The real people behind ‘The Godfather’ characters
When Francis Ford Coppola released his magnum opus, The Godfather, he was just 29 and had yet to trailblaze the so-called ‘New Hollywood’ era alongside the likes of Martin Scorsese, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. His status within the cinematic world had just begun to blossom following a string of low-budget movies, a rise which had so far peaked with 1970’s Patton, a film by Franklin J. Schaffner, which Coppola co-wrote.
For his first significant move as an auteur, Coppola fancied delving into the horrifying world of the Mafia and accepted an offer to adapt Mario Puzo’s 1969 novel, The Godfather. But, as he admitted in a past interview with Cigar Aficionado, he wasn’t exceptionally knowledgeable on the subject.
“All I knew about the mafia is that there had been a movie called Black Hand, starring Gene Kelly, that I had seen when I was a kid,” he said. “My father took me to see it. And I knew there was something about the Mafia, but I knew nothing about what it was or how it worked”.
With such little knowledge and not an ounce of internet, there was only one place to go. “I remember going to the library,” Coppola continued, “And I pulled out three books on that subject. I read them all.”
Coppola made extensive notes in a copy of Puzo’s 1969 novel as he began conceiving The Godfather project. “When I accepted the job, I cut all the pages out of the book where I made my notes, and I glued them into this thing myself,” he recalled. “I made this myself, and then I went through very carefully, and I analysed each scene.”
Although the characters in Puzo’s foundational 1969 novel, such as Marlon Brando’s mob boss Vito Corleone and his youngest son, Al Pacino’s Michael, are fictional, real mobsters were behind their stories.
Although Puzo didn’t base Don Vito Corleone on a specific mafia boss, he is understood to be inspired by several New York gangsters. Among these were Frank Costello, Carlo Gambino and Joseph Profaci, the last of whom ran an olive oil company as a laundering enterprise, much like Puzo’s Don.
Elsewhere in the first Godfather movie, fans will remember the wedding of Connie and Carlo. In the garden of Vito’s property, a sun-bathed party ensues to the beat of some light jazz-pop entertainment courtesy of Johnny Fontane. The singer is presented as a former acting star who seeks to make his Hollywood comeback and asks his godfather, Vito, for a helping hand.
Although Fontane was portrayed by singer Al Martino, the character’s arc is not-so-coincidentally similar to that of Frank Sinatra. It is widely believed that Sinatra maintained strong ties with the Mafia throughout his career and wriggled his way out of an unwanted contract with Tommy Dorsey using some of his mobster connections. Later, the crooner would put concerted efforts into an acting career, winning an Academy Award for his role as Maggio in the 1958 movie From Here to Eternity.
Near the end of Puzo’s novel and Coppola’s adaptation, Pacino’s Michael Corleone assumes control of the mob following his father’s death. The consolidation of power only comes following a series of hits by his order. Among them is Moe Green, who Puzo based on the real-life mobster responsible for the Las Vegas scene, Bugsy Siegel. After running the Flamingo casino into the ground and racking up a debt with the mob, Siegel was assassinated in 1947. One of several bullets fired at him from a .30 calibre M1 carbine rifle allegedly knocked out his left eye.
Watch the scene in which Moe Green takes a gunshot to the eye below.
