Tom Cruise Remembers Late Lawyer Bert Fields in Emotional Video: 'Love You Dearly and Always Will'

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Tom Cruise is reflecting on the life of Bert Fields, his late lawyer and longtime friend whom he's "very grateful" to have met.

At Fields' Oct. 2 memorial service at Broad Stage in Santa Monica, Cruise appeared in a video tribute, obtained by TMZ. Publishing of the two-minute clip comes two months after the 93-year-old attorney died at his home in Malibu.

Cruise started the video message by recalling the first time he met Fields in London back in 1989. The actor had just finished filming Born on the Fourth of July when he shared a "wonderful dinner" with Dustin Hoffman before the premiere of Rain Man.

"And I sit next to this extraordinary person. I didn't really know who he was. We just sat there and I ended up talking to him the whole evening. He's the most fascinating person that I've ever met," Cruise recalled. "We talked about history, we were talking about stories. He told me he was a writer. I said, 'I'm sorry but who are you, who do you know,' and he said, 'I'm Dustin's lawyer.' I said, 'I want you to be my lawyer, can you be my lawyer please?' And he said, 'Absolutely.' "

From that moment on, the "incredible friends" went on "many adventures" over the years, Cruise said. He remembered Fields as a person he knew he could "always count on."

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"I think we all know how valuable that is in this world, when someone says they're gonna do something and they actually do it," Cruise said. "And that was Bert. I'm just very grateful to him. A very wise man once said, 'How do you evaluate a life? Well, did you do what you wanted to do and were others happy that you lived?' And I think that Bert Fields definitely exemplified that. Bert, I'm very happy that you lived, and I'm very grateful to have known you. I love you dearly and always will."

Through his decades as an entertainment lawyer, Fields represented the likes of Cruise, George Lucas, the Beatles and Michael Jackson, according to Variety.

Jeffrey Katzenberg, Hoffman and Michael Ovitz all sent love to their late friend at his service earlier in the month, per Variety. Fields' widow, Barbara Guggenheim, shared at the event that a friend had told her that they felt "unprotected" with the lawyer no longer around. She agreed.

"That's how we all feel, whether you were Bert's client or whether you were a friend you always knew Bert was in your back pocket," she said, according to the outlet. "And that any time of the day or night you could pull him out and give him a call and he would help you anyway he could. We all miss that."