The ANNOTICO Report
Mobster Joe Colombo Threatened to Shut "Godfather" Thinking
it Would
Slander Italian Americans. And he could have easily done
it by merely
instructing the Unions to Boycott.
Colombo was talked out of it. What a different world
this would be if
Colombo had held his ground.
And although "The Godfather" is a classic piece of cinematic
genius, and
although Coppola intended to show that there was possibly
more integrity in
the mobster life than there were with politicians, he
obviously failed
miserably in communicating that.
While the Godfather series of films gave Italian Americans
a chance to
relate to a number of "familiar" circumstances that warmed
their hearts,
and reminded them of the positive values of
family, and the emotional roller coaster of birth, graduations,
marriage,
children, death, the Italian community has paid a horrendous
price for
those few "crumbs" of pleasure. Godfather spawned a torrent
of films and TV
that indelibly branded and equated the Italian American
as Mobster.
This article is about Gianni Russo is best known for his
role in "The
Godfather," playing the back stabbing, wife-beating thug
who marries Don
Corleone's daughter, is beaten badly by Corleone's son
Sonny (played by
James Caan) and ends up with piano wire for a necklace.
Russo's singing act leans heavily on his knowing and associating
with
Mobsters, and feels that it will also fuel interest in
his various
endeavors, then wonders why Italian American high Level
Businessmen choose
to avoid him. Surely he jests!!!
International Herald Tribune
By Andrew Jacobs
The New York Times
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
NEW YORK Start spreading the news. Gianni Russo, best
known for his role as
Carlo Rizzi in "The Godfather," is back in old New York
with his pinstriped
Brioni suits, startling white teeth and perma-tan.
.
The reluctant killer, who in real life was once a delivery
boy for the mob
boss Frank Costello, has a publicist and a new dream:
to be a big-name
crooner, the kind who makes women swoon.
.
"At 62, I still have a few tricks up my sleeve," he said
one recent night
after belting out a string of Sinatra tunes at Nino's,
an Italian
restaurant on New York's Upper East Side where he is
treated like Sicilian
royalty. "I'm like a cockroach. You can't kill me."
.
In recent months he has appeared on the reality show
"Growing Up Gotti" and
has had a tell-all chat with Howard Stern. He stars in
a series of cooking
DVDs. His coming autobiography is called "Godfathers,
Popes and
Presidents," a reference to some of his dearest acquaintances.
As he
explains it, "I've known three popes, five presidents
and every Mafia boss."
.
His stories sometimes defy credulity. Past lovers, he
says, included
Marilyn Monroe, Liza Minnelli and Zsa Zsa Gabor.
.
"Gianni tells a lot of tales, but they're all true,"
said the lawyer Barry
Slotnick, who met him in the early 1970s when Russo was
mediating a dispute
between the producers of "The Godfather" and the mob
boss Joe Colombo, who
had threatened to shut down the film, which he thought
would slander
Italian-Americans.
.
Russo, who had never acted before, was given the part
of Carlo as a reward
for his peacemaking role. Since then he has appeared
in 40 films, doing
small parts that show off his Little Italy-rooted bravado.
.
Over the years he has owned a Las Vegas casino, dated
Dionne Warwick for
more than a decade and beat 23 federal indictments, he
said. But Russo is
best known for his role in "The Godfather," playing the
backstabbing,
wife-beating thug who marries Don Corleone's daughter,
is beaten badly by
Corleone's son Sonny (played by James Caan) and ends
up with piano wire for
a necklace.
.
Russo's singing act leans heavily on his "Godfather"
past, with cheeky
references to Marlon Brando.
.
To spend a few days with Russo is to step into a vanished
world of
omnipotent gangsters, shady politicians and spangled
showgirls. Although he
was on a first-name basis with men like John Gotti, Russo
says he was never
a made man. Even when he worked as a gofer for Costello,
Russo says, he
remained detached from his employer's criminal enterprises.
"I could have
gotten involved and hit the jackpot, but it's a terrible
life," he said. "I
mean, all the guys I grew up with are dead or in jail."
.
He has had his share of run-ins with the law, but he
has never been
convicted of any crime, and was not charged in a 1988
killing that took
place at his Las Vegas club and casino, Gianni Russo's
State Street.
.
According to Russo, the victim, who turned out to be
a member of the
Medellín drug cartel, was harassing a female patron;
when Russo tried to
intervene, the man plunged a broken wine bottle into
his stomach. As the
man tried to lunge again, Russo pulled out a handgun
and fired twice.
.
The Clark County prosecutor ruled the killing a justifiable
homicide, but
the family of the victim dispatched a hit man, Russo
said, and he decided
that it would be best to disappear in Miami and Sicily
for a few years. He
lost the casino but still kept interests in a dizzying
array of businesses,
from deli meats to diamond exporting.
.
With most of the Mafia largely moribund, Russo has decided
to go public
with the details of his life, partly in the hope that
his colorful past
will fuel interest in his various endeavors.
.
On a recent stroll in Manhattan, Russo stopped at St.
Patrick's Cathedral
to pray at the shrine of St. Anthony, the patron saint
of miracles. No
matter where he is, he says, he visits a church to fulfill
the promise he
made as a child, when he was partly paralyzed by polio.
"I made a novena
that if I ever walked again, I'd light five candles for
St. Anthony every
day," he said.
.
Russo was 7 when he got polio and spent five years in
a state hospital. He
said his father, a longshoreman and musician, was ashamed
that his only son
was a cripple and refused to acknowledge him on the street.
To earn his
keep, Russo sold ballpoint pens on Fifth Avenue.
.
It was on a Fifth Avenue street corner that he met Costello,
who would stop
almost daily to give him a $5 bill. When he learned that
Russo was Italian,
Costello offered him a job picking up bets from barbershops
that doubled as
numbers parlors. By the time he was 16, Russo was hanging
out at the
Copacabana and traveling across the United States picking
up and delivering
envelopes.
.
Despite his long association with the underworld, Russo
resents being
called a mobster. After singing a few tunes at Nino's
and drinking in the
adulation of fellow diners, Russo gestured to a table
where his cousin,
Vinnie Russo, sat with Charles Gargano, the chairman
of the Empire State
Development Corp., and other Italian-American businessmen.
.
The men waved from afar, but none of them approached
his table, which both
amused and annoyed him. The men, he explained, were afraid
to be seen with
him. "After all these years, they still think I'm mobbed
up," he said