Jerry Heller, the combative music manager whose fraught relationship with the seminal hip-hop group N.W.A was searingly portrayed in last year’s box office hit “Straight Outta Compton,” died Friday of a heart attack at Los Robles Hospital in Thousand Oaks. He was 75.
Heller’s cousin, Gary Ballen, confirmed Heller’s death to The Times.
A native of Cleveland, Heller began his career in music as a booking agent for artists including Elton John, Van Morrison, Marvin Gaye and Pink Floyd.
In the ‘80s, he became an important and colorful personality in the emerging West Coast rap scene, helping launch the influential Ruthless Records with rapper Eric “Eazy-E” Wright of N.W.A in 1987. The group’s controversial, cop-bashing debut studio album, “Straight Outta Compton,” was a commercial and critical success that underscored rap’s combustive hold on popular culture.
Founding members Ice Cube and Dr. Dre eventually left the group, accusing Heller of mismanagement and financial misdeeds. The acrimonious split continued to play out dramatically in public for years. Using language widely criticized as anti-Semitic, Ice Cube accused Heller of breaking up N.W.A in his 1991 song “No Vaseline,” while Dr. Dre ridiculed both Heller and Eazy-E in his video “Dre Day.”
Heller stayed involved in the music business, founding a record label called Hit A Lick that focused on homegrown Latino rap and hip-hop acts.
He was thrust back into the public consciousness in 2015 with the release of “Staight Outta Compton,” in which Heller was played by Paul Giamatti. The biopic, directed by F. Gary Gray, was a box office hit, grossing $201 million, and was nominated for an Oscar for original screenplay.
Heller was angered by the film, which he claimed portrayed him as the “bad guy.” In October, he filed a $110-million libel suit against Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, NBC Universal and others involved in its creation, saying it was “littered” with inaccuracies. Much of the case was dismissed in June by a federal judge.
UPDATES:
10:45 a.m.: This article was updated with additional details.
This article was originally published at at 10:25 a.m.
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Jerry Heller, controversial early manager of N.W.A, dies at 75
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