Thought this might be a good topic for Father's Day.
An Offer He Couldn't Refuse"
The Godfather, Part I (1972) and The Godfather, Part II (1974) are considered masterpieces of American cinema. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola and written by Coppola and
Mario Puzo, the author of the novel that started the Godfather legend, these two works rank among the best films ever made. (Most critics felt that The Godfather, Part III (1990), a second sequel by Puzo and Coppola, didn't match the quality of its predecessors. Die-hard Godfather fans expressed their disappointment when it was released, and today it's generally relegated to footnote status when speaking of the Godfather saga.)
But more than just a series of movies, The Godfather is a cultural phenomenon, frequently referred to and often quoted. Some people have used it as a business guide while others consider it a primer on personal conduct in a treacherous world. Phrases like "I made him an offer he couldn't refuse" and "Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes" are as well-known as the faces of the movie stars who played the lead characters. Marlon Brando with his stuffed cheeks as Don Vito Corleone and Al Pacino with his smoldering, about-to-explode glare as the Don's youngest son Michael are instantly recognizable to the general public.
The films brought a new public awareness to the American Mafia, and many of the characters and events portrayed in those films are based on actual mobsters and their deeds. The works are so compelling that most viewers (and some members of the mob as well) have come to believe that Italian-American mobsters are indeed "men of honor," Robin Hoods who defy the law and abide by a higher code. But the Godfather films have also come under criticism for romanticizing gangsters and giving them an undeserved patina of nobility by presenting them as characters worthy of Shakespearean tragedy.
In order to make the hierarchy of the fictional Corleone crime family heroes, Coppola and Puzo had to create rival Mafiosi who were morally corrupt and duplicitous. Don Vito Corleone is presented as tough but fair-minded, just, and often benevolent—at least to those who don't cross him and therefore deserve his retribution. Interestingly, the creators of The Godfather spent little screen time on the day-to-day criminal activities of the Corleone family. The impression left by the first film is that the poor Corleones are just minding their own business when suddenly they come under attack, their patriarch gunned down in the street. In presenting the Corleones as "good" bad guys versus their rivals who are portrayed as "bad" bad guys, Coppola and Puzo gain the audience's sympathies for their protagonists who are essentially villainous themselves.
The main plot of The Godfather, Part 1 involves the shooting of Don Vito Corleone and his family's response to the attempted assassination. Don Corleone had angered a rival family because he refused to bankroll a drug dealer named Virgil "the Turk" Sollozzo who has big plans to expand the Mafia's narcotics operations. Sollozzo wants Don Corleone's cooperation because the don has a valuable network of politicians and judges in his pocket, and his protection would be a boon to Sollozzo's business. Sollozzo tries to entice Don Corleone with the incredible profit potential that drug dealing offers, but the don says that his friends in public office wouldn't be his friends for long if he got involved in such a "dirty business." He says that by contrast gambling is a "harmless vice"a sentiment no doubt shared by the hundreds of thousands of people who frequent legal gaming casinos every year. The viewer is left with the impression that Don Corleone's rackets do no harm to the general public whereas drug dealing is a menace to everyone.
The real-life Mafia's supposed ban on drug dealing has been mentioned so often it's generally accepted as fact, but this couldn't be farther from the truth. The shear number of narcotics convictions against mobsters of all ranks through the decades disproves the myth. Mob bosses did issue edicts against drug dealing from time to time, but it was only in the interests of self-survival. When Congress passed the Narcotics Control Act in 1956, mandatory sentences for drug offenses were increased. A first offense earned five years in the pen. A second offense brought 10 years, and the third offense 40 years. Furthermore, the law did away with parole, probation and suspended sentences. Thinking long term, mob bosses had to consider whether drug profits were worth the risk of losing good earners to long prison sentences.
But what concerned the bosses even more was the likelihood that convicted drug dealers would make deals with the government and turn states witness to reduce their lengthy sentences. A man condemned to spend the best years of his life in prison might be more inclined to disregard omerta (the Mafia vow of silence) and rat on his crime family if the government promised to lighten his load in exchange for his testimony.
Some clever mobsters figured out other ways to profit from the drug trade without actually selling drugs. Journalist Jerry Capeci points out in The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Mafia that Philadelphia boss Nicodemo "Little Nicky" Scarfo's directions to his men regarding narcotics typified the mob's prevailing attitude: "Scarfo said you couldn't deal drugs, but you could lend money to drug dealers, shake them down for a cut of their money, and steal from them."In the real underworld any crime family that refused to reap profits from drug dealing, either directly or indirectly, would have a hard time keeping members and eventually would wither away.
When we first meet Don Corleone in The Godfather, Part I, he's dressed in a tuxedo, a red boutonniere in his lapel, holding court and receiving visitors in his dark office while friends and family celebrate his daughter's wedding out in the sunshine on the grounds of his estate outside. He's a king in his castle. But later when we see him on an average business day, his suit is unremarkable, his fedora a bit crushed. He runs his empire out of his olive-oil importing company in the city, but his headquarters are mundane, even a bit shabby. Despite his position as head of one of the most powerful crime families in the country, Don Corleone presents himself as a humble man, and his appearance underscores his apparent lack of interest in the accoutrements of wealth and power. When author
Mario Puzo created the character of Don Corleone in his book The Godfather, he had plenty of real-life models to choose from, but one mob boss stands out as his most likely main inspiration: Carlo Gambino, the cunning boss of the family that took his name.
Unlike Marlon Brando, Carlo Gambino hardly looked the part. A small man with beady eyes and a large nose, Gambino often appeared to be frail and retiring. Mob boss Joe Bonanno once called him "a squirrel of a man, a servile and cringing individual." But looks were deceiving, for Carlo Gambino, like Don Corleone, had a chess master's ability to see two moves ahead of his opponents, giving him the ability to outflank them while deceiving them into thinking they had the better of him.
In the 1940s, New York's five families were still forming, and alliances between emerging bosses were quickly made and unmade as each man jockeyed for the most advantageous position. Opportunities arose when the powerful and influential Charles "Lucky" Luciano, one of the main architects of the American Mafia, was deported to Italy in 1946, and mobster Frank Costello led Luciano's family in his absence. The impeccably groomed Costello, a low-key executive-style mobster, was known as the "prime minister of the underworld" for his ability to hobnob with the upper crust and broker deals with politicians and union officials. What he lacked was dependable muscle within the ranks of his own family. For that he made pacts with bosses from other families who, for a price, lent Costello the manpower he needed. Costello's most valued general was Albert Anastasia, the violent "Lord High Executioner" who had blasted his way to the top of the Mangano family. Anastasia's underboss at the time was Carlo Gambino.
Rival boss Vito Genovese made no bones about his desire to become boss of all bosses, wanting to unite several families under his leadership, but the strength of the Costello-Anastasia coalition managed to keep Genovese at bay for a number of years. Then in 1957, Genovese made his move with an assassination attempt on Costello as he was entering his swank Central Park West apartment building. But the shooter missed his target, the bullet only grazing Costello's scalp.
The botched hit stirred up an angry hornet's nest in gangland. Everyone assumed that Genovese was behind the attempted hit, and he knew that his days would be numbered if he left things as they were. If Costello decided to retaliate, he would outsource the job to Albert Anastasia. To save his own hide, Genovese put out a contract on Anastasia who was gunned down by two assailants as he sat back in a barber's chair relaxing with his eyes closed.
The hit was organized by Anastasia's own underboss, Carlo Gambino, who had made a secret deal with Genovese. Gambino was promised Anastasia's job as boss of the Mangano Family as soon as Genovese accomplished his goal of becoming capo di tutti capi. Frank Costello, now without Anastasia and his troops to back him up, decided it would be wiser to retire than go head-to-head against Genovese. Gambino became the new boss of the Mangano Family.
Unfortunately for Vito Genovese, he underestimated Gambino, who had no intention of operating under anyone's rule. Gambino quietly reached out to Frank Costello and managed to make peace with him, even though Gambino had been instrumental in Costello's sudden retirement. Gambino also reached out to Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky, the Jewish hood who had been Luciano's partner in the creation of a national crime syndicate. They all hated Genovese and feared what would happen if he realized his dream of taking total control of the Mafia. Genovese knew that Luciano, Lansky, and Costello hated his guts, but he assumed that Carlo Gambino was still on his side. It was a fatal assumption.
Vito Genovese was one of the mob's biggest advocates for getting into the drug business. He felt that the profits were too good to pass up. Knowing how Genovese felt about narcotics, the gang of four set him up with a lucrative drug deal, then tipped off the government. They paid a Puerto Rican drug dealer $100,000 to cooperate with the feds and point the finger squarely at Genovese. Though the case against Genovese was shaky and the drug dealer's testimony smelled fishy, the government was eager to have Genovese behind bars. In 1959 the would-be boss of all bosses was convicted on charges of narcotics trafficking and sentenced to 15 years. He died in prison after serving 10. With Costello tied up with federal tax fraud charges, Luciano still in exile, and Lansky keeping a low profile, Carlo Gambino, the "squirrel of a man" with the heart of a fox, quietly became the most powerful mob boss in the country.
Gambino continued to make alliances with fellow gangsters, and by the 1970s the bosses of the other major families in New York were friends of Carlo, some of them installed through his influence.
Gambino lived on a large estate in Massapequa on Long Island, a compound similar to Don Corleone's in The Godfather, Part I. And like Don Corleone, Carlo Gambino died of a heart attack at the age of 76. Unlike many of their peers, they both died free men.
The Godfather, Part 2 presents two separate plot lines: the maturation of Michael Corleone as boss of the Corleone crime family and the rise of young Vito Corleone, Michael's father. At the start of the 20th century, local Mafiosi in Sicily murder young Vito's family, making him an orphan. Fearing that the little boy will grow up to seek revenge for these murders, the local boss orders Vito's murder. Friends smuggle Vito out of Sicily and put him on a ship bound for America. Traveling alone and unable to speak English, the youngster must make his way in the land of opportunity by himself.
In his 20s Vito marries and starts a family back in New York. Played by actor Robert DeNiro, Vito Corleone is hard-working and loyal to his friends, even the ones who aren't as upstanding as he is. Having been victimized by the Mafia in Sicily, he's particularly incensed when he sees the injustices committed by Don Fanucci, the pompous neighborhood boss who demands protection money from every businessman in Vito's Lower East Side Italian community. One of Vito's friends shudders in Don Fanucci's presence and mutters that the man is part of the Black Hand.
At the turn of the 20th century in America, Italian immigrant extortionists used the mysterious name, the Black Hand, to scare their targets into paying their demands, lest they incur the wrath of some vast underground society. In fact, these Black Handers were freelancers with no affiliation to any criminal organization. Nevertheless, the innocent Italian immigrants they targeted believed that a Black Hand organization existed and knew very well that these extortionists generally followed through on their threats when they didn't get what they wanted. It wasn't uncommon for a child to be kidnapped and a severed finger delivered back to the parents to convince them to pay the ransom. In 1905 a Brooklyn butcher was gunned down in his shop for ignoring an extortionist's demand for $1,000. The famous opera tenor Enrico Caruso paid a demand for $2,000 when he received a threatening letter signed with a black-ink palm print.
The most notorious Bland Hander was Ignazio Saietta, better known as Lupo the Wolf, who terrorized the Italian section of Harlem. He maintained what the police later called the "Murder Stable" on East 107th Street, a slaughter house for his underworld enemies and extortion targets who refused to pay. As Carl Sifakis writes in The Mafia Encyclopedia, "Lupo paraded his Black Hand activities openly to the Italian community, thus reinforcing the perception that he was untouchable by the law. It was common for many Italians to cross themselves at the mere mention of his name." The residents of Vito Corleone's neighborhood in The Godfather, Part II treat Don Fanucci in much the same way.
But the fictional Don Fanucci differs from the Black Handers in some significant ways. Black Hand extortionists worked in the shadows and rarely showed their faces unless they absolutely had to. Better to let their victims imagine vast gangs of homicidal monsters. Also, as portrayed in the film, Don Fanucci has no underlings to back him up. He simply demands tribute, and people pay up in fear. His constant refrain is that he only wants to "wet his beak," a euphemism for wanting a cut of the profits. He seems too public a figure to be a Black Hander. In this respect he seems closer to a neighborhood padrone.
When the Italians started to immigrate to America, they, like other ethnic groups, stayed together, clustering in their own neighborhoods. But unlike other immigrant groups, they were very reluctant to assimilate. They resisted learning English and mainly dealt with one another. But there were times when they had to deal with the outside world, and for that they sought the help of the neighborhood padrone, a fellow immigrant who had learned English and acted as go-between for his fellow Italians. When a person's water and electric bills had to be paid, the padrone would take care of it for a fee. If someone had trouble with the law, the padrone would act as interpreter and sometimes as de facto attorney again for a fee. In the early years of the Italian immigration when few Italians could speak English, the services of the padrone were essential, and many immigrants came to believe that certain tasks could not be accomplished without a padronean impression that the padrone did nothing to correct. Exacting fees for these services constituted a form of extortion all its own, although much subtler than an ink-stained death-threat letter. As created by Puzo and Coppola, Don Fanucci is his immaculate white three-piece suit is a hybrid character Lupo the Wolf in a padrone's clothing.
Michael Corleone, Don Vito's third and youngest son, is the central character of the "Godfather" saga. When he first appears in "The Godfather, Part I," he's wearing his military uniform, having just returned from serving in the Marines during World War II. It's clear by just looking at him that he's different from his family. He's clean-cut and soft-spoken. He doesn't swagger, and he doesn't wear his hair greased back. In a sea of loud and boisterous relatives, he's a quiet observer on the sidelines. His girlfriend Kay (played by Diane Keaton), whom he met in New Hampshire while attending Dartmouth, is blond, modest, and too naive to know that she shouldn't ask questions about the Corleones. The mere fact that he's chosen such a person shows how out of sync he is with his relatives. Michael's family loves him, but they make it clear that they don't think he's suited for the family business.
Don Corleone's refusal to help a drug dealer named Virgil "the Turk" Sollozzo triggers a hit on the Don. He's shot on the street outside his olive-oil importing company, then rushed to the hospital in critical condition, his chances of survival uncertain. His hot-headed oldest son Sonny (played by James Caan) vows immediate retaliation, but family consigliere and adopted Corleone brother Tom Hagen (played by Robert Duvall) convinces him to stop and think the situation through the way their father would. Sonny, Tom and the family's top capos weigh their options and ultimately decide that Sollozzo must be taken down. The question is, how? Sollozzo has a corrupt police captain named McCluskey (played by Sterling Hayden) acting as his personal bodyguard. To kill Sollozzo, the Corleones will have to kill McCluskey, too, and killing a cop is a grave violation of the Mafia code because the police will inevitably crack down on all the mob families in the city. As the Corleone hierarchy tries to figure out how best to accomplish this hit, Michael steps in and offers to help. Sonny hugs him but laughs at the suggestion, saying that this won't be the kind of long-range killing Michael saw during the war. This hit will have to be done up close, looking the victims right in the eye.
But Michael persists and makes his case. He would be the best one for the job because no one would suspect the youngest brother who doesn't work for the family. The others see his point, and so it's decided that Michael will be the assassin. Capo Pete Clemenza (played by Richard Castellano) tutors Michael in how to do the job and assures him that a gun will be waiting for him behind the toilet in the men's room of the restaurant where he will meet Sollozzo and McCluskey. The set-up is similar to one of the most significant incidents in the history of the American Mafia.
In the 1920s, the Mafia families in New York were ruled by greedy men from Sicily who mistreated the men who made them rich. The younger gangsters called the old-timers "Moustache Petes" for their hard-headed, old-fashioned ways. One of the most powerful of the Moustache Petes was Giuseppe "Joe the Boss" Masseria, whose right-hand man was Charles "Lucky" Luciano. Though officially aligned with Masseria's family, Luciano secretly belonged to a group of young Turks from all the New York families who wanted to overthrow the backward-thinking Mustache Petes so that they could take over and expand the Mafia's rackets.
On April 15, 1931, Luciano lured Masseria to a restaurant in Coney Island called Nuova Villa Tammaro where the two men enjoyed a leisurely meal, then settled in for a game of cards. At around 3:30 p.m., Luciano, like Michael Corleone, excused himself to go to the bathroom. But instead of coming out with a gun in his hand, Luciano waited for the sound of gunfire out in the dining room. While he waited in the men's room, four young Turks entered the restaurant, pulled their guns, and started shooting.
The assassins were Vito Genovese, Joe Adonis, Albert Anastasia, and Bugsy Siegel. Siegel's inclusion was a clear sign that the younger generation wanted to include other ethnic criminals in their enterprises, something that the Moustache Petes would never consider. The old Sicilians wouldn't even allow non-Sicilian Italians into their ranks. In "The Godfather, Part I," Michael Corleone does the shooting himself, taking out Sollozzo and McCluskey from across the table, but the image of gun smoke swirling over red-and-white checkered tablecloths resonates closely with the particulars of the murder of "Joe the Boss" Masseria.
No single real-life mobster served as a model for Michael Corleone, but author
Mario Puzo was likely thinking of Vito Genovese when he had Michael fleeing to Sicily in the wake of the double rubout of Sollozzo and McCluskey. Genovese fled to Italy to escape murder charges in 1937 and stayed there until after the war. While there, he ingratiated himself with the U.S. Army's intelligence service, helping them break up black-market operations in southern Italy (which he then secretly took over for himself). In thanks for his help, the American government arranged to have the murder charge against him dropped, allowing him to return to the States.
In "The Godfather, Part II," Michael, now firmly ensconced as head of the Corleone empire, seeks out legitimate enterprises. As part of his reorganization plan, he moves the family compound from New York to Nevada. In the 1960s, Joseph Bonanno, boss of the New York family that bears his name, set up shop in Arizona where he sought to expand his rackets into virgin Western territories. Bonanno, like Michael Corleone, also invested heavily in gambling casinos in pre-Castro Cuba.
In "The Godfather Papers and Other Confessions,"
Mario Puzo describes a couple of unpleasant encounters he had with singer Frank Sinatra, who was allegedly furious with Puzo for creating the character Johnny Fontane. Like Sinatra, Fontane is a crooner adored by the bobbysoxers of the 1940s. Fontane seeks his Godfather's help in landing a role in an upcoming movie, an opportunity that Fontane feels will salvage his career. Most viewers assume that Puzo was referring to Sinatra's efforts to land the part of Maggio in "From Here to Eternity" at a time when his career was in the doldrums. Puzo remained coy when it came to the topic of Sinatra and never actually came right out and said that Johnny Fontane wasn't based on Old Blue Eyes, but it's a connection that's hard to deny, given the similarities between the real singer and fictional one.
Puzo describes an incident that took place at Chasen's restaurant in Los Angeles where Sinatra refused to meet Puzo and shouted angrily at the author, calling him a "pimp." The press had linked Sinatra with the Mafia on many occasions, and Puzo's character seemed to support those allegations. Sinatra's connections to the mob have been well-documented over the years, but perhaps what really riled the singer were the fictional aspects of Johnny Fontane that had no basis in truth.
In "The Godfather, Part I," a spiteful movie producer named Jack Woltz refuses to give Johnny Fontane a movie role that would be perfect for him. Don Corleone sends consigliere Tom Hagen as his emissary to try to change Woltz's mind, but the producer becomes enraged when he finds out who Hagen represents and hurls insults at the Corleone family and at Italians in general. Hagen doesn't get angry; he just lets it roll off his back. The next morning Woltz wakes up to find himself and his bed covered in blood. He whips off the covers and finds the severed head of his prized racehorse Khartoum. Within hours, Fontane is offered the part.
Many fans of "The Godfather" assume that Woltz is the fictional incarnation of Columbia studio head, Harry Cohn, and that the mob leaned on Cohn to force him to hire Sinatra for the part of Maggio in "From Here to Eternity." But in truth, the Mafia had nothing to do with it. Actor Eli Wallach was the studio's first choice for the role, but the script called for a fight scene where the diminutive Maggio is beaten to a pulp by a vindictive sergeant played by Ernest Borgnine. When they put Wallach and Borgnine together, Wallach, who had an athletic physique at the time, didn't look puny enough by comparison. Sinatra, who had a 29-inch waist and was Italian-American just like the character, was offered the role instead because he looked right. (Many years later Wallach would play the duplicitous Don Altobelli in "The Godfather, Part III.")
But the mob did step in on Sinatra's behalf earlier in his career when he had problems with big-band leader Tommy Dorsey. Eager to get more exposure with a nationally known band, the 24-year-old Sinatra left trumpeter Harry James's band and signed on with trombonist Tommy Dorsey. Sinatra's ambitions apparently clouded his thinking when he agreed to Dorsey's onerous terms. For a chance to sing in Dorsey's band, Sinatra would have to pay the band leader one-third of all his earnings for life as well as 10% off the top to Dorsey's agent. Sinatra's popularity soared with Dorsey, but it soon became obvious that people were paying to hear Sinatra, not the band.
In 1943, Sinatra attempted to buy out his contract, offering Dorsey $60,000 to dissolve their relationship, but Dorsey turned him down. Sinatra was worth a lot more, and Dorsey wasn't about to sell his golden goose. That's when Dorsey received an unexpected visit from three gentlemen who, according to Sinatra biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli, "talked out of the sides of their mouths and ordered [Dorsey] to 'sign or else.'"
New Jersey mob boss Willie Moretti had always been a big fan of the skinny crooner from Hoboken, and he looked out for Sinatra's interests. Rumor has it that Moretti himself was one of Dorsey's three visitors, and he was the one who made the bandleader an offer he couldn't refuse by sticking the barrel of a gun into the trombonist's mouth. Dorsey abruptly changed his mind and agreed to rip up Sinatra's contract in exchange for one dollar.
The Little Man, the Dapper Don, and the Moe Greene Special
Other characters in the "Godfather" films show close similarities to real-life gangsters. In "The Godfather, Part II," Michael Corleone matches wits with Hyman Roth, the old gangster spearheading the mob's attempts to control casinogambling in pre-Castro Cuba. Roth professes his devotion to the memory of Michael's father, but unlike the Corleones, Roth doesn't share their sense of family. He is first and foremost a hard-nosed businessman whose prime concern is the bottom line and how much of it will end up in his pocket. When the Cuban government falls to the Communist rebels, the mob flees the island, and Roth seeks sanctuary in Israel, but the Israeli government promptly sends him back to the United States.
Roth is obviously modeled on legendary gangster Meyer Lansky, who with Lucky Luciano transformed organized crime in America, creating a powerful national syndicate that they hoped would transcend the petty squabbling of individual ethnic groups. Some believed that Lansky was simply Luciano's "money man," but in fact he was just as dangerous with a gun as he was with an adding machine, though he was always smart enough to have others do the killing for him. In the 1920s, he paired up with Bugsy Siegel who served as Lansky's muscle. In the 1930s, Lansky would be the driving force behind Murder, Inc., a group of stone-cold killers organized to keep the national syndicate's business in order. Murder, Inc. was allegedly responsible for up to 500 murders. With that kind of man power behind him, no one challenged the "little man" as Lansky was often ironically called.
In he 1950s, Lansky maintained close ties with the Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista and orchestrated organized crime's casino gambling interests on the island, just as Roth does in "The Godfather, Part II."But the Communist revolution led by Fidel Castro disrupted the mob's big plans for Cuba as the movie shows.
In the film, Roth flees to Israel to take advantage of that country's Law of Return, whereby anyone born of a Jewish mother can be granted citizenship, but the Israeli government rejects Roth's request for citizenship and sends him back to America, where he's arrested. Lansky faced the same problem with Israeli authorities, but his troubles occurred in the early 1970s. After the Cuban debacle in the '50s, he continued to make piles of money for the mob, so much money that he was virtually immune from reprisals from other gangsters. He was simply too good at turning a profit. Even those who hated him didn't want to lose him.
His partner and close friend Lucky Luciano once said that he used to tell Lansky that "he may've had a Jewish mother, but someplace must have been wet-nursed by a Sicilian." Lansky in many ways was the perfect gangster, combining a natural gift for making money with the steely will to do whatever it took to accomplish his goals. He had no interest in the limelight, letting his flashier Sicilian colleagues make the headlines instead. Lucky Luciano, plagued with legal problems and exiled from America, never really got to see his dream of a national syndicate realized, but Lansky survived a heart attack and lived a long life, exploiting every possible angle the syndicate presented. When he died at the age of 81 in 1983, he was worth $400 million.
In "The Godfather, Part III," the aging Michael Corleone must contend with an upstart mobster with a short fuse named Joey Zasa, played by actor Joe Montegna. Zasa feels that he isn't getting his due from the Mafia commission, so he orders a dramatic mass hit on the commission delivered from a helicopter hovering outside the window of the hotel conference room where they've all gathered.
The well-dressed Zasa bears more than a passing resemblance to John Gotti, the Dapper Don of New York's Gambino family. Though Gotti never ordered a helicopter massacre on his enemies, he did pull off the bold assassination of his boss Paul Castellano in order to take over the family. Like Zasa, Gotti hosted annual street fairs in his Queens neighborhood, complete with free food and fireworks. But unlike Zasa, Gotti was not rubbed out in a hail of bullets on the street. In 2002, Gotti died of head and neck cancer in a federal prison hospital in Springfield, Missouri, while serving a life sentence.
In "The Godfather, Part II," Hyman Roth speaks angrily about the execution of the character Moe Greene, the man who invented Las Vegas, according to Roth. In real life, that distinction belongs to Bugsy Seigel, who built the Flamingo, the first posh casino-hotel in the Nevada desert.
Greene, played by Alex Rocco, appears briefly in "The Godfather, Part I," but very little about him resembles the hair-trigger Seigel who was whacked by a sniper while sitting in his Beverly Hills living room, reading the newspaper. Moe Greene's cinematic demise comes while getting a massage, a single bullet through eye and into the brain, shattering one lens of his glasses. "Godfather" fans have since referred to this particular method of execution as the "Moe Greene special."
http://www.crimelibrary.com/gangsters_outlaws/mob_bosses/the_godfather/1.html
