“He was some narcotics detective. He made that case. He made the French Connection case," said retired Det. Randy Jurgensen, who also worked on the case and on the award-winning movie as the NYPD adviser. “Sonny Grosso was a legendary cop who made the transition to filmmaking with gritty cinema verite stories about cops," Denis Hamill said Wednesday night, praising him for being the inspiration for the Scheider character in “the best cop movie ever made.”