I know who he is from my knowledge of GFII but why isint he in GFI? What is his role? is he a Capo? Did he grow up with Clemenza and Tessio? It seems like alot of questions but im young and confused!

Pentangeli's character was created for Part II because Richard Castellano (Clemenza) couldn't come to terms with the movie's producers to appear in Part II. The character (Pentangeli) was needed to replace Clemenza.

How old are you??

Pentangeli is shown as a "caporegime" in the chart exhibited at the Senate hearing.

I wish that a young Pentangeli had been included in the "Young Vito" segment of "The Godfather Part II", even for a few moments. I think it would have added more depth and background to his character and would have made his effective substitution for Clemenza seem more natural.

I didn't realize Pentangeli was a replacement for Clemenza. They seem like completely different characters. I guess you're talking about how they related to The Family? I enjoyed Pentangeli's character much more than Clemenza's. I thought Frankie Five Angels was kinda funny. I love his "more people here than at a baseball game" remark.... And when he couldn't "get in to see Mike - he's got me waiting in a lobby (or something)". He was funny.....

As art continues to imitate life in the Trilogy, Frankie was probably loosely based on Joe Magliocco who was a major player in the Joe Profaci family and succeeded Profaci after his heart attack. Clemenza was probably loosley based on Profaci and the Rosato brothers on the Gallo brothers. The Gallos were part of the Profaci family, but rebelled. And as Frankie said of the Rosatos, the Gallos did recruit racial minorities (also characteristic of Joey Zasa) and did deal extensively in drugs. Whether they were in league with Meyer Lansky (Roth) is another question.

To respond to the original question Frankie was also ran the New York part of the family after Mikey went west.

Joey Zasa was clearly an homage to John Gotti. I think that Hyman Roth's assassination, while obviously modeled after Jack Ruby's assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald, was also somewhat modeled after the shooting of Joe Columbo in New York City. Like Roth, Columbo was shot out of nowhere while surrounded by the media, only for his shooter to immediately be killed himself. Columbo lingered in a coma for several years until dying in the late 1970s.