The Lady and the Law
The Remarkable Story of Fanny Holtzmann

A WAIF FROM BROOKLYN, SHE BROUGHT THE MGM COLOSSUS TO ITS KNEES

This is the amazing, true story of Fanny Holtzmann, a shy teenage high school dropout from Brooklyn who battled her way into Fordham Law (the only girl in the night school class of 1923), overcame ridicule and prejudice, and emerged as the most glamorous, unpredictable, brilliantly accomplished woman lawyer of her time. Noel Coward, Eleanor Roosevelt, the Grand Duchess of Russia and George Bernard Shaw were her friends; Joseph P. Kennedy her bitter enemy.

Read a few excerpts now.

"Berkman conveys the personality of Fanny Holzmann and a sense of her law practice with economy, wit, and lucidity. I had my copy with me in Boulder, Colorado. There I saw, the Rockies over my left shoulder and the world of the Shtetl eight thousand miles away. I read about Angela and Tante Fimme and cried from beginning to end. My hat is off to you."
Irving Younger, Cornell Law School

"A wonderful mix of news, nonsense, humor — you name it. Fanny did work wonders which still amaze and dazzle the most jaded reader."
Patricia A. Farrell, King Features Syndicate

A lively, at times hilarious, and often moving account of the life of the witty and formidable lawyer Fanny Holzmann.
Daphne du Maurier

An admirable job. Fanny emerges not as a fairy-tale princess but as a generous human being who makes some mistakes and unwittingly hurts a few people along the road to success. A good old-fashioned success story is good for the soul now and then, and this one is a winner.
Buffalo News

An affectionate biography . . . more about the lady — the negotiator, diplomat, party giver, painter and friend of artists, actors and authors — than about the law; an account of a woman who had led a remarkable, charmed life.
New York Times

An awe-inspiring and highly engrossing life story, a major work of social portraiture for our era.
Meyer Levin in Midstream

An extremely well written and fascinating story.
George Burns

An absolutely fascinating book.
Sheilah Graham

A remarkable biography. Berkman, a fine writer, has looked beyond the obvious and inherent glamor in this story to write a coherent, compassionate and penetrating account . . . Even Walter Mitty would not have dared fantasize about the meteoric life Miss Holtzmann has so demonically pursued."
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"When the subject is truly fascinating, and the biographer has done his job well, (biography) can provide the most soundly satisfying kind of reading. Ted Berkman's book is engagingly personal. The important point, enchantingly made, is that Fanny Holzmann is indeed remarkable . . . She is a joy to know, and author Berkman has done a magnificent kindness by sharing her with us."
Norman Nadel, Scripps-Howard Cultural Editor

"With earthy Yiddish wisdom, Fanny Holzmann guided the personal lives and fortunes of movie moguls, diplomats, and royalty. She commuted between Broadway, Hollywood, and overseas capitals and entertained foreign ministers in her living room. Profoundly inifluenced by her grandfather's Talmudic reasoning, she acquired a persistent, flexible, and imaginative approach to the law. 'I don't follow precedent,' she once said. 'I establish it.'"
Anne Bowers, Best Sellers