left: Branca applauds Michael Jackson, who received an honorary doctorate from the United Negro College Fund in 1988. below: With Motown founder (and 2007 honorary degree recipient)Berry Gordy Jr. bottom: Branca was honored alongside Jimmie Vaughan, Steven Tyler, and Carole Fields by the Musicians’ Assistance Program in 2003.
I quoted something from a memo I had read” —impressing the Beach Boys in the process. “And I became their attorney. That was my first client.” Branca’s stature quickly grew. In the realm of straight, cookie-cutter lawyers, he stood out with his rock-thin frame, longish hair, and hip wardrobe. It all appealed to a client list that would grow to include the Rolling Stones, Fleetwood Mac, John Fogerty, and Elton John himself. In 1980, Branca, then 29, met Michael Jackson, who had turned 21 and, fresh off the success of his breakthrough solo album, Off the Wall, was looking to create his own legal and management team apart from his family. “Michael and I hit it off right from the start,” Branca recalls. “Michael had a spark about him. He was funny. He was polite, he was inquisitive. He was always observing and learning.” Though Jackson could be childlike, his lawyer says he had another side. “He was ambitious, driven, and competitive. He’d never accept second best.” During Jackson’s lifetime, Branca was a force to be reckoned with, brokering heavyweight contracts as the star entered his solo heyday. In 1983, he scored an unheard of $1.2-million budget to finance the “Thriller” video (by selling Making Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller,’ a behind-the-scenes documentary, to MTV and Showtime—“It seemed odd that no one had ever thought of this before,” Jackson wrote in his autobiography). He spearheaded Jackson’s 1985 purchase of the ATV Music Publishing catalog—which included the songs of the Beatles—for $47.5 million (outbidding Paul McCartney in the process). Jackson’s estate sold its 50 percent
stake in Sony/ATV to Sony last spring for $750 million. “It took about a year,” says Branca of the deal, “and along the way he had investment advisers who told him it was way too expensive. And Michael would listen and smile and say, ‘Branca, get me that catalog.’” Branca worked with Jackson from “1980 to ’89 or ’90, then I came back in ’92 or ’93,” Branca says. “Then there were little gaps when some new person would come in. I stopped representing him in 2006.” On June 17, 2009, deep into rehearsals for a 50-date residency at London’s O2 Arena, Jackson hired Branca back. He died eight days later. Fulfilling the instructions laid out by Jackson in his will (signed in 2002), Branca and music executive John McClain were named co-executors of the estate by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff. As Branca tells it, “We told the judge, ‘This isn’t like the estate of the guy who used to run Exxon where you can hire Bank of America— you’ve got to make decisions on albums and copyrights and movies. That’s not for a bank.” “When Michael passed, it was a rough situation,” notes attorney Howard Weitzman, whom Branca tapped as the chief litigator for the estate. With Jackson reportedly $400 million in debt, “It was an uphill battle to sell assets and see if there was anything left, so we were very concerned about the children. John—along with McClain—managed to turn this around. As a lawyer, he’s about as good as it can get.” Branca and McClain’s efforts were nothing short of extraordinary: A May 2013 piece on “60 Minutes” called it “the most remark-
able financial and image resurrection in pop culture history.” They made new licensing deals. They coaxed a $60-million advance from Sony Pictures for a documentary drawn from footage of Jackson’s tour rehearsals (the resulting film, This Is It, grossed $261 million worldwide). They produced a pair of shows with Cirque du Soleil—a favorite of Jackson’s—and released an album of new music, Xscape, that sold 1.7 million copies in 2014. The estate has been debt-free for years. “Our retail sales, I don’t even know what they are anymore—$3 billion or something,” Branca says. “He knows the business better than anybody,” says David Dunn, who has worked with Branca on a number of projects, including the Jackson estate, and is now managing WINTER 2017 OCCIDENTAL MAGAZINE
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