Is Bettye McCartt A Real Person? Juno Temple's The Offer Character Explained
Juno Temple plays Bettye McCartt in the Paramount+ series The Offer, but is the character based on a real person? The Offer is about the true exploits of producer Albert S. Ruddy in trying to get the classic film The Godfather made. The series stars Miles Teller as Ruddy, Matthew Goode as Paramount Pictures head Robert Evans, Dan Fogler as director Francis Ford Coppola, Patrick Gallo as author Mario Puzo, Burn Gorman as Gulf and Western exec Charles Bluhdorn, and Giovanni Ribisi as mob boss Joe Colombo. The Offer is created by screenwriter Michael Tolkin (The Player), with Nikki Toscano serving as co-writer and showrunner.
The Godfather was written by Puzo and published in 1969, becoming a New York Times bestseller and capturing the attention of Hollywood. Coppola was brought onboard to make the Godfather film adaptation, which would eventually become the Oscar-winning powerhouse that has since been commonly referred to as the best movie of all time. The original film, which just celebrated its 50th anniversary, spawned two sequels, both of them also immensely successful, maintaining The Godfather's status as a cultural phenomenon.
In The Offer, Temple plays Ruddy's secretary, Bettye McCartt, who helps him navigate the complex world of Hollywood in the 1970s as a first-time movie producer trying to get The Godfather made. While many characters are obviously based on actual real people, McCartt isn't quite the same name as Francis Ford Coppola or Robert Evans. However, McCartt was, in fact, Ruddy's secretary at the time that he was producing The Godfather, and Temple's look and likeness is very similar to the real individual.
The real Bettye McCartt was born in 1932 in Oklahoma, later moving to Los Angeles, where she started as a publicist for 20th Century Fox. She later moved on to become Ruddy's secretary and help the newly-hired producer throughout the making of The Godfather. Afterward, McCartt went on to work on the production of Burt Reynolds's 1974 film The Longest Yard, which was written and produced by Ruddy. She would later form her own talent agency, McCartt, Oreck & Barrett Talent Agency, which boasted such clients as George Clooney, Billy D. Williams, Maureen O’Hara, Anthony Quinn, Wilford Brimley, and Brian Austin Green, as well as authors Louis L’Amour and Henry Miller.
In 1975, McCartt became actor Tom Selleck's agent and manager and remained with the Friends actor until her death in 2013 at the age of 81. Having Juno Temple play Bettye McCartt in the Paramount+ series The Offer gives voice to the real person, who until now was never really mentioned as being a factor in helping get The Godfather made. While The Offer is based on the real-life accounts of Ruddy, there is certainly some wiggle room for how accurate all of it is. McCartt was legitimately part of his journey and, as portrayed in the show, substantial in helping Ruddy produce the film, making her inclusion that much more important not only to the show, but to the real McCartt's legacy.