For his work on movies like “The Godfather Part II” and “Apocalypse Now,” Fred Roos won an Oscar.
The well-known actor and director worked with Francis Ford Coppola a lot. He was 89 years old.
As his first job, Fred was in charge of hiring people to be in old movies like American Graffiti.
Reports from Variety say that he helped get Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson, Carrie Fisher, and Richard Dreyfuss roles.
After Fred and Francis became close, they worked together on a number of projects.
Another important job for the director was to watch over Sofia Coppola when she was young.
Franz’s new movie Megalopolis had its world premiere last week at the Cannes Film Festival. Fred’s most recent job was as casting director and executive producer on the project.
Fred did more than just work for the well-known director. Another thing he did was help cast the first Star Wars movie.
Variety says that Fred persuaded George Lucas at the time to let a young actor try out for the space opera while he was working on some cabinets for Fred.
That part was played by Harrison Ford.
Fred told Entertainment Weekly after seeing American Graffiti, “I had already brought him to George’s attention.”Though he was great, they had to film all night, and he had only been on the movie for ten days. George didn’t really know him well.
Someone who worked for Fred said that he died on Saturday at his home in Beverly Hills.
His wife, Sarah Drew, and their son, Alexander “Sandy” Roos, who worked with them in production, will live on.
Fred’s death comes right after that of another Coppola character.
Author and director Roger Corman passed away last week at the age of 98.
People like Francis Ford Coppola, Ron Howard, James Cameron, and Martin Scorsese were hired by the person who made the cult classic.
Roger was a big name in independent film, and in 1960, he directed The Little Shop of Horrors, a really great movie.
Lots of people who knew him said he was kind, honest, and helpful. Kate Corman, his daughter, said this in a statement.
“When asked how he would like to be remembered, he said, ‘I was a filmmaker, just that,’” she shared.
THE STORY OF ROGER
In the 1970s, Roger’s movies were the start of TV’s golden age.
In the 1958 Corman short film The Cry Baby Killer, Jack played the lead role for the first time. He stayed with the company and wrote and produced some movie about bikers, scary movies, and action movies.
This is where actors like Robert De Niro, Bruce Dern, and Ellen Burstyn got their start in the business.
Nicky Nicholson and Dennis Hopper, who was also in Easy Rider, played lead parts in Peter Fonda’s first big movie, The Wild Angels.
It was given to Corman as an honorary Oscar in 2009.
Corman says that working with a small budget has many issues, but it also has some good points. He said this in a 2007 film about the director Val Lewton, who made Cat People and other underground classics in the 1940s.
“You have a little more to lose. You can try new things.”You have to think outside the box to solve a problem or present an idea,” he said.