Tom Luddy
About
Biography
Biography
While a student at Berkeley, Tom Luddy operated several film societies. Later in his career, he worked on restoring films which led to a producing career.
Luddy began his professional career working for the NYC-based Brandon Films distributing foreign films. He returned to Berkeley in 1972 and spent the next five years as program director of the Pacific Film Archives. In 1979, he moved over to Francis Ford Coppola's Zoetrope Studios as director of special projects. In this capacity, he supervised the restoration of Abel Gance's 1927 silent masterpiece "Napoleon" as well as the presentation of Hans-Jurgen Syberberg's seven-hour documentary "Our Hitler--A Film From Germany." He also collaborated with Jean-Luc Godard on two projects, "Every Man For Himself" (1980) and "Passion" (1982). Joined with director Paul Schrader, his brother Leonard Schrader and the latter's wife, Luddy helped to bring to the screen "Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters" (1985), the first film about Japan by an American director. It helped to establish Luddy as a producer of art-house projects, although that was not his full intent. Luddy also worked on several films for Cannon Films, which in the 80s varied its fare between low-budget quick flash, quick buck entertainment and more ambitious substantive projects. For Cannon, he joined his Zoetrope cohort, Fred Roos in producing "Barfly" (1987), based on the life of writer and avowed drunk Charles Bukowski. Luddy served as executive producer of Norman Mailer's uneven "Tough Guys Don't Dance" (1987) and produced "Wait Until Spring, Bandini" (1989), about an Italian immigrant family in Colorado during the bitter winter of 1925.
Into the 90s, Luddy has remained involved with quality films. Agnieszka Holland's "The Secret Garden" (1993) was a remake of the 1949 Margaret O'Brien vehicle which was more faithful to the original novel and handsomely filmed. Luddy also produced the modestly-budgeted "My Family/Mi Familia" (1995), one of the first English-language films to delve into the multi-generational Sturm und Drang lives of Latinos in Los Angeles, albeit with much sentiment.
Luddy was one of the founders of the prestigious Telluride Film Festival and served as its co-director. He has also served as West Coast programming consultant for the New York Film Festival.
Filmography
Cast (Feature Film)
Producer (Feature Film)
Misc. Crew (Feature Film)
Life Events
1979
Joined Francis Ford Coppola's Zoetrope Studios as a director of spcecial projects
1980
Supervised restoration of Abel Gance's 1927 silent "Napoleon"
1985
Produced "Mishima" for director Paul Schrader
1987
With Fred Roos, produced "Barfly"
1993
Served as producer of the remake of "The Secret Garden"
1995
Produced "My Family/Mi Familia"
1996
With Francis Ford Coppola and Wayne Wang, formed Chrome Dragon
1997
Announced first feature to be produced through Chrome Dragon, "Lanai-Loa", starring Angus MacFadyen
