In 1972, one of the best films of all time was released worldwide: "The Godfather" ("The Godfather"), directed by filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola and based on the book of the same name by writer Mario Puzo, which recounted the rise of and the fall of Vito Corleone, a cunning and wise Mafia boss in the United States who had a great ability to manipulate the psychology of his adversaries and recruit new allies and who, with complete tranquility, always preferred to resort to his eloquence and ability to persuasion rather than bullets (“I'm going to make you an offer you can't refuse”, was one of his catchphrases). And, even though he was an outright criminal, he followed a strange code of honor, which made him a trustworthy friend, a devoted father, and a loving husband.
"The Godfather", in addition to a great cast and a fast-paced story of murders and betrayals, stood out above all for the colossal performance of actor Marlon Brando in the role of Vito Corleone, a role that in the sequel to the film ("The Godfather II ”, which addressed the years of childhood, youth, and adulthood of Don Vito) would be assumed by the actor Robert de Niro.
Legend has it that the producers of the film did not want to hire Marlon Brando because of his reputation as a troublemaker, however, the actor, auditioning in front of the cameras, dyed his hair gray, and scrupulously combed it back, filled out his cheeks of cotton to alter the features of his face and intoned his parliaments with a cracked voice, thus managing to build the character. The producers, after seeing his characterization, were impressed. It is said that some executives from the Paramount Pictures studio who saw the projection of the camera test recording, unaware that it was the famous Marlon Brando who was acting, did not recognize him and exclaimed: “Who the hell is this old man? He is fantastic! ".
During the filming, Brando would outline his character more and more (the cotton that Brando had put in his mouth was changed by a prosthesis made for that purpose to achieve the same result) and, even, during one of the scenes, the actor from “Nido de Ratas” and “Apocalypse Now” he would improvise a little game with a cat on his lap, something that would be profusely imitated in a multitude of later villains. Over time, the figure of Vito Corleone would enter the Olympus of the best characters in film history and would be the only character, real or imaginary, who has managed to win two different actors the Oscar for Best Actor (Marlon Brando and Robert de Niro, for "The Godfather" and "The Godfather II", respectively).
The "godfathers" of flesh and blood that inspired the film character
After the premiere of the film and its worldwide success, the character of Vito Corleone would be assimilated par excellence into the world of the mafia. However, even though it was a fictional character, many speculated that the character had actually been based on real mobsters, ruthless flesh-and-blood "godfathers" of the Italian-American mafia.
To begin with, according to Mario Puzo's book, Vito Corleone was born in Corleone, Sicily, in December 1892, under the name of Vito Andolini (his last name was changed due to an error by the immigration official), and emigrated to the United States being very child, after a local capo, Don Ciccio, ordered the killing of his older brother and both of his parents and instructed his hitmen to search for little Vito and kill him as well. When Vito arrived in the United States, he was quarantined on Ellis Island, in New York, due to smallpox and other diseases, and already under the name of Vito Corleone, and after three months of quarantine on the island, he would be transferred to the house of some friends of his family.
This childhood story, by the way, is quite similar (especially in the part about his immigration to America), to the life of Giuseppe Battista Balsamo, one of the leaders of the "Black Hand" and considered the first mafia boss in the United States, who came to the United States in 1895 as a child, spending four months in a hospital on Ellis Island due to respiratory problems.
Sharp-faced and not stocky, Balsamo had deep-set black eyes that were quite frightening. With the protection of Giuseppe Morello, leader of the "Black Hand" in East Harlem, Balsamo would quickly rise in the underworld and at just 25 years old he was already known as "Don Giuseppe." Curiously, this mobster would have also inspired the character of local mobster Don Fanucci, the criminal from "The Black Hand" who is assassinated by the young Vito Corleone in "The Godfather II".
In an interview, the writer Mario Puzo admitted that during the creation of his novel he conducted research in a library about everything related to crime and violence in New York at the beginning of the 20th century, as well as about conflicts and the war between the five most powerful families of the mafia in the decades of the 30's, 40's and 50'. Many claims that the main source of inspiration for building the character of Vito Corleone was notorious criminal Frank Costello, a Calabrian-born Italian-American mobster who had been a "consigliere" or adviser to legendary gangster Charlie "Lucky" Luciano, who rose to the highest ranks in the world of crime, controlling a vast gaming empire across the United States and wielding political clout like no other Cosa Nostra boss.
Nicknamed the "Prime Minister of the Underworld," Costello became one of the most powerful and influential bosses in American Mafia history, eventually leading a criminal organization, the Luciano family, which later became known as the Genovese, one of the Five families that operated in New York City.
There are, by the way, several parallels between Frank Costello and Vito Corleone. Costello had a raspy voice from a throat operation he had during his youth, a characteristic similar to Vito's. The actor Marlon Brando, in fact, declared that he tried to imitate Costello's voice in his characterization of the character of Vito Corleone, based on the famous televised trial of the Kefauver commission (1950-1951), where Frank Costello made various statements with a voice raspy before a US Senate committee investigating organized crime in interstate commerce.
Another similarity that both characters share is that their real power came from the "friendship" of corrupt judges, police officers, and politicians, whom they held in their pockets and manipulated to obtain any benefit that was consistent with their criminal purposes. Also, Costello's nickname of "Gangster Prime Minister" was related to the fact that his biggest business was bootlegging and gambling (he had illegal slot machines all over the country, along with various interests in Las Vegas casinos). Vegas), items that were also the most lucrative for Don Vito Corleone and his family. Also, to top off the resemblance, both Vito Corleone and Frank Costello died of natural causes derived from age.
Other flesh and blood mobsters, by the way, would have also helped round out the character. If the diplomatic talent and the whispering voice were inherited from Frank Costello, from Carlo Gambino, leader of the powerful Clan of the same name and one of the only three Boss of Bosses -Capo di tutti capi- that have existed in the Mafia (the other two were Salvatore Maranzano and Lucky Luciano), the character inherited his tranquility and that tendency to reject gratuitous violence and reserve it only for those cases in which problems could not be solved by talking (Gambino, like Don Vito Corleone, would also die of a sudden heart attack, at the age of 74, clutching his chest).
From Salvatore Lucania, better known as Charlie "Lucky" Luciano, the powerful "Capo di tutti capi" who brought together the five mafia families of New York under his command, Don Vito would have taken the ability to do big business and build consensus around to his figure. And, finally, from Vito Genovese, a caporegime who would become a great leader of the New York mafia and continuer of "Lucky" Luciano's business, Don Corleone obviously took the name and nickname, since Genovese, a mobster who would die in prison in 1969, he was also known as "Don Vito".
As a curiosity, it is necessary to add that the famous scene in which Vito Corleone is shot in the street when he was buying some oranges, is based on the murder of the Sicilian-born mobster Francesco "Frank" Scalice, one of the first bosses of the New York mafia. , who died in 1957 shot in front of his favorite fruit store in the Bronx neighborhood. This gangster, the leader of what would later become the powerful Gambino clan, was nicknamed "Don Ciccio", which is the same name as the old gangster who ordered the execution of the entire family of Don Vito in Sicily and who would be stabbed to death years later at the hands of Vito himself, in one of the most remembered “vendettas” in the history of cinema.
