The Dishonorable Mob Boss Whose Inspired the Fictional Don Corleone
Don Corleone was created by Mario Puzo, The Godfather’s author, as a composite character based on some real life mob bosses. The fictional Don Corleone used his olive importation business as cover for his criminal activities. That is based on the 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 Frank Costello, nicknamed the “Prime Minister of the Underworld” because of his political clout, effectively dominated Tammany Hall in the mid-twentieth century.
The “honorable” traits of Don Corleone are based on the real life Joseph Bonanno, a seedy, pretentious, and anything but honorable head of the Bonanno crime family. Bonanno, who wrote a self-serving memoir after his forced retirement, referred to mafia bosses of his generations as “Fathers” who headed “honorable societies”. He claimed that he and the mob avoided drugs for the reasons listed in The Godfather – moral revulsion, and avoidance of the heat drugs draw. As Bonanno put it: “My tradition outlaws narcotics. It has always been that ‘men of honor’ don’t deal in narcotics“. In reality, mobsters of all levels, including Bonanno, were dealt in drugs since the birth of the mob.
