17. The Real Life Origins of Don Corleone
Until the rise of the Colombian drug cartels after cocaine caught on, mobsters, whose specialty was heroin, were America’s biggest drug traffickers. However, there is a key difference between real life mobsters from the era depicted in The Godfather, and today’s Mafiosi. Earlier generations of mobsters tried to be more discrete and circumspect about their involvement in drugs. They did not avoid the illegal drug trade – indeed, they went out of their way to corner the market on the stuff. However, they did try to avoid attracting attention to the fact that they were up to their necks in drug trafficking.
Mario Puzo, The Godfather’s author, created Don Corleone as a composite character based on several real life mob bosses. Puzo’s fictional Godfather used his olive importation business as cover for his criminal activities. That is based on real life Joe Profaci, founder and longtime boss of the Colombo crime family, who also posed as an olive oil importer. Don Corleone’s raspy and quiet voice is reminiscent of Frank Costello’s, the onetime boss of the Luciano – now the Genovese – crime family. Don Corleone had all the judges and politicians in his pocket. The real life Costello, nicknamed the “Prime Minister of the Underworld” because of his political clout, effectively dominated New York’s Tammany Hall in the mid-twentieth century.
