Katzenberg, Cruise, May More Say Goodbye to Hollywood Heavyweight Lawyer - Deadline

Katzenberg, Cruise, May More Say Goodbye to Hollywood Heavyweight Lawyer – Deadline

Hollywood power brokers then and now officially said goodbye to one of their own on Sunday.

Bert Fields, who died Aug. 8 at the age of 93, was celebrated today by his clients, family and colleagues at a memorial service in Santa Monica. Jeffrey Katzenberg, Dustin Hoffman, Susan Estrich and Michael Ovitz paid tribute to Greenberg Glusker Fields partner Claman & Machtinger LLP and industry adviser in front of a well-heeled crowd that included Fields’ widow Barbara Guggenheim, Leslie Moonves and Julie Chen Moonves , Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy, super-producer Jerry Bruckheimer and David Geffen among many others.

Individually, Katzenberg, Hoffman and Ovitz remembered a man who was clearly as much their friend as their lawyer.

“Like the greatest of gladiators, he enjoyed taking on fearsome foes,” said Katzenberg of Fields, who represented him in the late 1990s during Katzenberg’s multimillion-dollar battle with Disney. Calling the lawyer a “kind, loyal and generous friend” and a “superhero”, the former DreamWorks Animation boss made the crowded crowd at the Eli and Edythe Broad stage laugh by noting the “sense of humor villain” by Fields.

Later, an emotional Hoffman spoke of Fields’ “fearless” nature – a quality that was repeated over and over again this afternoon. The Oscar-winning actor called Fields “a man I will always think of…forever in his prime.”

Fields’ longtime clients Tom Cruise and hilarious-hearted Elaine May appeared virtually during the three-hour memorial of mostly masked attendees to offer their condolences and memories of the man.

The Impossible mission The star opened up about first meeting Fields through Hoffman while filming rain man. Stating that he was “grateful” for Fields’ friendship, Cruise called the attorney “the most fascinating person I have ever met.” Cruise added that Fields was “someone I knew I could always rely on.”

“He loved the Davids, he hated the Goliaths,” former CAA chief Ovitz told the audience.

Start with an excerpt from an old Pickup episode featuring a matinee idol-like Fields playing a lawyer in the courtroom, Memorial Sunday began with a video tribute to the life, career, family and sense of absurdity of the lawyer.

Fields’ colleagues, his goddaughter Ali Hoffman and other relatives, including the attorney’s grandchildren Michael and Annabelle Fields, also spoke today at the memorial hosted by Rich Eisen.

But the remarks that clearly belonged on the day belonged to Fields’ widow, Guggenheim. In loving, tearful, Shakespeare-referencing and exuberant but still poised remarks, Guggenheim closed the memorial with an intimate glimpse into the life of the man she had been married to for more than three decades.

“He was always so nice to everyone,” she said in a speech that often saw her voice crack with emotion. Giving insight into Fields’ writings on the lives of Richard III, Shakespeare and Elizabeth I, among other books he wrote, Guggenheim also had news for the crowd. She said that before he died, Fields had completed one last work on William the Conqueror and the history of House Plantagenet.

Praising “her prolific husband’s fighting spirit in all aspects of life”, Guggenheim promised that the work would be published.

A born bon vivant and storyteller as much as he was a lawyer, Fields took pride in his literary endeavors as well as his litigation – a fact that only enhanced his reputation in high-level circles considering that Fields brought Disney and Michael to their knees. Eisner to win $250 million for former studio boss Katzenberg in the late 1990s. Mythologized over the decades as a Jeffrey vs. Goliath showdown, Fields’ systemic legal methodology and somewhat prophetic embrace of technology perspectives for the entertainment industry left Disney attorneys reeling.

Other clients included Cruise, now pariahs Harvey and Bob Weinstein, Avatar kingpin James Cameron, Madonna, Hoffman, Warren Beatty (against Paramount over cuts to famous Reds), the Beatles, Michael Jackson, The Godfather author Mario Puzo and his estate, Star Wars creator George Lucas, Bruckheimer and Steven Spielberg.

However, never hesitating to take off the white gloves, Fields was also dragged into the underbelly of Hollywood. Specifically, the lawyer’s association with disgraced PI Anthony Pellicano, who spent a decade behind bars and was released in 2019, proved problematic. In 2008, Fields testified in the FBI case against Pellicano, whom he had hired many times. In the end, Fields’ skill on the stand and Teflon skin left him relatively untouched by the courtroom drama and Pellicano’s actions.

Although these events were mentioned briefly at the memorial, today’s heavyweight rally made it clear that those dark days are now just a footnote in Fields’ career.

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