Lawyer to Celebrities Is Subject of Inquiry

THE STATE

The names cited in an indictment of private eye Anthony Pellicano read like a road map leading to Bertram Fields and his famous clients.

February 07, 2006|Robert W. Welkos | Times Staff Writer

A UCLA graduate who attended Harvard Law School, Fields has been front-and-center in some of Hollywood's headline-grabbing lawsuits since he started out representing such clients as Jack Webb of "Dragnet" fame and actor Edward G. Robinson.

More recently, he has bedeviled the Walt Disney Co. in a number of cases, settling former studio chief Jeffrey Katzenberg's breach of contract lawsuit for more than $250 million, and representing Miramax founders Harvey and Bob Weinstein in their business dispute with Disney. He also for a time fought Disney over royalties involving the "Winnie the Pooh" franchise.

Fields also represented Paramount in the "Coming to America" case in which humor columnist Art Buchwald said he had the original idea for the film.

Along with his legal exploits, Fields also has developed a second career as a historian, publishing a recent book investigating the identity of William Shakespeare, and another on King Richard III. He also publishes pulp novels under the pen name D. Kincaid.

Times staff writers Claudia Eller and Chuck Philips in Los Angeles and Paul Lieberman in New York contributed to this report.

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