Branca on 60 Minutes

ESTATE OF GRACE: Mega-attorney John Branca was front and center in last night's 60 Minutes segment on Michael Jackson's legacy and ongoing commercial power. The late superstar "is making more money after his death than he ever did when he was alive," reported correspondent Lara Logan, describing the "most remarkable financial and image resurrection in pop-culture history." Branca, who spent a quarter-century as Jackson's attorney and is co-executor (with John McClain) of the Jackson estate, discusses various corners of the Jackson empire, and it's revealed that the MJ brand has generated some $600m in the four years since his death. The attorney notes that Jackson has sold $300m in worldwide box-office and 50m albums since his death, remains the top-selling artist on iTunes, and has 60m Facebook friends. He's decorous when Logan presses him about Jackson's personal life, saying, "The Michael Jackson I knew was somebody I considered ... a very honorable person." Meanwhile, in a sequence that looks like the newsreel footage of Xanadu from Citizen Kane, Logan visits the warehouses storing Jackson's seemingly boundless possessions, from Rolls Royces to stage outfits and antiques. Watch the segment here. (5/20p)