Edward Rubin; Entertainment Law Expert

Edward Rubin, an attorney and authority on entertainment law for six decades whose celebrity clients ranged from Howard Hughes to Warren Beatty, has died. He was 87.

Rubin died Thursday at Santa Monica-UCLA Hospital of natural causes, said his son, Santa Monica Municipal Judge Laurence D. Rubin.

Soft-spoken and modestly dressed, Edward Rubin never looked or sounded the part of the flamboyant Hollywood lawyer. But his list of clients clearly established his credentials: Hughes, Rosalind Russell, Robert Taylor, Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, director Robert Wise, Goldie Hawn, Robert Wagner and Beatty. He also represented RKO and Columbia studios.

Nothing in his background prepared Rubin for a specialty in entertainment law, his son said. The assignment came with the territory when he joined the Los Angeles law firm Mitchell, Silberberg & Knupp and began working with Mendel Silberberg, whose chief client was RKO.

But he quickly developed a reputation in the field, endearing himself to famous clients by understanding their specific problems and efficiently solving them. Rubin co-wrote the book “Preventive Law” and taught entertainment law at USC, Cal State Los Angeles and UC Berkeley.

“Credit, along with money, are the two fighting issues in entertainment law,” he told The Times in 1990 while pondering a court case over screen credits during a teaching stint. “Your credit is your reputation. The size and time your name appears on the screen is the only thing linking you to the product and the only way you can get jobs in the future.”

Rubin also was sought out as an arbitrator of entertainment industry disputes that came before the American Film Market and the Los Angeles County Superior Court.

He served as president of the State Bar of California in 1977 and was a trustee of the Los Angeles County Bar Assn. and a president of the Beverly Hills Bar Assn. He was named entertainment lawyer of the year in 1987.

Rubin also served as a trustee of the City of Hope, the Constitutional Rights Foundation and the UCLA Foundation and as a governor of the Los Angeles International Film Festival. He won UCLA’s Professional Achievement Award in 1978.

The son of Russian immigrants, Rubin was born in Brooklyn, moved with his family to Detroit where his father worked on a Ford assembly line, and then to Boyle Heights in East Los Angeles at the age of 8. He graduated from Manual Arts High School and UCLA and then earned a law degree at Duke University, where he became a lifelong friend of another student, Richard M. Nixon.

Rubin began his legal career with the New York City firm of Proskauer, Rose, Goetz & Mendelsohn in 1936 and returned to Los Angeles to join the Silberberg firm four years later. He worked there for more than half a century with a brief hiatus during World War II to serve in the Army Signal Corps and to work in Washington, D.C., as an attorney with the Office of Price Administration.

In addition to his son, Rubin is survived by his wife of 56 years, Nancy; a daughter, Peggy Ueda, and four grandchildren.