Real-life comparisons for the characters.

Were these comparisons made when the book/film was released or later?

dt, if I understand your question correctly: Everyone spotted Johnny Fontaine as Frank Sinatra as soon as the book and the film were released--including Frank. Probably a lot of people identified Moe Green as Bugsy Siegel, and, later, Hyman Roth as Meyer Lansky. But other associations--like the Rosatos as the Gallos, Luca Brasi as Willie Moretti, Vito as Frank Costello (or other Dons), etc., was left to the Mafia buffs.

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Never heard about that. But was Moretti THAT violent to be compared to Brasi?

The comparison is based in at least two real-life circumstances:

Moretti is alleged to have muscled studio chief Harry Cohn into giving Sinatra the part of Maggio in "From Here to Eternity," which re-launched his career. (As it happened, Cohn had originally selected Eli Wallach, but he wasn't skinny enough for the part, so Sinatra got it. But the Moretti story took hold.)

Also, Moretti, a feared killer, was Frank Costello's "strength," as Joe Bonanno put it in his autobiography. And some here, including me, believe Vito was modeled after Costello.

I agree TB. Very well put.

On Roth and Green I agree, it was almost like the book was written ABOUT THEM. I think the book said something about Moe being a feared killer before he went out West.

TB can you believe Eli Wallach is STILL alive? Crazy how he doesn't look like a Jew in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly yet in Wall Street II he does. He looked pretty good even then for his age. Dude will be 98 in a few weeks!

He looked like a Jew as Don Altobello in III, which was part of the film's problem.

Oh yea as he has aged he definitely looked Jewish. In those spaghetti westerns though I always thought he was Spanish.....LMAO

correct

Vito Corleaone -> Frank Costello, Joe Profaci and Carlo Gambino

Luca Brasi -> is for me a little bit like Frank Sheeran for Russel Buffalino or Richi Kuklinski for Roy DeMeo,if the Carlo-Story is true

Hyman Roth -> of course Meyer Lansky

Michael Corleone reminds me a little bit on Bill Bonanno (I am reading "Honor Thy Father", at the moment)

personally, I wish they would have done rather movies about the real charakters, not fictional versions of them...

Yes. The comparison holds because Bill Bonanno was the only Don's son being groomed to succeed him (excluding Junior Gotti, who I don't take seriously).

"Honor Thy Father" is an excellent read, and Gay Talese is a fine writer. But, you have to take everything Bill says with about a ton of salt. The guy was a pathological liar.

Thanks Turnbull for your answer. Oh realy? Hm...I had the same thoughts when I read Underboss. I thing that Peter Maas was a good writer too, but Sammy the bald...I think is a cheap son of a...you must have to watch a docu https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-26i0Ecrh88

Very revealing video, DB.

Talese and Maas show a tendency: when a Mob figure "opens up" to a respected writer, the writer gets gaga about his "closeness" to the Mob guy, and tends to print everything the Mob guy says verbatim, and to portray him in a favorable light. Prosecutors are no better. In the Gravano case, they were more interested in nailing Gotti than in providing justice for Gravano's victims--including the 19 that he murdered.

Meyer Lansky, when he was fighting extradition from Israel in the early Seventies, got close to an Israeli writer, Yuri Dan, who he authorized to write his "biography." Lansky filled him with so much BS that his eyes probably turned brown.

I agree TB. One has to be objective when one considers the veracity of what some authors publish. There is a fascination among some Americans about the Mafia and that fascination extends to some authors. I guess that's one reason why they write about them.

An author only remains an author if his work brings in money for his publishing company. When it comes to Mob stories,experience has shown that people prefer the validation of their stereotypical impressions over any actual facts.

There is little financial incentive for an author to leave out the egomaniacal ramblings and B.S. that comprises many Mob books,and instead to give the public what it wants,whether it is true or not.

We see this a lot in movies as well. If the main roles in Goodfellas,Casino,and Donnie Brasco would have been played by actors who actually looked like the characters,I would bet that not only would ticket sales have been bad,but the psychological envy and fantasizing about being in that lifestyle would not have taken root. It's one thing to want to be a handsome,smooth, sexy gangster like Ray Liotta but who wants to be a semi-retarded,ugly,stammering dope addict and drunk like the real Henry Hill?

My point is that the whole measure of success(at least sales-wise) for Mob books and movies comes from allowing people to live vicariously through the characters. Deviate from the romanticized notions,and you lose potential income.

What sells better,the thrill-a-minute saga of the Teflon Don,the man who lived life on his own terms,stood up to the Feds,and paid the price for his code of honor,or the story of John Gotti,the scumbag whose heroin trafficking business ruined (and ended) countless lives?

Sometimes the author ruins the mobster. That's what happened when Miami journalist Hank Messick wrote that Meyer Lanksy was the biggest organized crime boss in America, "worth $300 million." It was total BS, but it set the Justice Department on his case for the rest of his life.