A producer and writer for both cinema and television, Albert S. Ruddy is worth $50 million. The Godfather and Million Dollar Baby, winners of the Best Picture Oscar, were produced by Albert S. Ruddy. Films like “The Longest Yard,” “Matilda,” “The Cannonball Run,” and “Cry Macho” are among those he has also produced. Ruddy co-created the TV shows “Walker, Texas Ranger,” and “Hogan’s Heroes.”
Childhood and Education
Jewish parents gave birth to Albert S. Ruddy on March 28, 1930, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Ruth, his mother, raised him in Miami Beach, Florida as well as New York City, New York. Al Ruddy attended Brooklyn Technical High School in the previous city when he was a teenager. Later, he attended City College of New York on a scholarship to study chemical engineering. In order to enrol in the University of Southern California’s School of Architecture, Ruddy later relocated to Los Angeles.
Career Start-Up
After earning his degree from USC, Ruddy returned to the East Coast to build residences. He worked for Warner Bros. Pictures for a short time after returning to the West. Ruddy joined the non-profit RAND Corporation as a programmer trainee after getting to know the studio’s director Jack L. Warner. Later, he made a comeback to the entertainment industry by working at Universal Studios as a television writer.
Movie Career
Ruddy worked with Marlon Brando Sr., who had recruited him for the project, to produce his first major motion picture, the romantic drama “Wild Seed,” in 1965. His subsequent producing credit was for the 1970 comedy “Little Fauss and Big Halsy,” which starred Michael J. Pollard and Robert Redford as two motorcycle racers. Ruddy produced “Making It,” a movie with Kristoffer Tabori and Marlyn Mason, the year after.
One of his greatest successes came in 1972 when he oversaw production of Francis Ford Coppola’s epic crime drama “The Godfather,” which was adapted from the Mario Puzo novel. The movie became a huge critical and financial success, winning Ruddy the Best Picture Academy Award.
Two years later, based on his own plot concept, he produced the prison sports comedy “The Longest Yard.” Next, Ralph Bakshi’s adult animated blaxploitation movie “Coonskin,” which was produced by Ruddy, was released. The comedy “Matilda,” based on the same-named Paul Gallico novel, was the last movie he made in the 1970s.
In 1981, Ruddy produced the action comedy “The Cannonball Run” starring Burt Reynolds, which became his subsequent box office success. He then co-wrote and produced the less popular action movie “MegaForce.” Ruddy produced the action comedy sequel “Cannonball Run II” as well as the heist movie “Lassiter” in 1984. The action movie “Farewell to the King,” the neo-noir “Impulse,” the comedy about sports “Ladybugs,” the Western “Bad Girls,” yet another comedy about sports, “The Scout,” and the criminal thriller “Heaven’s Prisoners” came after these.
Ruddy produced Clint Eastwood’s “Million Dollar Baby” in 2004, for which he received his second Best Picture Oscar. He later collaborated once more with Eastwood to create “Cry Macho” in 2021. Other projects that Ruddy has produced include the direct-to-video sports comedy “Cloud 9,” which he also co-wrote, and the 2005 reworking of “The Longest Yard.”
In 1963, Ruddy made his writing debut on television on the CBS anthology series “The Lloyd Bridges Show.” He co-created and started writing for the popular CBS sitcom “Hogan’s Heroes” a few years later. Hogan’s Heroes aired for six seasons from 1967 to 1971. After that, Ruddy worked on “Thunder Guys,” a television movie. He created “The Macahans,” another television movie in 1976, which was soon turned into a season of “How the West Was Won.”
Ruddy came back to television for a brief period of time to produce the 1981 television movie “Stockers.” After taking a longer hiatus, he made a comeback to television in 1993 as a co-creator of the Chuck Norris-starring action-crime series “Walker, Texas Ranger.” The show also had contributions from Christopher Canaan, Leslie Greif, and Paul Haggis. “Walker, Texas Ranger,” a very popular series that ran for eight seasons until 2001, gave rise to a 2005 television movie.
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