American film, television and theatre producer Scott Rudin was BOTD in 1958. Born in Long Island, New York to a middle-class Jewish family, he showed an early interest in theatre, starting his professional career at 16 as assistant to a theatrical producer. Forgoing university, he found work as a casting director, eventually starting his own company and casting for Broadway productions and television dramas. In 1980, he moved to Los Angeles to become a film producer, scoring his first major success with the 1983 Oscar-winning documentary He Makes Me Feel Like Dancin‘. He joined Paramount Pictures in 1992, producing the blockbuster comedies The First Wives Club, The Addams Family, Sister Act 2 and Clueless. He also found success on Broadway, winning multiple Tony Awards for his productions of Stephen Sondheim‘s Passion and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. In the 2000s, he moved into the Hollywood A-list, producing some of the most celebrated American films of the 2000s, including an adaptation of Michael Cunningham‘s novel The Hours, the Mark Zuckerberg biopic The Social Network, the Coen Brothers’ drama No Country For Old Men (winning Rudin an Oscar for Best Picture) and Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood. He developed a long relationship with filmmaker Wes Anderson, producing his debut feature Bottle Rocket and seven further films, including The Royal Tenenbaums and the Oscar-winning The Grand Budapest Hotel. He continued to dominate Broadway, co-producing the box-office juggernaut musical comedy The Book of Mormon, successful revivals of Lorraine Hansberry‘s A Raisin in the Sun, stage and film productions of August Wilson’s play Fences, a box office record-breaking revival of the musical Hello, Dolly! starring Bette Midler, and a revisionist staging of Harper Lee‘s novel To Kill a Mockingbird. Openly gay since forever, Rudin was infamous for his hot temper, frequently referred to as “the most feared man” in Hollywood. In 2021, The Hollywood Reporter published a report about Rudin’s history of physical and emotional abuse of employees. He was promptly removed from the producing credits of Mockingbird and fired from upcoming Broadway productions of Moulin Rouge! and The Music Man. After pseudo-apologising, Rudin withdrew from showbiz, and has not recorded a producing credit since 2021. He lives in New York with his husband John Barlow.