LOS ANGELES (AP) – Divorce lawyer Marvin M. Mitchelson, who worked on high-profile, big-money marital disputes involving scores of Hollywood stars, has died. He was 76. He died Saturday after battling cancer at the Rehabilitation Center of Beverly Hills, his longtime publicist Sy Presten said Sunday.

“He was practicing (law) up until the time he got sick a couple of months ago,” Presten said. “He was a workaholic, he worked around the clock.”

After beginning his law practice in 1957, Mitchelson worked on cases involving famous names such as Quincy Jones, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Hugh Hefner, Robert De Niro, Bob Dylan, Sylvester Stallone, Mick Jagger, Mike Tyson and King Fahd of Saudi Arabia. Most of the cases involved divorces.

In his first celebrity divorce case, representing actor James Mason’s wife, Pamela, in the 1960s, Mitchelson won a then-astonishing $1 million settlement.

While representing Marlon Brando’s ex-wife, actress Anna Kashfi, in a custody case, Mitchelson settled by negotiating with Brando directly in the actor’s home. He also successfully defended actress Joan Collins in a case involving a prenuptial agreement with ex-husband Peter Holm.

In the 1980s, Mitchelson represented actor Lee Marvin’s live-in girlfriend, Michelle Triola, who sued Marvin for palimony, which Mitchelson often quipped was “a commitment with no rings attached,” Presten said.

John McCone, head of the Central Intelligence Agency in the early 1970s, also turned to Mitchelson, asking him to prepare 28 prenuptial agreements for his family members, married or not, in hopes of protecting their estates in the future.

Mitchelson first gained national attention in 1963 when he won a U.S. Supreme Court decision guaranteeing attorneys for indigent people appealing previous court rulings.

But the flamboyant attorney became best known as a divorce and marital law specialist to the stars.

“They came to him,” Presten said. “The more celebrities you have, the more you get. … He loved to get the publicity.”

In recent years, Mitchelson observed that the majority of prenuptial agreements end up in divorce. But the divorce specialist had no need for his own counsel. He was married for 45 years and often joked that he wasn’t setting a good example for his divorce practice.

Mitchelson is survived by his wife, a son and a sister.

AP-ES-09-19-04 1901EDT