Mario Puzo (writing)
"So I was not interested at all in what Hollywood did to the book as a movie just so long as I didn't help them do it. But one day I picked up the paper and it said that Danny Thomas wanted to play the role of the Godfather. That threw me into a panic. I had always thought that Marlon Brando would be great. So through a mutual friend, Jeff Brown, I contacted Brando, wrote him a letter, and he was nice enough to call me. We had a talk on the phone. He had not read the book but he told me that the studio would never hire him unless a strong director insisted on it. He was nice over the phone but didn't sound too interested. And that was that. "