that stunned Hollywood during the mid-2000s, Fields was listed as the “subject” of the investigation even though it was not a target. He insisted throughout, that although he had employed Pelicano on numerous occasions, he was unaware of the eavesdropping. He has not been charged.
In one of his most famous cases, writer and director Eileen May represented her when she was sued by Paramount over her late submission to the 1976 film “Mickey and Nicky.” The case illustrated how far Fields would go in an effort to win the final cut for a director’s clientele, an effort he repeated several years later for a Petty client while defying cuts on Reds to watch TV.
He merged his own company with another in 1982, producing what became known as Greenberg Glusker Fields Claman & Machtinger. Fields was a close friend of Michael Ovitz as the latter built the CAA, and they engaged clients in the referral.
For a time, it looked as if Fields played a role in every thorny Hollywood legal dispute in the public domain: In the 1980s, the Beatles represented the Apple Corps as they sought to shut down the “Beatlemania” show, and the decision cemented celebrities’ ability to control their public image. In the 1990s, he represented Katzenberg in his lawsuit against Disney, Michael Jackson against allegations of child molestation, and DreamWorks in a dispute over the authorship of Steven Spielberg’s Amistad.
The majority of legal disputes were settled before trial or even before the lawsuit was filed. He suffered a rare defeat in court when author Clive Kosler lost a case against Anschutz Entertainment Group in a fight over the script for the movie “Sahara.” But part of the ruling was overturned on appeal.
Fields enjoyed his public profile, and did not shy away from the attention-grabbing reaction, particularly when a client is the subject of gossip and insinuations. After Playboy’s Dr. Drew Pinsky pondered why Tom Cruise was drawn to Scientology, speculating that the actor might have been abused as a child, Fields compared comments made by Dr. Joseph Goebbels.
When Paramount sued the property of Mario Puzo, a client, in 2012, over the rights to work a sequel to “The Godfather,” Fields called the studio’s actions “reprehensible.” As was often the case, Fields represented Paramount (in an appeal against the famous Art Buchwald decision) and its CEO, Brad Gray (he defended him in a suit brought by Garry Shandling).
Fields’ approach to the judge was very different, judicially rather than overly confrontational, and unlike many lawyers, he chose to quote when speaking to the media rather than “not comment.”
“You have to distinguish between what I’m going to say to the press and what I’m going to say in court,” he told The New Yorker. “When I talk to the press, I may be more dramatic.”
Fields enjoyed the company’s perks but avoided some of its rituals, such as lunches. Instead, he was making the 35-minute commute from Century City to his Malibu home for a midday nap.
“I only have strength because I represent strong people,” he told the New York Times. “The day I no longer represent these people, I will end up in the bottom third of their contact papers.”
In the midst of his company’s 30th anniversary in 2012, 83-year-old Fields was still looking to the future, talking to Variety about how “synthespians” are changing the industry — whether SAG-AFTRA liked it or not.
Field was the child of a former ballerina and eye surgeon who had a rocky marriage. For a brief period, he was sent to live with other relatives, even living in a boarding house in Los Angeles during high school. He graduated from the University of California, then Harvard Law School. After a stint in the Air Force, where he worked in the Judge Advocate office for two years, he returned to Los Angeles to work as a judge at a Beverly Hills law firm before opening his own firm.
He had a client list that included Mike Todd, Peter Falk and Jack Webb, and also landed a direct role in an episode of the series “Dragnet”.
Fields was the author of four books, including two racy novels and one that attempted to show that Shakespeare was not the true author of some of his most famous works.
He is survived by his third wife, art expert Barbara Guggenheim, whom he met in the late 1980s when he defended her in a lawsuit brought by Sylvester Stallone over artwork she had recommended for purchase. His first marriage to Amy Markson ended in divorce. He married a model, Lydia Minovich, in 1960, and they remained married until her death in 1986. They had one son, James Fields, an investment banker. He is also survived by his grandson Michael Lane. and his granddaughter Annabelle.
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