Al Ruddy
| Albert S. Ruddy | |
|---|---|
| Born |
March 28, 1930 Montreal, Quebec, Canada |
| Occupation | Film producer |
| Years active | 1965–present |
| Spouse(s) | Francoise Ruddy (divorced) Wanda McDaniel |
Albert S. Ruddy (born March 28, 1930) is a Canadian-born film and television producer.
Albert Stotland Ruddy was born in Montreal and raised in New York City and in Miami Beach, Florida, by his mother, Ruth Ruddy Hertz. Ruddy attended Brooklyn Technical High School before earning a scholarship to allow him to study chemical engineering at City College of New York. He graduated from the School of Architecture at the University of Southern California and then worked designing homes in the construction industry on the East Coast.
After a short stint at Warner Brothers, brought about by a chance meeting with studio chief Jack L. Warner, Ruddy moved on to become a programmer trainee at the Rand Corporation in Santa Monica, California. Returning to entertainment, Ruddy was a television writer at Universal Studios, but left when Marlon Brando Sr., father of the legendary actor, hired him to produce Wild Seed (1965).
With this one film completed, Ruddy co-created Hogan's Heroes (CBS, 1965–1971), which was a critical success and ran for six seasons. As the sitcom wound down its run, Ruddy returned to films, producing two comedies: Little Fauss and Big Halsy (1970), about two motorcycle racers, and Making It (1971), about a sexually triumphant high school student who beds the gerontophobic wife of his gym teacher. In 1972, he produced The Godfather and won his first of two Oscars for Best Picture. In 1974, Ruddy produced The Longest Yard, which has been described as "the first successful modern sports movie". The movie was very successful financially and was subsequently remade twice with Ruddy as executive producer (as Mean Machine (2001) and as The Longest Yard (2005)).
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