UTA Agent Organizes Charity Run in Late Assistant's Memory

This story first appeared in the March 29 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.

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On New Year's eve, 23-year-old UTA assistant Jeffrey Herle was struck and killed by a car on Pacific Coast Highway as he walked near Temescal Canyon Road in Pacific Palisades. Now the agent whose desk Herle manned is honoring his memory by raising money by running in the Los Angeles Marathon.

Brittany Balbo, a veteran commercials and voice-over agent (Celine Dion, Robert Patrick), hopes to raise $10,000 for a scholarship fund to memorialize Herle, a USC business school graduate who had a tireless work ethic and a bright future at the Beverly Hills-based agency. (UTA needed several buses to transport all the colleagues who wanted to attend his memorial service.) Participating in a triathlon had been Herle's goal, so Balbo, his former mentor with UTA's Shani Rosenzweig, is training to run the March 17 marathon.

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Herle was "one of the hardest-working individuals I ever met," Balbo tells THR. "He always wanted to brighten up everyone's day. He wore bow ties every Tuesday." (People at the agency wore bow ties on Herle's birthday in February in his honor.)

Balbo's effort already has raised $9,000 in scholarship contributions from Hollywood managers, lawyers and agents around town (UTA made its own separate donation to the foundation). Says Balbo: "One of Jeff's favorite quotes was, 'You've got to want it,' and I want nothing more than to do this for Jeff."