Fields takes centre stage

If all the world's a stage, then Bert Fields plays Macbeth. He is "Hollywood's scariest lawyer", in the estimation of the New Yorker magazine, and, in his own words, the man "who has never lost a case".

He would relish the comparison with Macbeth, partly because he knows that an intimidated defendant is a defendant ready to pay-up, and partly because the oddest thing about Fields is that he is a Shakespeare buff.

When not settling Hollywood's most fractious disputes to great profit - the house in Malibu, the art collection, the smooth hand-tailored suits - Fields, 79 at the end of this month, has written two scholarly works on the Bard.

And over lunch in Manhattan's Ocean Club, he once confided that his favourite play was not Richard III, the subject of his first book (the second was Players: The Mysterious Identity of William Shakespeare), but Macbeth because it best told the story of Hollywood. It is, after all, a witches' brew of ruthless women, spilled blood and unbridled ambition.

But did Fields (above) miss Act Four when hubris brings our hero down?

Dark spots and bloodstained hands are billed to appear at the trial starting this week of Anthony Pellicano, the notorious private eye. His career as Hollywood's enforcer hit the skids when the cops charged him with leaving a dead fish on the smashed windscreen of a dame who knew too much, a showbiz reporter.

Fields is at the top of the prosecution witness list because, according to the prosecutor, he was the man hiring Pellicano (left) on a regular basis. The prosecutors will subpoena the lawyer to get him on the stand, and they have not ruled out charging him as an accomplice. Perhaps Fields will enjoy himself. After all, he loves the courtroom: "It's drama, and you get a chance to be director, producer and actor. And you have a captive audience."

But he is not used to being the one fending off the awkward questions. "If I were a general, I would attack," he says, "and keep pressing the attack, to throw the opponent off-balance, to change the odds and make a settlement your way much more favourable." Henry V? Julius Caesar?

Fields has fought for, or against - in some cases both - just about everyone at an Oscar ceremony: Tom Cruise, Warren Beatty, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Dustin Hoffman (left), John Travolta, the Beatles, Rupert Murdoch, Sumner Redstone of Paramount, Michael Ovitz, Michael Eisner of Disney against his 'midget' rival Jeffrey Katzenberg, and Pooh Bear against Eisner and Disney in a $200m copyright case.

You wouldn't want to be caught on the blasted heath on the wrong end of this man's claymore. "Someone who actually enjoys beating people up," a client told the New Yorker. "But when you hire a litigator you want a prick." Naturally, the client was too scared to have his name in print. ·