FRED ROOS
(22 May 1934 - 18 May 2024)
The work of a producer is not always recognised until the handing out of best picture awards which generally do go to the films’ producers rather than the directors. Of course, some directors are their own producers – think Hitchcock, Scorsese, Clint Eastwood, James Cameron, Spielberg et al – perhaps to maintain that they get all of the kudos at the awards ceremonies. However, even if they combine the work of director and producer into one, most films need casting directors, co-producers, associate producers and executive producers to make sure everything is going the right way during filming – finance, casting, promotion or anything else the director doesn’t wish to do.
One man who took on these positions was Fred Roos, who has died four days before his 90th birthday. He was a casting director and then a producer and co-producer, executive producer and producer. If you check his c.v., you will find many popular films were made under his aegis but perhaps not knowing anything about the producer himself. As a producer he worked with Francis Ford and Sofia Coppola, Barbet Schroeder and George Lucas, along with many others. As a casting director he helped Bob Rafelson, Monte Helman and Coppola Sr on many of their films. Roos had the ability to nose out possible success when it came to giving a chance to younger actors such as Tom Cruise, Richard Dreyfuss, Carrie Fisher and Jack Nicholson as well as up-and-coming directors like Coppola.
Fred Roos was born in Santa Monica, California, the son of Victor Otto Roos and his wife Florence. After Hollywood High School, he enrolled at UCLA to study theatre and cinema arts. He began working in television as casting director on The Andy Griffiths Show and other TV series. From 1970 he was casting director for Rafelson’s Five Easy Pieces and The King of Marvin Gardens, both with Jack Nicholson, and also Helman’s Two-Lane Blacktop with James Taylor and Warren Oates. By then he was also working with Coppola on The Godfather (1972). Casting the film seems to have been a nightmare but the resulting success of the film saw it being nominated for nine Academy Awards of which it won best picture, best actor (Marlon Brando) and best adapted screenplay (Mario Puzo and Coppola).
As a producer, Coppola had Fred Roos as casting director on George Lucas’s American Graffiti and then took him on as producer on The Conversation, with Gene Hackman. Although it was Oscar-nominated three times, it won nothing, but at Bafta it won for best editing and best soundtrack. On The Godfather Part II, Fred Roos was one of the three producers alongside Coppola and Gray Frederickson to win the best picture Oscar while Coppola got the best director and best adapted screenplay awards. The next Coppola film for Roos was Apocalypse Now which only won awards for best cinematography and sound. However, as one of the co-producers, Fred Roos was nominated.
Roos worked again with Coppola on One from the Heart, The Outsiders, Rumble Fish, The Cotton Club and The Godfather Part III. Roos also worked on Barfly with Mickey Rourke and on George Lucas’s Radioland Murders. Probably his most productive time after Coppola was when he worked with the director’s daughter Sofia on The Virgin Suicides, with Kirsten Dunst. Her father co-produced the film. Then came the Oscar-winning Lost in Translation, with Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson, and Marie Antoinette with Kirsten Dunst in the title role. The film won an Oscar for costume design.
Fred Roos’s final work was on Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis, the epic science fiction drama the director had tried to make for over forty years. The cast includes Adam Driver, Shia LaBeouf, Jon Voight, Laurence Fishburne, Dustin Hoffman and Talia Shire. Sadly, Fred Roos died two days after its premiere in Cannes. He was married to the actress Nancy Drew from 1986 and they have a son, the actor and producer Alexander Roos.
MICHAEL DARVELL