There have been plenty of "insider" stories to come out of the shocking Tom Cruise-Katie Holmes split.
But, The Hollywood Reporter's dissection of a week in the life
of Cruise's attorney Bert Fields may be the first look from the legal
perspective to come out of the former couple's divorce drama.
THR reports
that Fields, 83, spent the July 4 holiday, and the 10 days that
followed, handling the ins and outs of Cruise's divorce settlement, as
well as working for his other star clients and catching a movie.
Some of the highlights from Fields' busy week and a half.
- July 4: Fields secretly flies to New York to sit down with Holmes' legal team, which may have included her father, Martin.
- July 8:
Fields goes back to L.A. to continue working on the divorce settlement
details. "Fortunately, I didn't have any (scheduled) court appearances
(that) week," he tells THR.
- July 9:
Deluged with media requests and combating inaccuracies in the tabloids,
Fields escapes for lunch with Mr. Chow owner Michael Chow.
- July 11: Fields threatens The National Enquirer with a defamation lawsuit for their article "Inside Tom's House of Horrors!"
- July 13: He continues to handle media fallout and encourages Cruise to file against the Enquirer. "I have to sit down with Tom -- he's still shooting Oblivion -- and decide when to file a lawsuit. If we file a lawsuit," he told THR at
the time. (Cruise has since wrapped production and is in NYC with
daughter Suri.) Later that day, Fields cooks dinner, reads poetry to his
wife and works on his book about Elizabeth I. "A fairly normal week,"
he says modestly.
USA Today