Don't know if you knew this, but I found this article today. Apparently Brando didn't want to do The Godfather......at first anyway.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/Movies/02/02/brando.refusal.reut/index.html


TIS

Wow i never knew that

I saw this article on CNN this morning. It's funny how things turn out. Maybe Brando woke up one morning with a horse's head in his bed and then "decided" to take the role.

Anyway, no one but Brando could ever have played the role, right? If not Brando, who? In early '70s, what actor could have been eligible? Maybe Paul Newman, but he had not the Italian look...it's true he was a credible Rocky Marciano in "Somebody Up There Likes Me", but I cannot see him like Don Vito.

The actor who was supposed to be The Godfather is Raf Vallone ,the one playing Cardinal Lamberto(later the Pope) in GF3.

As for the CNN story,Coppoloa said that Brando was VERY eager to play that role when he first came to see him about it in Brando's house.He said that Brando was sitting on the sofa,talking with the Don's "accent" until he go the right cords he later used in the movie.They both agree to go for it.Coppola insisted on Brando,but the studio didnt want him.You know who won at the end,and the rest is history

Just imagine...if Brando hadn't taken that role...and someone like Paul Newman took it...and it flopped...would there be a GangsterBB?!

Sir Laurence Oliever(sp) was also a studio pick for Don Vito.Imagine that

The 25th Anniversary VHS set of the Trilogy (very fine product) has comments from various principals at the beginning of each movie. At the beginning of the GF tape, Puzo said that he had heard that Danny Thomas(!) was planning to buy Paramount so he could play Vito Corleone(!!) "I was disturbed by that," Puzo says, in the understatement of the year. So he got Brando's address from his agent and wrote to him, asking if he'd be interested in playing Vito. To his surprise, said Puzo, Brando wrote back immediately, expressing strong interest. But he said he'd have to wait until Paramount announced a director.
It's true that Paramount didn't want Brando (or Pacino, either). FFC accommodated Paramount by asking Brando to do a screen test for the role--nominally a humiliating thing for an actor of Brando's stature. But Brando went along with it because he wanted the role. You can see part of the screen test on "The Godfather Family," which is included in the "extras" disc of the DVD trilogy.

i remember reading something similar to this in his autobiography