Cosa Nostra News

Moretti was killed in an empty restaurant at lunchtime. Which mobster inspired  The Godfather ? None of them. Mario Puzo told us that Don Vito Corleone was based on his mother. Why shouldn't we believe him? The problem is that the historical focus has been misaligned. The big question was always,  was Puzo writing from experience or research?  In   other words, take Francis Ford Coppola's reply in a recent  NPR interview . "I  knew nothing about five crime families which had recently become exposed to the public with the publication of "The Valachi Papers." But neither did Mario Puzo, who was also Italian-American. But he knew nothing about it, and he wanted to write this book sort of to get some money for his family. He thought it could be commercial, and he did everything on research. He knew nothing. He never had met any of these figures, and he advised me never to meet them, which I never did....  " The question: Well, WHAT resear...

With thanks to Julie Bonette, Media Relations Officer, Dartmouth College. Puzo in Paramount Lot office in1969. (Photo by Bob Peterson, courtesy of Dartmouth Library.) ... When Michael Corleone was discharged early in 1945 to recover from a disabling wound, he had no idea that his father had arranged his release. He stayed home for a few weeks, then, without consulting anyone, entered Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, and so he left his father’s house.... -- The Godfather Michael Corleone, The Godfather Vito Corleone's  WWII veteran son who reluctantly assumed control of his father's criminal empire, and during a Catholic baptism ceremony had all his enemies murdered, was depicted in the book and films as a Dartmouth graduate. In fact, both Hanover and Dartmouth colleges figure prominently in Mario Puzo's works. The oddest thing about this is that Mario Puzo—the son of Italian immigrants raised in 1920's Hell’s Kitchen in Manhattan—neve...

The town apparently doesn't suffer amateur buglers  either. This is why I need an editor! The municipality of Corleone, Sicily, is no more. And it's the Mafia's fault, the Italian government proclaimed . Other local administrations tied to the Camorra and Ndrangheta  -- Arzano, near Naples, and Calabria's Bovalino and Tropea -- also were done away with. The towns will be administered by a government-appointed commissioner until new elections are held, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's government revealed on August 10.

  Albert Gallo under arrest. "Yeah, I left it noisy. That way it scares any pain-in-the-ass innocent bystanders away." In August 1972 the mob committed one of its worst blunders ever when innocent businessmen were fired on in cold blood at the Neapolitan Noodle restaurant at 320 East 79th Street in Manhattan. " The Godfather " was still playing in New York theaters five months after its release. On Friday, Aug. 11, 1972, a hit man from Las Vegas walked into the Noodle during the dinner hour rush. Mistaking four businessmen at the crowded bar for Colombo family acting boss "Little Allie" Persico and three Colombo wiseguys, the shooter opened fire with two long-barreled pistols, killing two of the businessmen — kosher beef wholesalers from Westchester County and Long Island — and wounding their companions. The men were old friends celebrating a daughter's wedding engagement. They arrived at the Noodle at the exact wrong time, as the P...

We started writing this on the 15th, his true birthday, but finished after midnight. Puzo was the Godfather of the popular novel for a long time. Mario Puzo , the Italian-American novelist who created the Godfather saga, was born on this day, Oct. 15, in 1920. Sadly,  he died in 1999 at age 78 . The man who once called himself "a romantic writer with sympathy for evil" ended a classic collaboration with a great filmmaker who put Puzo's Shakespearean epic of the American Mafia on the big screen, and added the celebrated scribe's name to the title. Born in humble conditions to immigrant parents from Avellino, Naples on October 15, 1920, he was raised in New York's Hell’s Kitchen. He resettled in the Bronx, where his mother decided to move with her seven children once Puzo's father deserted them.

The food was considered awful, the decor described as "dingy" but "underworld" luminaries ate there, a Billy Joel song immortalized the eatery, and bestselling authors included the place in countless novels. The former Manhattan institution was owned by Elaine Kaufman, who reputedly thought nothing of punching customers or throwing out tourists. Yet Elaine’s restaurant in New York’s upper East Side was always jam packed. Celebrities, writers, high-powered executives and Mafiosi were among her regulars.

Charlie Lucky was the inspiration for The Godfather? Small World News Service is running a review of a book about Charles ‘Lucky’ Luciano, "Lucky Luciano: Mafia Murderer and Secret Agent," by Tim Newark (though the title seems to have been changed to "Lucky Luciano: The Real and the Fake Gangster," which at least sounds less silly than the first title, though it is still pretty damn silly nevertheless). The book describes him as being "heralded ... as the model for legendary mafia boss Don Vito Corleone," from The Godfather, novel by Mario Puzo , and the film, directed by Francis Ford Coppola , screenplay by both men [as well as the screenplays for the two sequels]. "He was widely credited for running New York’s notorious underworld, and linked to multimillion dollar extortion rackets, revenge beatings and gangland murders," the review adds, quoting the book or a release about the book.