Fred Roos, Casting Director and Coppola Collaborator, Dies at 89

[brooklynite]

Fred Roos, a casting director and producer who championed the early careers of A-list actors like Al Pacino, Jack Nicholson and Carrie Fisher, and whose long collaboration with Francis Ford Coppola and his family, stretching from “The Godfather” (1972) to this year’s “Megalopolis,” earned him an Oscar and an Emmy, died on Saturday at his home in Beverly Hills, Calif. He was 89.

His death was announced by his family in a statement.

Many in Hollywood said that Mr. Roos had the best eye for talent in the business. He championed the young, relatively unknown Mr. Pacino for the role of Michael Corleone in “The Godfather” when the studio executives at Paramount wanted a better-known actor, like Robert Redford or Warren Beatty. And when his friend George Lucas was leaning toward Amy Irving for the role of Princess Leia in “Star Wars” (1977), Mr. Roos suggested he cast Carrie Fisher instead.

Mr. Lucas listened — after all, it was Mr. Roos who had assembled the cast for his breakout film, “American Graffiti,” in 1973, including then-unknown actors like Harrison Ford, Richard Dreyfuss and Mackenzie Phillips. He later did something similar for Mr. Coppola’s 1983 adaptation of the novel “The Outsiders,” bringing together the future stars Tom Cruise, Matt Dillon, Rob Lowe and Patrick Swayze.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/24/movies/fred-roos-dead.html

He hired my mother (we were living in Manila at the time) to do the extras casting for APOCALYPSE NOW.

[yardwork]

1. He was brilliant. That's interesting about your mom!

[brooklynite]

2. My brother (and pretty much every boy from my former HS) was in the USO scene...

(I had left to go to Boarding School in the US).

My mother also had the job of scrounging a case of Perrier water (rare for that period) for Marlon Brando.

[yardwork]

3. I'll bet she could tell some stories....

By all accounts, filming was wild.

[brooklynite]

5. One story she tells is that for the USO scene...

...she went to the set (about two hours from Manila) with the students who were playing soldiers. The brought along lunch boxes which weren't refrigerated against the tropical weather, and were almost rotten when they broke for lunch. When the students complained, she told them "it's part of the story. You're a soldier deep in the jungle and this is what you would have had to eat!"

[BannonsLiver]

4. How wonderful

The boarding school reference is just perfect. Chef’s kiss.

[brooklynite]

6. C'mon, you can do better than that...

What about living in an expat community with a Polo Club and servants and drivers and.....

I'll add that being in the Philippines when Marcos declared Martial Law set me on my course of working to protect democracy in the US. But that's not nearly as interesting a story.....