Albert S. Ruddy, 94, Dies; Producer’s First Oscar Was for ‘The Godfather’

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.

Mr. Ruddy was a gravelly-voiced 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 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 “The Godfather’s” producer 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. He had persuaded the F.B.I. to stop using the terms Mafia and Cosa Nostra in its news releases.