Albert S Ruddy dies: Al Pacino leads tributes to Oscar-winning producer of The Godfather

Published

4 months ago

May 28, 2024

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Albert S Ruddy, the Oscar-winning producer of The Godfather, has died aged 94.

Ruddy died “peacefully” on Saturday at the UCLA Medical Centre in Los Angeles, according to a spokesperson, who added that among his final words were: “The game is over, but we won the game.”

He produced more than 30 films including The Godfather, Million Dollar Baby and The Longest Yard.

His television credits included Hogan’s Heroes and Walker Texas Ranger.

With a cast including Marlon Brando, Al Pacino and Robert Duvall, The Godfather was a critical and commercial sensation and remains among the most beloved and quoted movies in history.

“Al Ruddy was absolutely beautiful to me the whole time on The Godfather; even when they didn’t want me, he wanted me,” Al Pacino said in a statement.

“He gave me the gift of encouragement when I needed it most and I’ll never forget it.”

When Ruddy won the best picture Oscar in 1973, the presenter was Clint Eastwood, with whom he would produce Million Dollar Baby, his second best picture winner in 2005.

Upon the 50th anniversary of The Godfather’s release, in 2022, Ruddy himself became a character on screen.

Top Gun: Maverick and Whiplash star Miles Teller played him in The Offer, a Paramount+ miniseries about the making of the film, based on Ruddy’s experiences.

Born in Montreal in 1930, Ruddy moved to the US as a child and was raised in New York City.

After graduating from the University of Southern California, he was working as an architect when he met actor Bernard Fein in the early 1960s.

Ruddy had grown bored with architecture, and he and Fein decided to develop a TV series, even though neither had done any writing.

Their original idea was a comedy set in an American prison, but they soon changed their minds.

“We read in the paper that a network was doing a sitcom set in an Italian prisoner of war camp, and we thought, ‘Perfect’,” Ruddy later explained.

“We rewrote our script and set it in a German POW camp in about two days.”

Starring Bob Crane as the wily Colonel Hogan, Hogan’s Heroes ran from 1965-71 on CBS but was criticised for trivialising the Second World War and turning the Nazis into lovable cartoons.

Ruddy remembered network head William Paley called the show’s concept “reprehensible”, but changed his mind after Ruddy “literally acted out an episode”.

Ruddy then turned to film, with his reputation for managing costs prompting Paramount Pictures head Robert Evans to hire him to produce Mario Puzo’s bestselling novel The Godfather for what was supposed to be a minor, profit-taking gangster film.

“I got a call on a Sunday. ‘Do you want to do The Godfather?'” Ruddy told Vanity Fair.

“I thought they were kidding me, right? I said, ‘Yes, of course, I love that book’ – which I had never read.”

Ruddy was married to Wanda McDaniel, a sales executive and liaison for Giorgio Armani.

They had two children.

Entertainment

Lily Allen says she had her children for ‘all the wrong reasons’

Published

9 hours ago

September 21, 2024

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Lily Allen says she had her children “for all the wrong reasons,” at a “high pressure” point in her career when she felt “overwhelmed”.

The singer and actress had her two daughters, Marnie, 12 and Ethel, 11, with her ex-husband Sam Cooper when she was in her mid-20s.

By the time she became a mum, she’d already had hit singles including Smile and The Fear, released two studio albums and received a Brit Award for best British female solo artist.

Speaking about motherhood on the BBC podcast Miss Me?, which Allen hosts with her long-time friend Miquita Oliver, she said: “I think I had children for all the wrong reasons, really.

“Because I was yearning for unconditional love, which I haven’t felt in my life since I was a child.”

The now 39-year-old star added: “And also, my career was at such high speed, high pressure, and I felt like very overwhelmed by what was happening. I just didn’t get much respite you know?

“And I felt like the only way to stop people hassling me was to say, ‘It’s not about me, actually this is about this other person that’s inside me’.

When asked by Oliver if it worked, Allen says: “Yeah, they did leave me alone. I don’t think I really understood what was happening, what I got myself into.”

The daughter of actor Keith Allen and film producer Alison Owen, she went on to discuss her own childhood.

“My mum, bless her, had children really early as well, and she really struggled. But she doesn’t really talk about the struggle. And so… She inadvertently gaslit me into thinking it was, you know, easy.

“You just sort of throw the kid over your shoulder and you get on with it.

“Her job was very static, and in one place and went to an office and mine wasn’t like that at all. It wasn’t easy. It just wasn’t easy.”

The ‘nasty scars’ caused by absent parents

Allen previously told the Radio Times podcast that while she loves her children, having them “ruined her career”.

She said her decision to prioritise them over her pop career was a decision she made so as not to inflict the “nasty scars” of being an “absent” parent onto them.

She also said the myth of having it all “really annoyed” as it simply was not true.

Allen, whose younger brother is Game Of Thrones actor Alfie Allen, married Stranger Things star David Harbour in 2020.

Away from her music career, Allen has branched out into acting over the last few years, starring in two plays in London’s West End, and winning a role in Sky drama Dreamland last year.

Entertainment

Influential artist Sir Michael Craig-Martin says he’s had ‘terrible things’ said about his work

Published

17 hours ago

September 21, 2024

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Influential artist Sir Michael Craig-Martin says he's had 'terrible things' said about his work

Sir Michael Craig-Martin is one of the most influential artists of his generation – but he says he’s had “terrible things” said about the work he’s now famous for.

The 83-year-old’s long career is now the subject of a major retrospective opening this weekend at the Royal Academy.

But he told Sky News: “I’ve had terrible things said about all the work that now people think is wonderful… If you can’t survive criticism… you’re in the wrong game.”

The Royal Academy retrospective brings together his life’s work in one show, including his early experimental sculpture, his landmark conceptual work and a new immersive digital work.

While much of Sir Michael’s painting has been dominated with depictions of modern icons, like laptops and iPhones, he says technology has made it “harder for people to look” at his work.

“We’ve become probably the most visual age there’s ever been and at the same time it’s become harder and harder for people to actually look,” he said.

“[Paintings] don’t move – you have to come to them, you have to give them a little time,” he explained, adding that nowadays people are more “used to something that’s doing something for them”.

The subject matter of much of Craig-Martin’s large-scale, vivid colour paintings of everyday objects – from trainers to paperclips, glasses to coffee cups – is universally understood and easily accessible.

“What’s ordinary is what unites everybody,” he explains.

“When you buy a coffee, they give you the cup. You don’t buy the cup, it’s free with the coffee, and yet to make a painting out of it is to give it a certain kind of presence, a certain kind of dignity, a way of looking at it that may be different, to what its value or use is.”

Now in his 80s, Sir Michael’s work has become sought-after around the world. Not only has he proven to be one of the most successful artists of his generation, he’s also been one of the most influential teachers.

In the late 80s, his students at Goldsmiths would go on to be the headline-making Young British Artists, or YBAs as they became known – and they include Damien Hirst and Sarah Lucas.

“They were very, very young,” Sir Michael explained. “There were people who said to me that it was very dangerous for them to be having this kind of success because they were so young and my advice to them at the time was ‘if the door opens, it’s best to go through it’.”

Decades before, in 1974, he’d made headlines of his own with a piece called An Oak Tree – now widely considered a landmark moment in the history of conceptual art.

Recreated for the retrospective, provocatively you won’t find any big logs propped up in a gallery as the piece is just a glass of water on a glass shelf.

“People often do say to me… it changed my idea about what I thought art was, what it could be, my relationship, and that’s an amazing thing to be able to say.”

Challenging us all to look with fresh eyes at the ‘ordinary’ all around us, Michael Craig-Martin’s body of work is proof of why he is one of the most extraordinary artists working today.

Michael Craig-Martin is at the Royal Academy in London from 21 September to 10 December.

Entertainment

Thunderbirds and Peppa Pig actor David Graham dies aged 99

Published

23 hours ago

September 21, 2024

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Thunderbirds and Peppa Pig actor David Graham dies aged 99

David Graham, whose voice featured in some of the UK’s favourite TV shows, including Thunderbirds and Peppa Pig, has died.

The London-born star was 99.

Jamie Anderson, the son of Thunderbirds creator Gerry Anderson, led the tributes on X as he called Graham a “legendary” actor.

Graham brought to life the Thunderbirds puppet characters Gordon Tracy, scientist Brains, and Lady Penelope’s driver, Aloysius “Nosey” Parker, in the series about the secret International Rescue organisation.

“We will miss you dearly, David. Our thoughts are with David’s friends and family,” Anderson’s post on X confirming the death on Friday said.

Anderson went on to pay tribute to Graham, who also voiced the evil Daleks in Doctor Who, saying: “David was always a wonderful friend to us here at Anderson Entertainment.”

‘What a talent’

Anderson also told the PA news agency: “Just a few weeks ago, I was with 2,000 Anderson fans at a Gerry Anderson concert in Birmingham where we sang him happy birthday – such a joyous occasion.

“And now, just a few weeks later, he’s left us. David was always kind and generous with his time and his talent. And what a talent.”

Highlighting all the characters played by Graham, Anderson added: “He will be sorely missed.”

Graham returned as Parker for ITV’s remake Thunderbirds Are Go, which ran between 2015 and 2020, but not for the live-action 2004 film which saw Ron Cook take on the role.

The original 1965 Thunderbirds was created by Gerry Anderson, who died in 2012, and his second wife, Sylvia, the voice of Lady Penelope, who died in 2016.

Graham also played Grandpa Pig in children’s show Peppa Pig, and provided the voice for characters in Ben & Holly’s Little Kingdom.

His in-person acting roles included Doctor Who, Coronation Street and Casualty.