Jimmy Stewart once invited him into his Beverly Hills home to show off a button on the wall of the master bedroom that would activate the front-yard sprinklers to ward off autograph-seeking trespassers. As an undergraduate at UCLA, Herman got his first unguarded glimpses of the private lives of stars and moguls while employed as a delivery boy for upmarket Westside grocers Jurgensen’s and Gelson’s. His great-grandparents owned a barbershop and tobacco store on the Paramount lot, one relative worked for Max Factor (“When he was just a guy, not Max Factor Incorporated”), and an aunt was an early secretary for the brothers Warner. Herman’s Los Angeles family has serviced Hollywood since the sign read HOLLYWOODLAND. “Those closest to me,” he confesses, “don’t know how I do this.” ![]() “If you do something really, really well that nobody else wants to do,” he says with a shrug, “you will be very busy.”Īnd yet, for all his success solving the problems of others, he’s recently found himself unmoored by an agonizing crisis of his own, one beyond the practical or emotional capacity of this veteran of entertainment’s shadow realm. Indeed, this tireless operative emanating a Boy Scout’s sincerity who instinctively picks up every call, paying no mind to blocked numbers, and immediately responds to each text, has become perhaps the industry’s most indispensable freelance troubleshooter, certainly its longest-standing. “It’s something to see.” Explains documentary producer and Spectrum News correspondent Alison Martino, “If you have him on speed dial, you have your consigliere.” “I was driving with him a few weeks ago and his phone didn’t stop ringing - one major person after another, flipping out over something they needed him to take care of,” observes actress and former model Ann Turkel. What he does keeps productions moving, reputations upstanding, relationships thriving (or at least surviving) and, above all, deals flowing. standbys - including The Smoke House, El Coyote and The Grill on the Alley - for the first time in his professional life he’s spoken openly about his clandestine trade, which has him tooling around town in his mobile office, often a black 1988 Porsche Carrera coupe, overstuffed leather Tumi tote bag by his side. Over a series of meals at his favored old-school L.A. “I help.” Photographed by Christopher Patey “Everyone who has a public face has drama,” Herman says. There is no one in Hollywood who can do the things he can do.” So, what does he prefer? “I’m a facilitator and a crisis manager and a problem solver.” Shawn Holley, a top entertainment lawyer, is succinct: “Brad is one of a kind. Everything I do has been straight-arrow legal, forever,” he claims. ![]() “The implication is that there’s something surreptitious or underhanded. As Herman acknowledges, “I do operate in the gray area between an officer of the court and a layperson.” But he “detests” the word. The less enamored might simply call him a fixer. He’s almost like a priest - one who takes care of business.” ![]() Weitzman’s widow, Margaret, recalls: “Brad was always talking to my husband. Celebrated industry attorney Howard Weitzman called him The Secret Weapon. Elizabeth Taylor, in a thank-you note sent to Herman after he steered her then-husband Larry Fortensky through a DUI arrest without the press learning of it, labeled him My Sunshine. Among the dead, The Late Late Show host Tom Snyder, a longtime client, liked to refer to him as The Wolf, in reference to the skillful cleaner of messes played by Harvey Keitel in Pulp Fiction. Herman, 64, who will speak - circumspectly - of his late clients (e.g., Johnny Carson, Burt Reynolds, Stan Lee) but remains mostly mum about those still living, including his current roster (A-list performers, athletes and influencers), has collected affectionate monikers. Oscars Producers Talk Jimmy Kimmel, Will Smith, Absent A-Listers and Next Year's Show (Exclusive)
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