Godfather & Million Dollar Baby’ Producer, Albert S. Ruddy, Dead at 94! Oscar Winner’s Shocking Loss!

The renowned Canadian-born producer and writer Albert S. Ruddy, who bagged Oscars for his work on “The Godfather” and “Million Dollar Baby,” and was instrumental in the creation of the hit sitcom “Hogan’s Heroes” and the hilarious prison-sports comedy “The Longest Yard,” has passed away at the ripe age of 94.

Ruddy breathed his last “peacefully” at UCLA Medical Center on Saturday, as reported by a spokesperson. His final words were, “The game is over, but we won the game.”

Ruddy, a tall and imposing figure with a gritty voice and urban confidence, was the producer of more than 30 films. His career highs and lows ranged from Oscar-winning movies like “The Godfather” and “Million Dollar Baby” to the Golden Raspberry nominated “Cannonball Run II” and “Megaforce,” considered the worst films of their respective years.

However, Ruddy’s portfolio includes a blend of hits and misses. Some of his notable works are “The Longest Yard,” for which he was both producer and story creator, and less successful projects like the Arnold Schwarzenegger thriller “Sabotage.” Ruddy frequently collaborated with Burt Reynolds, starting with “The Longest Yard” and continuing with two “Cannonball Run” comedies and “Cloud Nine.” His TV credits, apart from “Hogan’s Heroes,” include films like “Married to a Stranger” and “Running Mates.”

Producing “The Godfather” was a high-risk proposition for Ruddy, threatening his career, reputation, and even his life. The project attracted the ire of Frank Sinatra and other Italian Americans, who were concerned about the perpetuation of Italian criminal stereotypes. Ruddy also had to face threats from actual mobsters. One night, he found his car windows shot out, accompanied by a warning to shut down the production immediately.

Ruddy managed to save both himself and the film through deft diplomacy. He held a meeting with mafia boss Joseph Colombo and some of his henchmen to discuss the script.

Ruddy recounted to Vanity Fair in 2009, “Joe sits opposite me, one guy’s on the couch, and one guy’s sitting in the window.” After examining the script for a short while, Colombo asked, “What does this mean, ‘fade in?’”

Ruddy agreed to omit a single unnecessary use of the word “Mafia” from the script and pledged a donation to the Italian American Civil Rights League. Colombo, pleased with Ruddy’s gesture, even invited him to a press conference to announce his endorsement of the film. This event led to Ruddy being photographed with members of the mafia.

Paramount, the parent company of Gulf + Western, fired Ruddy as their stocks plummeted. However, director Francis Ford Coppola intervened and managed to get Ruddy reinstated. Eventually, mobsters were hired as extras on the film set and openly interacted with the cast members. Ruddy even made a cameo appearance as a Hollywood studio guard.

Ruddy fondly remembered, “It was like one happy family. All these guys loved the underworld characters, and obviously the underworld guys loved Hollywood.”

“The Godfather,” starring Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, and Robert Duvall, was a critical and commercial hit and remains one of the most cherished and quoted movies of all time. At the 1973 Oscar ceremony, Clint Eastwood, who would later collaborate with Ruddy on “Million Dollar Baby,” presented the best picture award to “The Godfather,” with Ruddy as its producer.

In 2022, on the 50th anniversary of “The Godfather,” Ruddy himself became a character in “The Offer,” a Paramount+ miniseries about the making of the film, with Miles Teller portraying him.

In a statement, Pacino said, “Al Ruddy was absolutely beautiful to me the whole time on ‘The Godfather’; even when they didn’t want me, he wanted me. He gave me the gift of encouragement when I needed it most, and I’ll never forget it.”

Ruddy was married to Wanda McDaniel, a sales executive and liaison for Giorgio Armani, who played a key role in establishing the brand’s prominence in Hollywood, both in films and promotional events. The couple had two children.

Albert Stotland Ruddy, born in Montreal in 1930, moved to the U.S. as a child and grew up in New York City. After graduating from USC, he was working as an architect when he met TV actor Bernard Fein in the early 1960s. Disillusioned with his career, Ruddy and Fein decided to create a TV series, despite having no prior writing experience.

Their initial concept was a comedy set in an American prison, but they quickly revised their idea.

Ruddy said, “We read in the paper that … (a) network was doing a sitcom set in an Italian prisoner of war camp and we thought, ‘Perfect.’ We rewrote our script and set it in a German POW camp in about two days.”

Their creation, “Hogan’s Heroes,” starring Bob Crane as the cunning Col. Hogan, aired from 1965 to 1971 on CBS. However, it faced criticism for trivializing World War II and depicting the Nazis as charming caricatures. Ruddy recalled network head William Paley initially describing the show’s concept as “reprehensible,” but he was eventually persuaded after Ruddy performed an impromptu enactment of an episode.

While Fein stayed with “Hogan’s Heroes,” Ruddy shifted to films, supervising the budget-friendly “Wild Seed” for Brando’s production company. His reputation for cost control came in handy when Paramount Pictures head Robert Evans acquired the rights to Mario Puzo’s bestseller “The Godfather” and needed a producer for what was expected to be a small, profitable gangster flick.

Ruddy told Vanity Fair, “I got a call on a Sunday. ‘Do you want to do ‘The Godfather?’ I thought they were kidding me, right? I said, ‘Yes, of course, I love that book’ — which I had never read.”

Italie writes for the Associated Press.