Fred Roos, the casting director turned producer who kick-started the career of Jack Nicholson and often collaborated with it Francis Ford Coppolafor which an Oscar for best picture is shared with the filmmaker The godfather: Part II, has passed away. He was 89.
Roos died Saturday at his home in Beverly Hills, a publicist announced.
Rather, it's part of Hollywood lore Harrison Ford became a famous actor, he worked as a carpenter to make ends meet. What some may not know is that Ford was in Roos' house doing woodworking when the casting director befriended him and eventually tapped him for roles in George Lucas' film. American graffiti (1973) and Star Wars (1977) and Coppola's The conversation (1974).
And it was Rose who convinced Lucas – who leaned towards Amy Irving – that Carrie Fisher should play Princess Leia. Star Wars. (Roos had no official role in that film.)
However, Roos was the casting director The godfather (1972), and he helped Coppola decide to have Al Pacino and James Caan play Michael and Sonny Corleone, respectively, after Paramount executives wanted other actors. (He said he and Coppola “saw every Italian-American actor in Hollywood and New York” while casting their film.)
“I have no doubt that Fred is one of the greatest casting talents in American filmmaking of the last 40 years,” says Coppola. said in a 2004 interview with the Chicago Tribune. “He introduced people I would never have met, like the great John Cazale.”
Roos also played an important role in shaping the young careers of Tom Cruise, Richard Dreyfuss, Diane Lane, Rob Lowe, Matt Dillon, Patrick Swayze, Emilio Estevez, Ralph Macchio and Suzanne Somers.
Roos, a friend of Nicholson's since the early 1960s, hired the actor to star Flight to Fury And Back door to hell, a pair of 1964 low-budget action films directed by Monte Hellman, which Roos produced back-to-back in the Philippines. He also hired Nicholson to co-write the screenplay for the first.
The actor “was high on the positive side of interesting,” Roos says in Patrick McGilligan's 1996 book: Jack's Life: A Biography of Jack Nicholson. “His face and look were anything but what was going on [in the industry]. It was the era of the pretty boys. But he was extremely likeable, fun to be around, quite unpredictable, not like anyone else. At street level he seemed very smart. I was from Southern California, and this energetic street scene in New Jersey was very foreign to me. So I was fascinated by that aspect.”
As casting director of Bob Rafelson's Five simple pieces (1970) earned Roos Nicholson his first Oscar nomination in the best actor category. He cast musicians James Taylor and Kris Kristofferson in leading roles in Hellman's Two-lane Blacktop (1971) and Cisco Pike (1972), respectively, and cast Stacy Keach and Jeff Bridges in the John Huston boxing drama Fat city (1972).
Coppola appreciated Roos so much that he made him a partner and signed him on as co-producer The conversation. The following year, Roos shared the Oscar for best film with Coppola and Gray Frederickson The Godfather: Part II (1974), the first sequel to win Best Picture. Roos received another Academy Award nomination as a producer for Coppola's Apocalypse now (1979).
When Sofia Coppola launched her film career, it was only natural that Roos made his expertise available – during the making of The godfather, he babysat her to give her parents, Francis and Eleanor, a night out. Roos was producer of all the films she directed.
He brought the then unknown Josh Hartnett to Coppola's attention The Virgin Suicides (1999), her directorial debut, and urged her to consider Anna Faris for the role of the crazy starlet in Lost in translation (2003). Roos led the search that led to Emma Watson, Katie Chang, Claire Julien and Israel Broussard playing the lead roles The bling ring (2013) and recommended Colin Farrell for Coppola's 2017 remake The seduced.
As the filmmaker told The Hollywood Reporter's Rebecca Ford in 2017: “The soldier had to be really masculine and contrast with these delicate Southern ladies. And I just met several actors, and Fred Roos, my wonderful advisor, suggested Colin. I had met him before, but had not thought of him before.”
Frederick Ried Roos was born in Santa Monica on May 22, 1934. He graduated from Hollywood High in 1952, then joined the Army and fought in the Korean War.
After earning his bachelor's degree from UCLA, Roos got a job in the mailroom at talent agency MCA. It wasn't long before he was promoted to junior agent. One of his clients was actress Pilar Seurat, who was married to Nicholson's writing partner, Don Devlin.
In an effort to move more into production, Roos left MCA and signed with Hollywood veteran Robert L. Lippert as story editor and casting director. Lippert led one of the last studio “B” units, overseeing such low-budget fare as The fly (1958), Desire in the dust (1960) and The last man on earth (1964).
Roos gave Nicholson a small role in Lippert's Western The broken country (1962), after which Nicholson and Devlin had Lippert pitch an idea for a low-budget action film set in Central America. That was Thunder Island (1963), with the pair receiving $1,250 for their screenplay.
In 1964, the producer sent Roos to the Philippines to supervise two films in production starring Jock Mahoney. He remembered seeing a World War II script in the office Back door to hell and realized it could work in that location. He also had his own story idea: Flight to Fury, about a failed diamond heist. He pitched both films to Lippert, and the producer gave his young employee the green light to produce them for $80,000 each.
Roos had seen Nicholson come in The terror (1963) and admired the moody, atmospheric way in which the film was shot; he thought one of the directors, Coppola or Hellman, might be interested in his two films. At the time, Nicholson and Hellman were a writing team, so they were the ones who came on board.
Roos moved to television and served as a casting director Gomer Pyle, USMC; I spy; The Andy Griffith Show; That girl; And My world and welcome to it. With the 1968 releases, he began dabbling in big-screen casting Mary-Janestarring Fabian and Diane McBain, and Petuliawith Julie Christie and George C. Scott.
Roos continued producing Coppola's One from the heart (1982), Rumbling fish (1983), The outsiders (1983), The Cotton Club (1984), Gardens of stone (1987), Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988), The Godfather: Part III (1990), Youth without youth (2007), Dejected (2009), Tweet (2011) and Distant vision (2018) and was listed as a casting executive Jac (1996) and The Rainmaker (1997).
He was also executive producer of Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypsethe 1991 Emmy-winning documentary about the making of Apocalypse now which Coppola's wife, Eleanor, co-directed. And he arranged the financing for her directorial debut: the romantic comedy Paris can wait (2016), starring Diane Lane and Alec Baldwin – when she was 81.
Through Francis' Zoetrope Studios and its later incarnation, American Zoetrope, Roos also produced feature films directed by Carroll Ballard (1979's The black stallion), Wim Wenders (1982). Hammett), Barbet Schroeder (1987's Barfly) and Agnieszka Holland (1993). The Secret Garden).
Roos continued to produce films such as Saint Vincent (2014), The congressman (2016), Wonderful (2018) and Girl who fell from the sky (2018).