Scott Rudin on set with Chris Rock in the background. Picture: startraksphoto.com Source: New York Post

Hollywood producer Scott Rudin became as famous as one of his movie stars last week when hackers leaked vicious e-mails between him and Sony Pictures co-chair Amy pascal, in which he called Angelina Jolie “a minimally talented spoiled brat” with a “rampaging spoiled ego.” He also made racially charged comments about President Obama, suggesting that Rudin and pascal ask if Obama enjoyed a slew of films about slavery, adding, “I bet he likes Kevin Hart.”

While Rudin’s talent has never been in question, his abuse is ­legendary.

Now 56, the Long Island native is one of the most powerful producers in the industry. He’s also one of the few so-called EGOTs: Those who have won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony award.

His movies — starting with his first commercial hit, 1990s Flatliners — have grossed nearly $4 billion ­cumulatively.

Over the past few years alone, Rudin produced It’s Complicated, The Social Network, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Moneyball, Moonrise Kingdom, Captain Phillips and Chris Rock’s acclaimed new film, Top Five.

Scott Rudin and Sony Pictures Entertainment Co-Chairman Amy pascal, pictured here in 2011, traded blows in a series of fiery leaked emails. Picture: Getty Images Source: Getty Images

As beloved as he is by directors, writers and some actors, Rudin is loathed by those who’ve worked beneath him. He has a reputation as a bully, a megalomanic, a vulgarian and a sadist.

He has pushed assistants out of moving cars. He has thrown so many phones at assistants that, lore has it, a box of fresh ones is always on hand. He has fired people for bringing him the wrong muffin, mispronouncing names and, in at least one case, having to attend a funeral. One dismissed lackey wasn’t even allowed to put on his coat ­before leaving the building.

The average Rudin assistant lasts four weeks.

“He’s got issues,” former assistant Jon Silk tells The Post. “I don’t think he’s fully in control of the things he says and does to people.”

By last Friday, Pascal’s future at Sony was in question. Rudin, on the other hand, is expected to survive — despite all the human wreckage in his wake.

Rudin saved his harshest words in the emails for Angelina Jolie, labelling her a “spoiled brat.” Picture: AP Source: AP

“I was a Jewish kid from Long Island who didn’t want to be a Jewish kid from Long Island,” Rudin once said. He was raised middle class in Baldwin, has one younger brother and never talks about his mother. In 1993, he told The New York Times that his father sold men’s clothing, but “I don’t know where he works now.” ­Obsessed with show business from childhood, Rudin dropped out of high school to take grunt work with Broadway producers.

By 21, he’d moved to Hollywood and, by 27, he was head of production at Fox. Rudin was reportedly the model for Kevin Spacey’s militantly brutal Hollywood exec in 1994’s “Swimming with Sharks.” Yet he remained unsophisticated: He’d order Cheerios at restaurants, kept an endless supply of string cheese in his office, parked in handicapped spaces because he felt like it.

In 1996, Spy magazine called him “The Biggest A–hole in Hollywood” — a title he still maintains.

Silk worked as one of Rudin’s assistants — there are six at any given time — for eight months in 2004. In his first week, Silk had to locate all the items Rudin wanted to buy on an upcoming trip to Paris — then map the locations of all the stores and make sure the French driver knew the route.

Silk was also tasked with filling one of Rudin’s houses with thousands of books. “We had a whole procession of chauffeured cars going into Connecticut,” he says. “I was there well into the night for several nights.”

Producers Ethan Coen, left, Scott Rudin and Joel Coen pose with their Oscars after the film No Country for Old Men in 2008. Picture: AP Photo Source: AAP

Then came the day Silk was leaving the office for the funeral of a childhood friend; he’d submitted a written request to Rudin for his absence and Rudin had said, “Yes, of course.” That morning, after Silk walked his boss through the itinerary of an upcoming trip to London, Rudin exploded. “Learn to speak English!” he exclaimed, flinging paper everywhere. Then he fired Silk. “I was 24 years old and on anti- ­ulcer medication,” he says. Silk — as with so many other impulsively dismissed assistants — was rehired, but the job never got easier.

“You’d get in between 4 and 6 in the morning, and you’d be there till 10 at night,” he says. “You couldn’t take the subway, because he needed to reach you at all times. He only slept three hours a night. It’s a boot camp.”

There was the spectacular firing of an assistant who’d been late to pick up Rudin at the airport. “My last day is today,” the assistant said. “Your last moment is now,” replied Rudin, who forced him out of the car on the Triborough Bridge.

One former assistant told ­Salon.com of coming into work at 7:30am to find a stream of voicemails time-stamped from 11pm through 6:30am. “Then the phone rings — it’s 7:35am — and it’s Scott, saying, ‘Start on those calls,’ ” the ex-assistant said. “This goes on until about 11am. He’s in the office now. I’m making calls, and suddenly he screams, ‘You a–hole! Your forgot to remind me to get flowers for Anjelica Huston’s birthday!’ And as he slowly disappears behind his automatic closing door, the last thing I see is his finger, flipping me off.”

Angelina Jolie had a rather awkward public run-in with Amy Pascal in the wake of the email leak. Picture: AP Source: AP

Rudin forced an employee to tape the definition of “anticipate” above his desk. Another had to make 300 calls in a row, in one day. Rudin once pitched a fit when brought the wrong sushi.

He is known for issuing the following declarations:

“Don’t ever f–king think — I hired you from the neck down.”

“This is a new level of stupid.”

“Why doesn’t everyone just do what I say?”

“My silence is high praise.”

“Do you think you’ll even vaguely perform your duties as my ­employee?”

“You have three things to do: answer the phone, listen to me and die.”

Defenders — yes, Rudin has them — maintain that some of this is an act. “He styled himself in the mode of the David Merricks and the movie moguls who weren’t afraid to throw their power around and pull outrageous stunts,” says one longtime friend. “I’ve never seen that behaviour. I think a lot of it is for show.”

Last week may have been a first in Scott Rudin’s career: He publicly apologised for the Obama scandal.

“I made a series of remarks that were meant only to be funny, but in the cold light of day, they are in fact thoughtless and insensitive — and not funny at all,” he said. “To anybody I’ve offended, I’m profoundly and deeply sorry, and I regret and apologise for any injury they might have caused.”

Actor/Comedian Kevin Hart was dragged into the saga as leaked emails showed Rudin bet Barack Obama was a fan. Picture: Getty Source: Getty Images

A former employee who spent nearly 15 years working for Rudin says his old boss isn’t racist.

“That’s not him,” says this source, who insisted on anonymity. “I’ve known him for almost 20 years. He’s a friend and a mentor, and I know he’s torn up that he had that lapse in judgment.”

The Jolie e-mails, in which Rudin insists that director David Fincher pass on Jolie’s Cleopatra biopic in favour of a Steve Jobs project, are a different story — they go only to her character and talent level. They’re electrifying precisely because Rudin may be giving voice to a quiet, commonly held sentiment.

“I think people were applauding him for being so forthcoming in defence of the Jobs project,” says the ex-protégé, who is now at a major studio. “He doesn’t bow to celebrity. It’s about the work. ­Status doesn’t impress him.”

The contempt for Jolie, and the unfinished, 700-page script for Cleopatra, is hilarious in its brevity and specificity: “I’m not interested in presiding over a $180m ego bath that we both know will be the career-defining debacle for us both,” Rudin wrote pascal. “I’m not destroying my career over a minimally talented spoiled brat who thought nothing of shoving this off her plate for eighteen months so she could go direct a movie ... She’s a camp event and a celebrity and that’s all and the last thing anybody needs is to make a giant bomb with her that any fool could see coming.”

“On those e-mails, he’s looking out for the person he believes is the real talent there — and that’s Fincher, not Jolie,” says the producer’s friend. “He’s a very shrewd judge of character, and he does not put up with misbehaving stars.”

Rudin is also a voracious consumer of culture — art, theatre, film, music and books. Among other titles, he holds the options for Blood Meridian, The Marriage Plot, The Flamethrowers, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and Beautiful Ruins.

“He’s probably the most well-read person in show business,” says Rudin’s ex-protégé.

As a producer, Rudin lives and dies by the material he acquires and the talent he can attract. His taste level and instincts are highly respected, and he has the box office to back him up. Chris Rock recently told The New Yorker that it was Rudin who convinced him to switch gears with the 2011 Broadway play The Motherf–ker With the Hat.

Last Thursday, after the Obama e-mails broke, Rock defended ­Rudin to Charlie Rose. “Scott ­Rudin got me to run at a speed I didn’t know I could run,” he said.

Last Thursday, after the Obama e-mails broke, Rock defended ­Rudin to Charlie Rose. “Scott ­Rudin got me to run at a speed I didn’t know I could run,” he said.

Despite his reputation, Rudin does have his defenders. Picture: AP Source: AP

On the whole, says Rudin’s friend, the producer is “much closer to writers and directors: the late Mike Nichols, David Fincher, Stephen Daldry, Aaron Sorkin.” The respect is mutual: “When you get notes from Scott, you’re getting notes from someone who really knows how a script is put together. He’s not a dilettante.”

He is also, quietly and privately, exceptionally generous. “He’s paid for innumerable people’s college educations,” says his friend. “If I were ever in trouble, he’d be someone I’d turn to.”

Even Jon Silk, who suffered through Rudin’s tantrum on the day of his childhood friend’s ­funeral, agrees. About seven years ago, former Rudin assistant-turned-exec Sam Cassel was killed, along with his girlfriend, by a drunken driver. Rudin took care of everything.

“He flew 20 of us old assistants, if not more, to the funeral in Philadelphia. He put us all up in the Ritz-Carlton, took us all out to dinner and we shared stories about Scott.”

Silk believes Rudin also paid for the cost of the wake and funeral. “There’s two sides to him,” Silk says. “He has a heart.”

It’s this combination of righteous volatility, artistic sympathies and deeply felt — if flawed — allegiances that will likely push Rudin through this scandal.

“One of the reasons filmmakers are so loyal to him is because of the muscle and support he provides,” says his former protégé. “He’s got smarts and creativity, but that’s what separates him from other producers.”

This article is republished with permission from the New York Post.