From Bill Diehl, comments and photos from the memorial service for Rudy Ruderman, March 17 in Larchmont, N.Y.
It was a wonderful farewell to our beloved Rudy and the Larchmont Yacht Club was a beautiful setting. A good crowd was on hand, family, friends, and former broadcasting colleagues.
A few surprise guests included WCBS business editor Ray Hoffman and Bill Stoller who is the webmaster for the ABC Radio News site. Bill had only a brief remembrance of Rudy from the early 1970’s, but it was a delightful one. He told of how Rudy helped him get a part time job as a WNEW reporter that lasted for a few weekends, and later gave him a glowing reference for a correspondents slot at ABC Radio News. Mike Stein (once WNEW News Director) was at ABC as a network manager and said, “if Rudy Ruderman says he’s good, then he’s good for us.” Because of Rudy’s endorsement, Bill didn’t have to audition.
I told the memorial gathering of an incident in 1967 when I was new to WNEW. One night, after my news-casting shift ended, Rudy invited me to go with him to the upper east side to a bar called Malachy’s, where he introduced me to this big, funny, lovable Irishman, Malachy McCourt. When we left after a few beers Rudy said, “there Bill, now you’ve gotten a real taste of New York.”
I read messages from Edward Brown, Mike Eisgrau and Carolyn Tanton-Walden-Giatras, which was a real crowd pleaser. There’s was lots of laughter about how Rudy wired her bra with a hidden microphone and sent her to do a story about shoplifting by actually shop-lifting at Kleins Department Store. She got caught. Rudy had told her not to worry about getting caught because that would make an even better ending than if she got away with it.
Rudy’s sons, Jim and Dan and sister Anita all spoke. Jim began with delightful remembrances of his dad, funny ones, too, including the time Rudy was ‘wounded’ during WWII when he was knocked off a tank. Jim said he hit a tree branch while riding outside the tank. Anita, in her version, said, “What really happened was that he was looking at two pretty girls, and didn’t see the branch. Rudy suffered some head injuries in that incident, not bad enough, however, to send him home.
The memorial rooms were filled with Rudy memorabilia including his WWII dog tag. There were photos of him in uniform, with his beloved late wife, Tully, and on-the-job shots including one with Harry Truman.
photo above appeared December 23, 1960 in the Journal American
Did you know Rudy co-wrote a song? — Gee, But You Gotta’ Come Home –Guy
Mitchell recorded it. The sheet music cover was on display. Lots of
recordings were played of Rudy’s work reporting business news, reviewing a couple of plays, and one that I provided of an October 1968 newscast in which I switched to Rudy in Times Square where he would get public reaction to President Lyndon Johnson’s decision to halt the bombing of North Vietnam.
Rudy had two ten year old cats, a brother and sister, in good health, someone at the memorial adopted them on the spot. There were some emotional moments as brothers Jim and Dan spoke. it even happened to me as I closed my remarks. I thought I’d be fine, but toward the end, it got to me.