Albert S. Ruddy, Producer Who Won Oscar for The Godfather and Million Dollar Baby Dies at 94
Richard Sandomir of The New York Times reported: Albert S. Ruddy, who found early success in television as a creator of “Hogan’s Heroes,” the situation comedy about Allied prisoners outwitting their bumbling Nazi captors in a P.O.W. camp, and then became a movie producer who won Oscars for “The Godfather” and “Million Dollar Baby,” died on Saturday in Los Angeles. He was 94.
His death, in a hospital, was confirmed by his wife, Wanda McDaniel, and his daughter, Alexandra Ruddy.
The gravelly-voiced Mr. Ruddy was a former systems programmer and shoe salesman who, by the time Paramount Pictures was preparing to film “The Godfather,” had become known for the unlikely success of “Hogan’s Heroes” and for producing a couple of movies that had come in under budget.
“Ruddy is a tall, thin, nervously enthusiastic man who sees himself as a shrewd manipulator,” Nicholas Pileggi wrote in The New York Times Magazine in 1971 about the making of “The Godfather,” an adaptation of the best-selling Mario Puzo novel about the Corleone crime family. “Ruddy had always been able to talk his way through obstacles.”
Among the many hurdles he faced as producer of “The Godfather” was the animosity toward the prospective film shown by Italian Americans, civic-minded ethnic groups like the Sons of Italy and members of Congress, who thought the movie would perpetuate gangster stereotypes. Paramount feared economic boycotts.
The person who concerned Mr. Ruddy most was Joseph Colombo Sr., the reputed Mafia crime boss who had founded the Italian American Civil Rights League. Mr. Colombo had persuaded the F.B.I. to stop using the terms Mafia and Cosa Nostra in its news releases.
Mr. Ruddy hoped that dealing with the league would be a guarantee against any trouble during production, as it turned out to be. He agreed to scrub offending Italian words from the script, to let the league review the script for anything else that might damage Italian Americans’ image, and to donate the proceeds from the movie’s New York premiere to the league.
Mr. Ruddy appeared at a news conference at the league’s office in Manhattan to announce the deal. But he didn’t anticipate the backlash from its coverage in the news media.
“The next morning, there’s a shot of me on the front page of The New York Times with organized crime figures at a press conference,” he was quoted as saying in a Vanity Fair article in 2009 by Mark Seal, who expanded it into a 2021 book, “Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli: The Epic Story of the Making of ‘The Godfather.’”
The presence of Mr. Ruddy at the news conference so enraged Charles Bluhdorn, the combustible chairman of Gulf & Western, Paramount’s parent, that he fired him. But when Mr. Bluhdorn told Francis Ford Coppola, the director, and Robert Evans, the studio’s vice president of production, to find another producer, Mr. Coppola intervened.
“Al Ruddy’s the only guy who can keep this movie going!” he told Mr. Bluhdorn.
“The Godfather” won three Oscars, including Mr. Ruddy’s for best picture; Marlon Brando’s for best actor, for his portrayal of Don Vito Corleone; and Mr. Coppola and Mr. Puzo’s, for best adapted screenplay. It has been widely praised as one of the best movies ever made.
Its first sequel, “The Godfather Part II” (1974), also won the Oscar for best picture, but “The Godfather Part III” (1990) was widely skewered. Mr. Ruddy had nothing to do with the sequels. Fred Roos (who died on May 18) was a producer of both, as he was of other films by Mr. Coppola, his daughter, Sofia Coppola, and his wife, Eleanor Coppola (who died last month).
Mr. Ruddy was born Albert Stotland on March 28, 1930, in Montreal. His father, Hyman, manufactured uniforms. His mother, Ruth (Rudnikoff) Stotland, was a clothing and luxury fur designer. After his parents divorced when Albert was 6, his mother moved to New York City with him, his sister, Selma, and his brother, Gerald, and changed the family surname to Ruddy.
After studying at the City College of New York, Albert attended the University of Southern California and graduated with an architecture degree in 1956. He was briefly the architect for a construction company in New Jersey but chose to go back to the West Coast. There he was a programmer for the RAND Corporation, a shoe salesman and the producer of the 1961 Los Angeles production of“The Connection,” a play about drug addiction, and of the movie “Wild Seed” (1965), about a teenage runaway searching for her biological father.
That year, he and the actor and writer Bernard Fein wrote the pilot episode of “Hogan’s Heroes.” The setting, a prisoner of war camp run by stupid Nazis, seemed tasteless to American viewers 20 years post-World War II. He later recalled that when he sat down to pitch it to William S. Paley, the chairman of CBS, Mr. Paley offered his verdict: “I find the idea of Nazis as comic characters to be reprehensible.”
But as Mr. Ruddy acted out his script, Mr. Paley began to laugh. Two weeks later he agreed to buy the series, which ran for six seasons, through 1971.
Mr. Ruddy went on to produce the movie “Little Fauss and Big Halsy” (1970), about dirt-bike racers played by Robert Redford and Michael Jay Pollard, and “Thunderguys,” a TV movie, both for Paramount. Those movies helped lead to his being hired for “The Godfather.”
He produced many other films, including “Farewell to the King,” with Nick Nolte; “The Cannonball Run,” with Burt Reynolds and Farrah Fawcett, and its sequel; and “The Scout,” with Albert Brooks. He also produced TV series, among them “Walker, Texas Ranger,” which he created.
But Ms. McDaniel, his wife, said that he had been proudest of conceiving “The Longest Yard,” a 1974 film about a nasty prison warden (Eddie Albert) who coerces an incarcerated ex-pro quarterback (Burt Reynolds) to put together a football team to play against a squad of sadistic guards.
“He knew that ‘The Godfather’ was really Francis’s movie,” Ms. Ruddy, his daughter, said of Mr. Coppola in a phone interview. “And he felt this was really Al’s movie.”
Tracy Keenan Wynn, who wrote the screenplay based on Mr. Ruddy’s two-page story, said by phone, “I worked with Al the whole time, telling him which of his characters I was going to use and which I wanted to add.”
Decades later, Mr. Ruddy gave introduced Clint Eastwood to the evocative boxing short stories written by F.X. Toole. Mr. Eastwood went on to direct “Million Dollar Baby” (2004), based on stories by Mr. Toole. The movie, about the moving relationship between a boxer (Hilary Swank) and her trainer (Mr. Eastwood), won four Oscars, including best picture, which Mr. Ruddy shared with Mr. Eastwood and Tom Rosenberg (below).
In addition to his wife, an executive vice president at Giorgio Armani, and his daughter, an actress, producer and writer and a partner at Albert S. Ruddy Productions, Mr. Ruddy is survived by a son, John. His marriages to Kaye Farrington, an actress, and Francoise Wizenberg Glaser ended in divorce.
In 2022, Mr. Ruddy’s memories of making the “The Godfather” formed the story of “The Offer,” a 10-part series streamed by Paramount+. Mr. Ruddy was played by Miles Teller.
One scene in that series takes place in Chasen’s, the West Hollywood celebrity restaurant, where Mr. Ruddy and Mr. Puzo had dinner one night. Mr. Puzo was introduced to Frank Sinatra, who hated Mr. Puzo’s novel, especially the character of the singer Johnny Fontane.
Fontane was believed to have been modelled on Mr. Sinatra, who did not want to see the film made. Mr. Seal described Mr. Sinatra screaming at Mr. Puzo, calling him a pimp and telling him, “Choke!” The series shows Mr. Sinatra (played by Frank John Hughes) grabbing Mr. Puzo (Patrick Gallo) by his jacket collar.
As Mr. Ruddy drove Mr. Puzo home, Mr. Seal wrote, the novelist said that he was heartbroken by Mr. Sinatra’s treatment of him. Growing up, he said, his mother had two pictures in her kitchen: one of the pope and one of Mr. Sinatra.
“Mario, there’s nothing I can do about that,” Mr. Ruddy said. “Frank has it in for all of us.”
My kind thanks to Kevin Walsh
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