text: Development Attempts to make a film about the life of Patton had been made since he died in 1945 but his widow, Beatrice, resisted. After her death in 1953, producer Frank McCarthy began the project and, the day after Beatrice was buried, the producers contacted the family for help in making the film, requesting access to Patton's diaries, as well as input from family members but the family declined to help. McCarthy also sought co-operation from The Pentagon; they also initially refused, as Patton's son, George Patton IV, was in the Army, and Patton's second daughter, Ruth, was married to an officer. By 1959, McCarthy had convinced the Army to co-operate.
  20th Century Fox bought A Soldier's Story, the 1951 autobiography of General of the Army Omar Bradley (who features prominently in the film, played by Karl Malden). Francis Ford Coppola wrote the film script in 1963 based largely on Ladislas Farago's 1963 biography Patton: Ordeal and Triumph, and on A Soldier's Story. Edmund H. North was later brought in to help work on the script. The film was originally to be called Blood & Guts and William Wyler was originally scheduled to direct. Wyler quit before the planned starting date of January 1969.