Gray Frederickson, the Oscar-winning producer who worked with Francis Ford Coppola on the Godfather films, Apocalypse Now and The Outsiders and later offered hands-on film education to countless fellow Oklahomans through his work at Oklahoma City Community College, has died after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 85.
Frederickson — with writer-director-producer Coppola and producer Fred Roos — won the Best Picture Oscar for The Godfather Part II in 1975. The three were nominated again, along with Tom Sternberg, for Coppola’s 1979 Vietnam War epic Apocalypse Now.
“I got on a winning horse. I was with Francis Coppola, who’s no slouch. I was lucky enough to be carried along with him,” Frederickson told The Oklahoman in an interview in 2021. “I got lucky with him, but he says he got lucky with me. So, maybe that’s good.”
Born and raised in Oklahoma City, Frederickson worked as an usher at the Lakeside Theater in the 1950s before attending college at the University of Oklahoma and later the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. He moved on to Rome, where he began his film career by producing the 1963 film Nakita. He later served as production manager on Sergio Leone’s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, and befriended its star, Clint Eastwood.
He then went to Hollywood, where he met producer Albert S. Ruddy in 1970 while working on the Robert Redford film Little Fauss and Big Halsy. Two years later, he joined Ruddy and Paramount chief Robert Evans to produce Coppola’s The Godfather.
He also worked with Coppola on the 1983 film The Outsiders, set in Oklahoma. The film, based on the S.E. Hilton novel, stars a who’s who of rising young stars, including Matt Dillon, Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez, C. Thomas Howell, Tom Cruise, Patrick Swayze and Ralph Macchio.
Frederickson also worked on cult comedies including the “Weird” Al Yankovich film UHF and Rodney Dangerfield’s Ladybugs. And he won an Emmy for Dream No Little Dream, about former Oklahoma Gov. Robert Kerr.
Returning later in life to Oklahoma City, Frederickson helped establish the film program at OCCC, where he was the artist in residence and studio coordinator. The all-digital film program will be renamed the Gray Frederickson Digital Cinema Program in his honor.
In 2015, he worked with Coppola on a project at the school in which Coppola workshopped his concept of “Live Cinema” – a movie performance piece created in real time – on OCCC’s soundstage, working with its students. It was a remarkable opportunity at such an affordable school.
“Gray started our program in 2000 and built it over time into one of MovieMaker Magazine‘s top 40 film schools in America and Canada. During this time his students and graduates were able to crew up productions, which drew more and more of them into our state and helped create the great production success Oklahoma experiences today,” said his colleague, OCCC film professor Greg L. Mellott, who directed Dream No Little Dream.
Tulsa King shot at Prairie Surf Studios, where co-CEOs Rachel Cannon and Matt Payne are both former of interns of Frederickson.
“He is The Godfather of Oklahoma film, and his loss is felt deeply in our community,” Cannon said in a statement to The Oklahoman. “Gray gave connectivity to an industry that felt off limits to most of us growing up in Oklahoma. He made it accessible.”
Added Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt: “To win the Oscar for Best Picture is one of the greatest accomplishments in modern culture, and as such, Gray is one of the most accomplished people to have ever come from our city. His film career would have been enough to make him a legend, but then for him to return to OKC and build our industry — it was an incredible gift. … Oklahoma City will be forever proud of Gray Frederickson and forever grateful to him.”
In 2019, Frederickson was welcomed into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame, and was inducted at the ceremony by Coppola. Frederickson kept working until the end, with film credits through 2021.
Main image: Gary Frederickson at the Oklahoma Hall of Fame Induction ceremony.
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