March 19, 2025 • 32 mins
In retrospect, it’s almost unfathomable that a cast as strong as “The Godfather’s” could have been assembled. Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Diane Keaton, James Caan, and Robert Duvall are all considered legends of the screen today, but back in the early 1970s, most of these actors were unknown and starred in the film for relatively low pay. And Brando, once Hollywood’s prince, was thought to be an unreliable, washed-up shell of his “On the Waterfront” self. Francis Ford Coppola, however, knew precisely who he wanted for “The Godfather,” and he fought for them tooth and nail, even in the face of Paramount executives who were intent on casting proven stars like Robert Redford and Ryan O’Neill. In Episode Five, Mark and Nathan talk about Brando’s legendary screen test, how Coppola ended up hiring real mobsters to star in the film, and why Pacino and Brando almost couldn’t join the film.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Al Ruddy is besieged with phone calls from actors, agents,
shop clerks, and Hollywood extras. Big names and unknowns alike
are vying for roles in The Godfather. Everyone who had.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Read the book opinion who should be the boy?
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Give people not in the business, people stop industry.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
You know, I have an idea for Michael.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Everyone had an opinion.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
He did it to himself. He told the Hollywood Reporter
that no part will be played by any actor who
has an instantly recognizable face. Well, of course, a producer
always has an ulterior motive, and that motive is usually money.
Unknowns are cheaper than stars, and the Godfather, of course,
is on a shoe string budget. Robert Evans poured gas
(00:52):
on the flames when he announced in a press conference
that there was quote a good chance that they would
cast Italian American actor Paramount starts getting letters from across
the country. Italian Americans with Hollywood dreams feel that they're
owed apart.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Everybody was reading The Godfather, and of course everybody wanted
to know who was going to play which role, and
so it became a really big deal the casting of
The Godfather.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Things reach a fever pitch. When picketers assembol outside of
the gates of Paramount, determined to ensure that Paramount made
good on their commitment, their signs read Italian actors for
Italian roles, and worlds collide as shady characters make their
Hollywood dreams known.
Speaker 4 (01:41):
My attention that HP in the picture of supports he
is important to It's important to friends downtown, to friends downtown.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Yeah, and so the circus begins, bringing together one of
the most iconic casts in Hollywood history.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
I'm Mark Seal and I'm Nathan King and this.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Is leave the gun, Take the Canoli.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
This episode, we're casting The Godfather with the mob family
we know and love.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
From New York to la and up to San Francisco.
The excruciating casting process somehow produces a perfect ensemble.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Mark casting The Godfather with all the stars we now
know and love seems like an impossible feat.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Yes, it seems impossible now, doesn't it. But remember stars
were born from the Godfather. Most of them weren't even
known before.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
So casting begins rather chaotically, with big names, unknowns, and
even mobsters all vying for parts in the movie. And
people are taking every possible avenue to gain audience with
anyone connected to the film.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
That's right, Nathan. Even poor Mario Puzo, who had next
to Nosay on casting, was getting besieged with phone calls
and telegrams, and shockingly, three men dressed in nineteen forties
mob attire show up at his office one day asking
for Puzo. Al Ruddy's assistant had to scare them off
with a prop gun.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
And isn't there a story about a casting director getting
sent to dead Fish?
Speaker 1 (03:27):
I think that was in New York Lujiaimo, who told
me that he would interview all the extras and there
were so many people that wanted to be in the
movie that someone sent a dead fish, which is like
a scene out of the book and later in the
movie to impress upon the studio that they knew the
way things worked.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
So if all this is happening behind the scenes, when
does the official casting process begin?
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Things really got going when Coppola joined the film, he
was so determined to assert control over the casting process,
just as he had over the script, so he hires
Fred Ruse's casting director. The two had never met in person,
but Kappla liked his reputation and frequently called him up
to chat about actors.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
Before I ever met him, the person would call me
up from time to time on home, just cold call me.
I just want to schmooze about actors. What do I
think of so and so. These were just long kind
of phone conversations that didn't have any any result or
any point to them other than to guys schmoozy.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Fred Ruse is now a Hollywood legend, of course, but
back then he had fewer credits to his name. However,
he had worked with Jack Nicholson on the classic film
Five Easy Pieces, and he had cast Two Lane Blacktop,
starring James Taylor and the Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson.
Speaker 4 (04:46):
One day, call this is that hired me to do
this book, this Godfather book, which is the big best seller.
I guess I'm going to do it. I mean, he
didn't talk out loti like he had been hired to
do a great piece of literature. Right, but uh, I
think you know, do something with it, and would you
like to cast it forming it with me?
Speaker 5 (05:07):
Right?
Speaker 4 (05:07):
I said, yeah, you know great, So we'll get over
here and you know, make your deal and let's go
to work.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Coppola gave rusa mandate as many Italian Americans and Italian
American roles as possible.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
His theory was that if you grew up in an
Italian household Italian American, there are certain behavioral characteristics that
are just ingrained in it.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Rus and Coppola kicked off casting in the Gulf and
Western Building on November twentieth, nineteen seventy. They saw six
hundred actors and then moved on to La to see
five hundred more.
Speaker 4 (05:42):
He was willing to go deep into the casting process,
not try to do shortcuts or do it quickly or whatever.
So that was cool with me because that's how you
get a quality.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
So Copla and Fred Ruster are going deep. Is that
how they found the legendary Gianni rus So?
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Well, not at all. Gianny Russo played the Godfather's fiery
son in law, Carlo Ritzi, and probably has the best
casting story. He was also one of my favorite people
to interview.
Speaker 6 (06:11):
No I'm saying when you heard the terminology crime, don't
pay yeah, crime pace.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
We met at Saint Patrick's Cathedral and from there we
went all around New York. We shopped for suits, we
went to lunch, and somewhere along the way somebody was
serving champagne.
Speaker 6 (06:29):
Gina, I have some more Champagneto GRIBs and cheese. Tries
to play what are we doing?
Speaker 3 (06:35):
Gianni is one of those people who just jumps out
at you as a true character. What's his story? Where
did he come from?
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Russo survived polio as a child, and he told me that,
like everything else, he used it to his advantage. He had,
as he described it, a gimp arm and as a
twelve year old, he started selling ballpoint pins outside of
the Sherry Netherland Hotel on Fifth Avenue in New York City.
Speaker 6 (07:00):
I picked the best corner sell it his, you know,
close across the street. Chevy netherlans the Pierre. I'm right
there on that corner with my GiB bomb. And I
used to even make it a lot worse. And I
had a cigar box selling them this loop bullpoint pens
and somebody give me fifty cents. They were fifteen cents.
And that's how I met Costello.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Every day, my boss, Frank Costello would walk by and
give Gianni a five dollars bill. And one day he
stopped by to talk to Gianni.
Speaker 6 (07:30):
He says, to what's your name? I said Gianni. He says,
but what you listening? But he is, I said, matey,
He says, one hundred dollars tomorrow meet me at the
World at eleven o'clock in the morning. It's okay where
he's just being a love And from that day I
was with him every day.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Do you have any sense of what he was doing
for Frank Costello everything?
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Apparently he told me that he was a messenger delivering
dapfel bags and shoe boxes which might have contained cash
around the world.
Speaker 6 (08:00):
They trusted me, they said, take this there, I take it,
no matter how where it got there. I was going
to Switzer on once a month with a nine and a.
Speaker 7 (08:10):
Half Gucci shoe box, and I take the plane out
of here land and most of the time I was
on the same plane going back.
Speaker 6 (08:19):
I get off, go to the bank, put the money in,
go back and go to slave mob running. I guess.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
How did Russo hear about the film in the first place.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Well, he'd heard of the book, of course, and then,
of course, because of our Ruddy and Bob Evans press antics,
he heard they were casting unknowns. So Gianni, who apparently
had always wanted to be an actor, set about making
a thirty seven minute screen test, and.
Speaker 6 (08:44):
In the beginning of it it was me natural. I said, Hi,
I'm Jenny Russo. I know you don't know me, but
I know you're making the movie with the Godfather and
he is the characters that I could play.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
He made up his own lines and commissioned a film
crew to film and edit him auditioning for three roles, Michael,
Sonny and of course Carlo. Did you do it at Cosmo?
Speaker 6 (09:08):
I did? And did all the makeup did I didn't
know what a screen test was. I played the seat
for Michael when he was upstairs in the room McKay
and he was down to get the newspaper improvise.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
He could have carried all three of those roles at
the same time with the amount of personality he has.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Yeah, I think. So he's one of a kind. Gionny
Russo is one of a kind, that's for sure. And
he just he was great as Carlo.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
So how does he get his screen tests in front
of the right people?
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Well he found out that already apparently like flashy cars
and of course beautiful women. So he hired a showgirl
from the chorus of the Tropicana put her behind the
wheel of his Bentley and sent her to deliver his
screen test to already Personally, I.
Speaker 6 (09:52):
Told the girls, you got to give this already. Nobody else,
nobody already hand delivered. I want to note back it's okay.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
So what happened to the tape?
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Apparently it sat there for a few days and Russo
got a rejection letter that read, the budget for this
movie necessitates that we get proven talent for the major
roles as a draw.
Speaker 6 (10:14):
Now, Michaels are an up rug because I spent thousands
of dollars. Now your balls are in an uproar. I
like that.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Well, we know he ends up being in the movie,
so what do you do to get the part?
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Apparently he was able to work some connections to get
an audition for the plumb roll of Carlo.
Speaker 6 (10:30):
Charlie Bolus Don't had a lot of good friends, so
I had some people call him and say, this guy's
a very close front of us.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
And here's how Robert Evans described it.
Speaker 6 (10:41):
My attention that he should be in the picture of supports.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
He is important to.
Speaker 6 (10:45):
It's important to friends downtown, to friends downtown.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Yeah, And according to Giohnny gets invited to audition for
a group of Paramount Xax at the Gulf and Western Building,
and lo and behold he lands. It's a gig.
Speaker 6 (11:01):
So what happened? I went back to the Union and
got signed. That's Carlo, the character seventeen thousand, five hundred
for the movie.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
What happened in the audition?
Speaker 1 (11:10):
You know, he plays a pivotal scene and he just
acts it out so perfectly and so compelling that I
think Bob Evan says, stop, stop, you got the job.
You know, he was born to play this guy. He
was born to play this errant son in law Carlo.
Who was it?
Speaker 6 (11:25):
I was in a movie, obviously.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
And he gives an amazing performance.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
He does his role is Carlo is a barn burner.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
Gianni wasn't the only cast member who had some underworld connections, right.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
That's right. Al Lettieri, who played Virgil the Turk Salazzo,
was a brother in law of a member of the
Genovese a crime family. And Al Martino, who played the
Sinatra inspired singer Johnny Fontaine, apparently used a connection to
crime boss Russ Buffalino to snag the part.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
Which is the same thing as character Johnny Fontaine does
in the movie another instance of life imitating art and
the Godfather exactly.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
He was a fantastic choice. They wanted Vic Damone first,
and apparently there's some controversy on what happened. Nobody seems
to agree on why Victimon didn't want the role or
turned down the role. If he did turn down the role,
which left the door open for Al Martino. Martino.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
Yeah, what was Al Martino's background.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
He was a very popular nightclub singer in those days,
and at the time, many nightclubs where Al Martino performed
had connections to the Mob. He told me this. I
interviewed him at natan Ale's Delicatessen in Beverly Hills in
two thousand and seven, and he told me how well
he knew this world and how well he knew these
(12:49):
people from Vegas all the way to New York City.
And Martino had an excellent singing voice and speaking voice,
and he really knew how to carry himself, which made
made him so believable as Johnny Fontayne, despite the fact
that he wasn't really an actor, and it was a
bit of an adjustment for Al especially in the scene
(13:10):
where Johnny Fontaine is in The Godfather's office talking about
that producer who won't give him the role in that
hip movie. And he breaks down crying, and Brando slaps him.
Speaker 6 (13:23):
I don't know what to do, what to do?
Speaker 8 (13:26):
You cannot talk him?
Speaker 7 (13:27):
Man, what's alot to?
Speaker 4 (13:31):
That's how you turned out a high cries like a woman.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
That slap wasn't scripted. And according to the folklore of
the movie, that slap really rattled al Martino, because nobody
hits al Martino. He was a really, really nice man
when I interviewed him, but also I can imagine that
he was a pretty tough man at the same time.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
So many of the smaller parts were taken by these
relative unknowns, but Coppola knew who he wanted for the
bigger parts in the film exactly.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
He had his list written on lined yellow paper with
asterix next to his top choices. Al Pacino as Michael,
James Can as Sonny, and Robert Duval as Tom Hagen.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
And of course Marlon Brando as the Godfather.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Well, it was originally Puzzo who wanted Brando. He even
wrote him a letter before Coppola came on board, asking
him to play the role. But the execs were so
opposed that he basically dropped it. This is how Betty
McCart al, Ruddy's assistant remembers it.
Speaker 6 (14:32):
Stanley Jaffey was the president of Paramount and he said,
as long as I'm president of Paramount, there's no way
that Marlon Brando will play this role.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
But Coppola got on board with Brando when he joined.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Yes, he was torn between Brando and Lawrence Olivier, but
ultimately decided that Brando was a right choice.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
Well, we know the executives are against it. What does
Brando think?
Speaker 1 (14:59):
Well, Brando was in bad shape at the time. He
was deep in dead supposedly addicted to valume, headed toward
his third divorce, and determined never to work as an
actor again. It was his assistant, Alice Marshak, who convinced
him to even consider acting again so that he could
pay off some of his debts.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
Wow. So I guess we can assume that Coppola pursued
Brando despite the studio being against it.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Yes, in traditional Coppla fashion, he moved forward defiantly. Coppola
described in an interview a meeting he had with a
Paramount exec basically ganged up on him.
Speaker 8 (15:34):
I remember in one meeting. I was told by the
then president of Paramount said to me, as president of
Paramount Pictures, I am telling you that Marlon Brando will
not appear in this motion picture.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
How'd he take that?
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Well, apparently not well. He stared down Stanley Jaffey, then
the president of Paramount, and said, I give up. You
guys hired me. I'm supposed to be the director. Every
idea you have you don't want me to talk about.
Now you're instructing me that I can't even pursue the idea.
At least let me pursue it.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
And what did jaffe say, Well.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
He set up Coppola for what he thought was an
impossible task.
Speaker 8 (16:12):
So I continued talking and arguing, and finally they agreed
to let me discuss the idea of Marlon Branda being
in the movie. If I honored three stipulations. A he
would do a screen test, B he would do the
film for free, and C he would put up a
bond so that if any of his shenanigans or any
trouble came from him being on the set, that it
(16:34):
would guarantee the losses.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
So Copola presses on, what's his next order of business?
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Well, he has to somehow do a screen test with
the great Marlon Brando without calling it that. Here's fred
ruse that.
Speaker 4 (16:49):
The word screen test was never mentioned Tomorrolon. He was
Marlon Brando. I mean, he is in a dip in
his career at that point, right, but he was still
the iconic actor. Don't just audition him. So Francis did
it under the guise of let's experiment for your own sake,
(17:09):
not just for me, proving to me for your own
sake on how you would change yourself over to become
this older man that you know, quite a bit older
than you are.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
And did it work.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
It worn't great. Coppola had no idea, but Brando had
been preparing. He got to his house up in Malholland Drive,
and right there in front of his eyes, Marlon Brando
transformed into Beto Corleone.
Speaker 8 (17:33):
He walked down and he put on a jacket, and
he picked up a cigar and he started to gesture
with it and used it as a prop. And he
rolled up the ponytail and he kind of pinned it up,
and he took some shoe polish and he darkened it.
And while he's doing this, we're photographing. Then he took
some tissue paper and he said he should have the
face of a bulldog. He said, he stuffed the tissue
(17:55):
paper in his jaw, and then he said, well, if
he's shot in the throat, you go to a fuck
like that a little bit.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
He became don Vito Corleone right there in that room,
and Coppola was amazed and astonished.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
So the screen tests or not a screen test is
a success.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
What's next, Well, Coppola decides he's going to take the
tape not to Evans and Jaffy, the executives in LA.
He's going to go straight to the top and take
it to Hurricane Charlie Bludorn, who, by the way, was
just as opposed to Brando as everybody else. So Coppola
flies to New York and sets up in an office
in the Gulf and Western Building with the tape playing
(18:39):
on a monitor and waits for Bluetorn to walk by.
And here's how Dean Tavalires remembers that mister.
Speaker 5 (18:46):
Bluetorn walking down the corridor could kind of look into offices,
and that's when he saw Marlin on the monitor. He said,
who said, He said, this is the gudsfather, who is
that act? Who is that man? And Princess said the
man I'm not supposed to mention Lan Brando And that.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Worked, it sure did. Charlie was as amazed by Brando's
transformation as Coppola, and.
Speaker 8 (19:14):
Charlie is just looks astounded, and he says, that's incredible,
that's incredible.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
And soon everybody else, of course agreed. Evans fart Jaffy.
They offered brand of the role, and the rest is history.
What happened to that tape? No one knows. It's lost
to history, you know, it's like something out of the
Raiders of the Lost Arc. It's maybe it's in a
warehouse somewhere and nobody seems to know where it is.
But I really hope it surfaces one day because it's
(19:42):
one piece of film I would love to see.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
So let's get into the rest of the Corleone family.
We know Copla is pretty set on who he wants,
but Evans is not sold on Paccino, is he not
at all?
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Early on, Evans and the other executives met with Coppola
to discuss casting, and they all had very very different
ideas and who did they suggest as Michael the blonde haired,
blue eyed Robert Redford.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
Robert Redford is about as un Italian as it gets.
What happened to Italian actors for Italian roles?
Speaker 1 (20:19):
So they said, Sicilians can be blonde, so let's get Redford.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
And what was their reaction to Pacino?
Speaker 1 (20:26):
They'd never heard of him. Coppola knew him from plays
in New York. But to Evans, he was a five
foot seven inch ront to use this term, a runt,
that's what Evans called him. He said, Michael Corleone will
not be played by al Pacino.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
So what did Copola do?
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Well? He stalled. He said he would go out looking
for more young actors to come back with, but he
already had a plan in place. Coppola had summoned Al Pacino,
James Kahn, Robert Duval, and Diane Keaton to the American
Zoa Trope Studios in San Francisco.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
His dreamcast from his original lists.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Yes, his plan was to shoot tests of the four
actors and absolute secrecy, and then use the test to
convince the suits at Paramount that he knew best on
hoo to cast for his movie. And here's James Cann
talking about.
Speaker 7 (21:18):
That, and we flew up to Zoa Trump and San
Francisco and his wife helenar gave us a haircut with
a bullet head, like you know, just put the bull
on the head and clipped up hair and we did
on sixteen millimeters and what was that like?
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Well, the tester are just great. You can clearly see
them now, and you can see the burgeoning stardom in
each person. Al Pacino is the scruffy and struggling theater
actor who comes to life as Michael the college boy.
James Cann, who was Coppolis's friend from the Hofstra University
theater department, is the powerfully built, hair triggered Sonny Robert Duval,
(21:53):
the perpetually calm Irish Catholic lawyer Tom Hagen, and perhaps
strangest of all, the somewhat kooky as they called her
back then, Diane Keaton as Michael's uppercrust girlfriend Kay Adams.
Speaker 7 (22:08):
So basically what I'm saying is for the price of
four Cornby sandwiches, we had lunch, you know, and we
shot the sixteen millimeters imptalization and just screw around, blew.
Speaker 6 (22:18):
Home and that was it.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
That was the cast, and did it work. What did
the executives think of the screen tests?
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Well, they hated him. They didn't like them at all.
They thought, well, Charlie Bludorm summed it up when he
said they can't all be bad actors, it must be
bad directing. And the mate matters worse. They were upset
that Coppola had spent money on this, which turned out
to be, as James con said, the price of four
corn beef sandwiches for lunch. Coppola was sure they were
(22:48):
going to fire him, which would become a theme for
his time on The Godfather. He was so discouraged that
he basically fell in line and agrees to test everyone.
Paramounts wants to test peace. But like Martin Sheen, Dean
Stockwell and Ryan O'Neill for Michael, they spent hundreds of
thousands of dollars on the screen tests.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Wow, that must have been so demoralizing for Copla. He
had his stars exactly.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
It was a real disaster. Not long after, Coppola moved
his entire operation, including his family, to New York to
continue the screen test frenzy, and to make matters worse,
He's broke.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
Didn't he get paid by Paramount well.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
As one hundred and seventy five thousand upfront fee went
toward his debts, but the bills for American Zootrope were
piling up, and his wife is pregnant, of course, with
their daughter, Sophia.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
Coppola non an ideal time to move to New York City, No, but.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Luckily his brother in law has a vacant studio apartment
on the Upper West Side where the family can live.
It was cramped, and Coppola said it was like living
like an impoverished Italian American family, which I'm sure gave
some inspiration for the film, all.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
While screen testing everyone under the sun.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Yes, he's got his team by his side, which in
addition to Fred Ruse, now includes lou Digiimo who cast
the extras, and Paramount's casting director Andrea Eastman. Here's Andrea.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
You know, at first, Francis had so many problems with Paramounts.
I don't think I was really trusted right away because
I worked for Paramounxes. But I never repeated anything that
was ever said, and so they were into trust.
Speaker 4 (24:30):
Man.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
We all kind of became a big family.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
The team works seven days a week doing these screen.
Speaker 6 (24:36):
Tests, so it just it was endless.
Speaker 5 (24:38):
It went on and on and on.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
The casting process was.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Forever, and everyone knew it was a sham. Coppola begrudgingly
running these screen tests with no intention of pushing for
anyone other than who he already wanted, and Evans watching
the tapes the next day from the Gulf and Western
Building or back in his office in Los Angeles like.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
A po a master pulling the strings and.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
It would soon be full out war. Coppla and Evans
each had their own vision for the movie, but neither
really had ultimate authority, that is until Evans decided to
take control in what way. He goes to the press
with somewhat of a manifesto of taking control from directors
as a variety headline from those days read cut directors
(25:26):
down to size. Coppola was furious, of course, He dug
in his heels and kept going with the endless screen test,
with the role of Michael being the most hotly contested.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Al Pacino wasn't known then and he wasn't very good.
We decided to test Jimmy Conn for Michael. So the
tests were in New York and I remember it was
a scene at the wedding, which was you know, there's
a very talkie scene, there's not a lot of action,
and again Al just wasn't good in the test.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
He just was not You didn't.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
Imagine him as Michael o'curleio, but Jimmy Kahn was fabulous.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
Does cople ever sway from Paccino.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
No, he really doesn't, but there does come a point
where he just wants it finished.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
So this is going on and on and on, and
Francis just got so sick of everything. He goes, I'm
going to sicily just cast my fucking movie.
Speaker 4 (26:26):
Excuse my language.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
At this point, Paccino has tested for the part a
dozen times.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
So Copola takes off, with the role of Michael being
left uncast. What decisions are being made in the meantime.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
Well, Diane Keaton finally gets cast as Kay Adams after
about one hundred screen tests. Richard Castellano is a slam
duck as Clemenza and Salvator. Tessio goes to a Vagoda
who's discovered during an open casting call, and don't forget
about Fredo. Fred Ruse discovered the great John Case, the
(27:00):
actor who would so memorably play Fredo.
Speaker 4 (27:04):
I got invited by an old friend of mine, Richard Dreyfus,
to come see him in a play. I went to
this play and Richard, of course was good and all that.
But there was this guy at John Cassal who.
Speaker 5 (27:16):
I didn't know.
Speaker 4 (27:18):
I hadn't even heard of him before, but I could
see he was wonderful and he had all the qualities
of Afreido, and he was Italian American. And I remember
the next day Francis I found Freda.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
What about Talia Shire or Francis's sister who ends up
playing Connie.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Well, it was a controversial pick, with some of the
cast crying nepotism, but at this point Francis thought he
was getting fired anyway, so he got his sister an audition.
Speaker 6 (27:46):
I didn't know.
Speaker 9 (27:47):
About the politics of you know what I'm going to say,
filmmaking and how it could be that dicey. I honestly
didn't know that much about it. I simply just wanted
an audition. I had been more of the theater person.
I didn't know how to hit him mark. I didn't
know what that mark was. So I was the last
person you should want on your movie. But I just like, hey,
can I have an audition?
Speaker 1 (28:06):
And Evans liked her, He did, and he saw something
in her that I think Coppola didn't even see himself.
Speaker 6 (28:13):
Michael, you loves you best.
Speaker 4 (28:16):
You kill my husband.
Speaker 9 (28:18):
You wait until Papa died so nobody could stop you,
and then you killed him.
Speaker 6 (28:22):
You blame him for Sonny.
Speaker 4 (28:23):
You always did, everybody did.
Speaker 7 (28:25):
But you never thought about me.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
You never gave a dumb about me.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
Okay, how far are we from shooting now? With no Michael?
Speaker 1 (28:34):
We're only a month away, and Paramount finally makes the decision.
They land on Coppola's friend James Kahn as Michael and
the six foot four Carmine Karede as Sonny. That doesn't
sound right, no, But after being told that he's landed
the part of Sonny, KAREDI was already partying.
Speaker 7 (28:54):
He was running around with some guys, some friends of mine.
He was celebrating, you know, and I said, hey, don't
do this. You're gonna have an art fall that doesn't
want to.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
So what happened?
Speaker 1 (29:04):
Coppola takes off again to meet with Marlon Brando in London,
and at that point he felt the decision had been
made to cast James conn as Michael. But why he's
gone Everything changes.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
So I have my stuff clipped out for Jimmy and
we ran Panic and Needle Park and al Pacino like
jumped off the street.
Speaker 6 (29:25):
He was fantastic.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
I mean, he was great, which is how he wound
up getting.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Michael, and Paramount's casting director Andrea Eastman saw it as
an opening to push for Coppola's original vision.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
So we're sitting there in the screening room and so
now it's gonna be al Pacino as Michael. Jimmy Kahn
is not in the movie, and Carmi and Coariti, which
was ludicrous because you met Carmonkardi.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
He was about six y six.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
He kind of was like a Saint binal and Charlie
for the first time ever, had yelled at me before
this conversation.
Speaker 6 (30:04):
He goes, we have this this little pepscreek.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
Playing Michael and this big guy, you know, Carlin Coredi
is just it doesn't work, and he's right, it didn't work.
So I said, well, you know, why don't we go
back the way Francis wanted it. Al Pacino is Michael,
Jimmy conn Is Sonny and Bob said, no, actually, she's right,
that's because you believe.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
That they could be brothers, and so the deal was
made that Coppola could have Paccino as Michael if he
would move James Cohn over to place Sonny. And that's
what Coppola wanted all along. So the cast was set
and he had the actors that he wanted from the beginning.
Speaker 3 (30:47):
So we end up with the exact cast that Copola
did those secret screen tests with in San Francisco for
five hundred dollars eight months earlier.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Yes, but for the cool price of four hundred and
eight thousand.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
So smooth sailing from here, right, Mark.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
Yeah, Right. Next episode, we're heading to New York where
the real war begins. Leave the Gun, Take the Canoli.
As a production of Airmail and iHeartMedia.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
The podcast is based on the book of the same name,
written by our very own Mark Seal.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Our producer is Tina Mullen.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
Research assistance by Jack Sullivan.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Jonathan Dressler was our development producer.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
Our music supervisor is Randall Poster. Our executive producers are
Meet Nathan King, Mark Seal, Doan Fagan, and Graydon Carter.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Special thanks to Bridget Arseno and everyone at CDM Studios.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
Excerpts from Francis Ford Coppola's two thousand and one DVD
commentary on the Godfather were featured in this episode. A
comprehensive list of sources and acknowledgments can be found in
Marksial's book Leave the Gun, Take the Canolli, published by
Gallery Books. An imprint of Simon and Schuster
Al Ruddy is besieged with phone calls from actors, agents,
shop clerks, and Hollywood extras. Big names and unknowns alike
are vying for roles in The Godfather. Everyone who had.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Read the book opinion who should be the boy?
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Give people not in the business, people stop industry.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
You know, I have an idea for Michael.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Everyone had an opinion.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
He did it to himself. He told the Hollywood Reporter
that no part will be played by any actor who
has an instantly recognizable face. Well, of course, a producer
always has an ulterior motive, and that motive is usually money.
Unknowns are cheaper than stars, and the Godfather, of course,
is on a shoe string budget. Robert Evans poured gas
(00:52):
on the flames when he announced in a press conference
that there was quote a good chance that they would
cast Italian American actor Paramount starts getting letters from across
the country. Italian Americans with Hollywood dreams feel that they're
owed apart.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Everybody was reading The Godfather, and of course everybody wanted
to know who was going to play which role, and
so it became a really big deal the casting of
The Godfather.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Things reach a fever pitch. When picketers assembol outside of
the gates of Paramount, determined to ensure that Paramount made
good on their commitment, their signs read Italian actors for
Italian roles, and worlds collide as shady characters make their
Hollywood dreams known.
Speaker 4 (01:41):
My attention that HP in the picture of supports he
is important to It's important to friends downtown, to friends downtown.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Yeah, and so the circus begins, bringing together one of
the most iconic casts in Hollywood history.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
I'm Mark Seal and I'm Nathan King and this.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Is leave the gun, Take the Canoli.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
This episode, we're casting The Godfather with the mob family
we know and love.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
From New York to la and up to San Francisco.
The excruciating casting process somehow produces a perfect ensemble.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Mark casting The Godfather with all the stars we now
know and love seems like an impossible feat.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Yes, it seems impossible now, doesn't it. But remember stars
were born from the Godfather. Most of them weren't even
known before.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
So casting begins rather chaotically, with big names, unknowns, and
even mobsters all vying for parts in the movie. And
people are taking every possible avenue to gain audience with
anyone connected to the film.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
That's right, Nathan. Even poor Mario Puzo, who had next
to Nosay on casting, was getting besieged with phone calls
and telegrams, and shockingly, three men dressed in nineteen forties
mob attire show up at his office one day asking
for Puzo. Al Ruddy's assistant had to scare them off
with a prop gun.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
And isn't there a story about a casting director getting
sent to dead Fish?
Speaker 1 (03:27):
I think that was in New York Lujiaimo, who told
me that he would interview all the extras and there
were so many people that wanted to be in the
movie that someone sent a dead fish, which is like
a scene out of the book and later in the
movie to impress upon the studio that they knew the
way things worked.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
So if all this is happening behind the scenes, when
does the official casting process begin?
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Things really got going when Coppola joined the film, he
was so determined to assert control over the casting process,
just as he had over the script, so he hires
Fred Ruse's casting director. The two had never met in person,
but Kappla liked his reputation and frequently called him up
to chat about actors.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
Before I ever met him, the person would call me
up from time to time on home, just cold call me.
I just want to schmooze about actors. What do I
think of so and so. These were just long kind
of phone conversations that didn't have any any result or
any point to them other than to guys schmoozy.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Fred Ruse is now a Hollywood legend, of course, but
back then he had fewer credits to his name. However,
he had worked with Jack Nicholson on the classic film
Five Easy Pieces, and he had cast Two Lane Blacktop,
starring James Taylor and the Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson.
Speaker 4 (04:46):
One day, call this is that hired me to do
this book, this Godfather book, which is the big best seller.
I guess I'm going to do it. I mean, he
didn't talk out loti like he had been hired to
do a great piece of literature. Right, but uh, I
think you know, do something with it, and would you
like to cast it forming it with me?
Speaker 5 (05:07):
Right?
Speaker 4 (05:07):
I said, yeah, you know great, So we'll get over
here and you know, make your deal and let's go
to work.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Coppola gave rusa mandate as many Italian Americans and Italian
American roles as possible.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
His theory was that if you grew up in an
Italian household Italian American, there are certain behavioral characteristics that
are just ingrained in it.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Rus and Coppola kicked off casting in the Gulf and
Western Building on November twentieth, nineteen seventy. They saw six
hundred actors and then moved on to La to see
five hundred more.
Speaker 4 (05:42):
He was willing to go deep into the casting process,
not try to do shortcuts or do it quickly or whatever.
So that was cool with me because that's how you
get a quality.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
So Copla and Fred Ruster are going deep. Is that
how they found the legendary Gianni rus So?
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Well, not at all. Gianny Russo played the Godfather's fiery
son in law, Carlo Ritzi, and probably has the best
casting story. He was also one of my favorite people
to interview.
Speaker 6 (06:11):
No I'm saying when you heard the terminology crime, don't
pay yeah, crime pace.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
We met at Saint Patrick's Cathedral and from there we
went all around New York. We shopped for suits, we
went to lunch, and somewhere along the way somebody was
serving champagne.
Speaker 6 (06:29):
Gina, I have some more Champagneto GRIBs and cheese. Tries
to play what are we doing?
Speaker 3 (06:35):
Gianni is one of those people who just jumps out
at you as a true character. What's his story? Where
did he come from?
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Russo survived polio as a child, and he told me that,
like everything else, he used it to his advantage. He had,
as he described it, a gimp arm and as a
twelve year old, he started selling ballpoint pins outside of
the Sherry Netherland Hotel on Fifth Avenue in New York City.
Speaker 6 (07:00):
I picked the best corner sell it his, you know,
close across the street. Chevy netherlans the Pierre. I'm right
there on that corner with my GiB bomb. And I
used to even make it a lot worse. And I
had a cigar box selling them this loop bullpoint pens
and somebody give me fifty cents. They were fifteen cents.
And that's how I met Costello.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Every day, my boss, Frank Costello would walk by and
give Gianni a five dollars bill. And one day he
stopped by to talk to Gianni.
Speaker 6 (07:30):
He says, to what's your name? I said Gianni. He says,
but what you listening? But he is, I said, matey,
He says, one hundred dollars tomorrow meet me at the
World at eleven o'clock in the morning. It's okay where
he's just being a love And from that day I
was with him every day.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Do you have any sense of what he was doing
for Frank Costello everything?
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Apparently he told me that he was a messenger delivering
dapfel bags and shoe boxes which might have contained cash
around the world.
Speaker 6 (08:00):
They trusted me, they said, take this there, I take it,
no matter how where it got there. I was going
to Switzer on once a month with a nine and a.
Speaker 7 (08:10):
Half Gucci shoe box, and I take the plane out
of here land and most of the time I was
on the same plane going back.
Speaker 6 (08:19):
I get off, go to the bank, put the money in,
go back and go to slave mob running. I guess.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
How did Russo hear about the film in the first place.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Well, he'd heard of the book, of course, and then,
of course, because of our Ruddy and Bob Evans press antics,
he heard they were casting unknowns. So Gianni, who apparently
had always wanted to be an actor, set about making
a thirty seven minute screen test, and.
Speaker 6 (08:44):
In the beginning of it it was me natural. I said, Hi,
I'm Jenny Russo. I know you don't know me, but
I know you're making the movie with the Godfather and
he is the characters that I could play.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
He made up his own lines and commissioned a film
crew to film and edit him auditioning for three roles, Michael,
Sonny and of course Carlo. Did you do it at Cosmo?
Speaker 6 (09:08):
I did? And did all the makeup did I didn't
know what a screen test was. I played the seat
for Michael when he was upstairs in the room McKay
and he was down to get the newspaper improvise.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
He could have carried all three of those roles at
the same time with the amount of personality he has.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Yeah, I think. So he's one of a kind. Gionny
Russo is one of a kind, that's for sure. And
he just he was great as Carlo.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
So how does he get his screen tests in front
of the right people?
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Well he found out that already apparently like flashy cars
and of course beautiful women. So he hired a showgirl
from the chorus of the Tropicana put her behind the
wheel of his Bentley and sent her to deliver his
screen test to already Personally, I.
Speaker 6 (09:52):
Told the girls, you got to give this already. Nobody else,
nobody already hand delivered. I want to note back it's okay.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
So what happened to the tape?
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Apparently it sat there for a few days and Russo
got a rejection letter that read, the budget for this
movie necessitates that we get proven talent for the major
roles as a draw.
Speaker 6 (10:14):
Now, Michaels are an up rug because I spent thousands
of dollars. Now your balls are in an uproar. I
like that.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Well, we know he ends up being in the movie,
so what do you do to get the part?
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Apparently he was able to work some connections to get
an audition for the plumb roll of Carlo.
Speaker 6 (10:30):
Charlie Bolus Don't had a lot of good friends, so
I had some people call him and say, this guy's
a very close front of us.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
And here's how Robert Evans described it.
Speaker 6 (10:41):
My attention that he should be in the picture of supports.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
He is important to.
Speaker 6 (10:45):
It's important to friends downtown, to friends downtown.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Yeah, And according to Giohnny gets invited to audition for
a group of Paramount Xax at the Gulf and Western Building,
and lo and behold he lands. It's a gig.
Speaker 6 (11:01):
So what happened? I went back to the Union and
got signed. That's Carlo, the character seventeen thousand, five hundred
for the movie.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
What happened in the audition?
Speaker 1 (11:10):
You know, he plays a pivotal scene and he just
acts it out so perfectly and so compelling that I
think Bob Evan says, stop, stop, you got the job.
You know, he was born to play this guy. He
was born to play this errant son in law Carlo.
Who was it?
Speaker 6 (11:25):
I was in a movie, obviously.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
And he gives an amazing performance.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
He does his role is Carlo is a barn burner.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
Gianni wasn't the only cast member who had some underworld connections, right.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
That's right. Al Lettieri, who played Virgil the Turk Salazzo,
was a brother in law of a member of the
Genovese a crime family. And Al Martino, who played the
Sinatra inspired singer Johnny Fontaine, apparently used a connection to
crime boss Russ Buffalino to snag the part.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
Which is the same thing as character Johnny Fontaine does
in the movie another instance of life imitating art and
the Godfather exactly.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
He was a fantastic choice. They wanted Vic Damone first,
and apparently there's some controversy on what happened. Nobody seems
to agree on why Victimon didn't want the role or
turned down the role. If he did turn down the role,
which left the door open for Al Martino. Martino.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
Yeah, what was Al Martino's background.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
He was a very popular nightclub singer in those days,
and at the time, many nightclubs where Al Martino performed
had connections to the Mob. He told me this. I
interviewed him at natan Ale's Delicatessen in Beverly Hills in
two thousand and seven, and he told me how well
he knew this world and how well he knew these
(12:49):
people from Vegas all the way to New York City.
And Martino had an excellent singing voice and speaking voice,
and he really knew how to carry himself, which made
made him so believable as Johnny Fontayne, despite the fact
that he wasn't really an actor, and it was a
bit of an adjustment for Al especially in the scene
(13:10):
where Johnny Fontaine is in The Godfather's office talking about
that producer who won't give him the role in that
hip movie. And he breaks down crying, and Brando slaps him.
Speaker 6 (13:23):
I don't know what to do, what to do?
Speaker 8 (13:26):
You cannot talk him?
Speaker 7 (13:27):
Man, what's alot to?
Speaker 4 (13:31):
That's how you turned out a high cries like a woman.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
That slap wasn't scripted. And according to the folklore of
the movie, that slap really rattled al Martino, because nobody
hits al Martino. He was a really, really nice man
when I interviewed him, but also I can imagine that
he was a pretty tough man at the same time.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
So many of the smaller parts were taken by these
relative unknowns, but Coppola knew who he wanted for the
bigger parts in the film exactly.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
He had his list written on lined yellow paper with
asterix next to his top choices. Al Pacino as Michael,
James Can as Sonny, and Robert Duval as Tom Hagen.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
And of course Marlon Brando as the Godfather.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Well, it was originally Puzzo who wanted Brando. He even
wrote him a letter before Coppola came on board, asking
him to play the role. But the execs were so
opposed that he basically dropped it. This is how Betty
McCart al, Ruddy's assistant remembers it.
Speaker 6 (14:32):
Stanley Jaffey was the president of Paramount and he said,
as long as I'm president of Paramount, there's no way
that Marlon Brando will play this role.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
But Coppola got on board with Brando when he joined.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Yes, he was torn between Brando and Lawrence Olivier, but
ultimately decided that Brando was a right choice.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
Well, we know the executives are against it. What does
Brando think?
Speaker 1 (14:59):
Well, Brando was in bad shape at the time. He
was deep in dead supposedly addicted to valume, headed toward
his third divorce, and determined never to work as an
actor again. It was his assistant, Alice Marshak, who convinced
him to even consider acting again so that he could
pay off some of his debts.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
Wow. So I guess we can assume that Coppola pursued
Brando despite the studio being against it.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Yes, in traditional Coppla fashion, he moved forward defiantly. Coppola
described in an interview a meeting he had with a
Paramount exec basically ganged up on him.
Speaker 8 (15:34):
I remember in one meeting. I was told by the
then president of Paramount said to me, as president of
Paramount Pictures, I am telling you that Marlon Brando will
not appear in this motion picture.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
How'd he take that?
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Well, apparently not well. He stared down Stanley Jaffey, then
the president of Paramount, and said, I give up. You
guys hired me. I'm supposed to be the director. Every
idea you have you don't want me to talk about.
Now you're instructing me that I can't even pursue the idea.
At least let me pursue it.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
And what did jaffe say, Well.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
He set up Coppola for what he thought was an
impossible task.
Speaker 8 (16:12):
So I continued talking and arguing, and finally they agreed
to let me discuss the idea of Marlon Branda being
in the movie. If I honored three stipulations. A he
would do a screen test, B he would do the
film for free, and C he would put up a
bond so that if any of his shenanigans or any
trouble came from him being on the set, that it
(16:34):
would guarantee the losses.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
So Copola presses on, what's his next order of business?
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Well, he has to somehow do a screen test with
the great Marlon Brando without calling it that. Here's fred
ruse that.
Speaker 4 (16:49):
The word screen test was never mentioned Tomorrolon. He was
Marlon Brando. I mean, he is in a dip in
his career at that point, right, but he was still
the iconic actor. Don't just audition him. So Francis did
it under the guise of let's experiment for your own sake,
(17:09):
not just for me, proving to me for your own
sake on how you would change yourself over to become
this older man that you know, quite a bit older
than you are.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
And did it work.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
It worn't great. Coppola had no idea, but Brando had
been preparing. He got to his house up in Malholland Drive,
and right there in front of his eyes, Marlon Brando
transformed into Beto Corleone.
Speaker 8 (17:33):
He walked down and he put on a jacket, and
he picked up a cigar and he started to gesture
with it and used it as a prop. And he
rolled up the ponytail and he kind of pinned it up,
and he took some shoe polish and he darkened it.
And while he's doing this, we're photographing. Then he took
some tissue paper and he said he should have the
face of a bulldog. He said, he stuffed the tissue
(17:55):
paper in his jaw, and then he said, well, if
he's shot in the throat, you go to a fuck
like that a little bit.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
He became don Vito Corleone right there in that room,
and Coppola was amazed and astonished.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
So the screen tests or not a screen test is
a success.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
What's next, Well, Coppola decides he's going to take the
tape not to Evans and Jaffy, the executives in LA.
He's going to go straight to the top and take
it to Hurricane Charlie Bludorn, who, by the way, was
just as opposed to Brando as everybody else. So Coppola
flies to New York and sets up in an office
in the Gulf and Western Building with the tape playing
(18:39):
on a monitor and waits for Bluetorn to walk by.
And here's how Dean Tavalires remembers that mister.
Speaker 5 (18:46):
Bluetorn walking down the corridor could kind of look into offices,
and that's when he saw Marlin on the monitor. He said,
who said, He said, this is the gudsfather, who is
that act? Who is that man? And Princess said the
man I'm not supposed to mention Lan Brando And that.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Worked, it sure did. Charlie was as amazed by Brando's
transformation as Coppola, and.
Speaker 8 (19:14):
Charlie is just looks astounded, and he says, that's incredible,
that's incredible.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
And soon everybody else, of course agreed. Evans fart Jaffy.
They offered brand of the role, and the rest is history.
What happened to that tape? No one knows. It's lost
to history, you know, it's like something out of the
Raiders of the Lost Arc. It's maybe it's in a
warehouse somewhere and nobody seems to know where it is.
But I really hope it surfaces one day because it's
(19:42):
one piece of film I would love to see.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
So let's get into the rest of the Corleone family.
We know Copla is pretty set on who he wants,
but Evans is not sold on Paccino, is he not
at all?
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Early on, Evans and the other executives met with Coppola
to discuss casting, and they all had very very different
ideas and who did they suggest as Michael the blonde haired,
blue eyed Robert Redford.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
Robert Redford is about as un Italian as it gets.
What happened to Italian actors for Italian roles?
Speaker 1 (20:19):
So they said, Sicilians can be blonde, so let's get Redford.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
And what was their reaction to Pacino?
Speaker 1 (20:26):
They'd never heard of him. Coppola knew him from plays
in New York. But to Evans, he was a five
foot seven inch ront to use this term, a runt,
that's what Evans called him. He said, Michael Corleone will
not be played by al Pacino.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
So what did Copola do?
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Well? He stalled. He said he would go out looking
for more young actors to come back with, but he
already had a plan in place. Coppola had summoned Al Pacino,
James Kahn, Robert Duval, and Diane Keaton to the American
Zoa Trope Studios in San Francisco.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
His dreamcast from his original lists.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Yes, his plan was to shoot tests of the four
actors and absolute secrecy, and then use the test to
convince the suits at Paramount that he knew best on
hoo to cast for his movie. And here's James Cann
talking about.
Speaker 7 (21:18):
That, and we flew up to Zoa Trump and San
Francisco and his wife helenar gave us a haircut with
a bullet head, like you know, just put the bull
on the head and clipped up hair and we did
on sixteen millimeters and what was that like?
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Well, the tester are just great. You can clearly see
them now, and you can see the burgeoning stardom in
each person. Al Pacino is the scruffy and struggling theater
actor who comes to life as Michael the college boy.
James Cann, who was Coppolis's friend from the Hofstra University
theater department, is the powerfully built, hair triggered Sonny Robert Duval,
(21:53):
the perpetually calm Irish Catholic lawyer Tom Hagen, and perhaps
strangest of all, the somewhat kooky as they called her
back then, Diane Keaton as Michael's uppercrust girlfriend Kay Adams.
Speaker 7 (22:08):
So basically what I'm saying is for the price of
four Cornby sandwiches, we had lunch, you know, and we
shot the sixteen millimeters imptalization and just screw around, blew.
Speaker 6 (22:18):
Home and that was it.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
That was the cast, and did it work. What did
the executives think of the screen tests?
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Well, they hated him. They didn't like them at all.
They thought, well, Charlie Bludorm summed it up when he
said they can't all be bad actors, it must be
bad directing. And the mate matters worse. They were upset
that Coppola had spent money on this, which turned out
to be, as James con said, the price of four
corn beef sandwiches for lunch. Coppola was sure they were
(22:48):
going to fire him, which would become a theme for
his time on The Godfather. He was so discouraged that
he basically fell in line and agrees to test everyone.
Paramounts wants to test peace. But like Martin Sheen, Dean
Stockwell and Ryan O'Neill for Michael, they spent hundreds of
thousands of dollars on the screen tests.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Wow, that must have been so demoralizing for Copla. He
had his stars exactly.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
It was a real disaster. Not long after, Coppola moved
his entire operation, including his family, to New York to
continue the screen test frenzy, and to make matters worse,
He's broke.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
Didn't he get paid by Paramount well.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
As one hundred and seventy five thousand upfront fee went
toward his debts, but the bills for American Zootrope were
piling up, and his wife is pregnant, of course, with
their daughter, Sophia.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
Coppola non an ideal time to move to New York City, No, but.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Luckily his brother in law has a vacant studio apartment
on the Upper West Side where the family can live.
It was cramped, and Coppola said it was like living
like an impoverished Italian American family, which I'm sure gave
some inspiration for the film, all.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
While screen testing everyone under the sun.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Yes, he's got his team by his side, which in
addition to Fred Ruse, now includes lou Digiimo who cast
the extras, and Paramount's casting director Andrea Eastman. Here's Andrea.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
You know, at first, Francis had so many problems with Paramounts.
I don't think I was really trusted right away because
I worked for Paramounxes. But I never repeated anything that
was ever said, and so they were into trust.
Speaker 4 (24:30):
Man.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
We all kind of became a big family.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
The team works seven days a week doing these screen.
Speaker 6 (24:36):
Tests, so it just it was endless.
Speaker 5 (24:38):
It went on and on and on.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
The casting process was.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Forever, and everyone knew it was a sham. Coppola begrudgingly
running these screen tests with no intention of pushing for
anyone other than who he already wanted, and Evans watching
the tapes the next day from the Gulf and Western
Building or back in his office in Los Angeles like.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
A po a master pulling the strings and.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
It would soon be full out war. Coppla and Evans
each had their own vision for the movie, but neither
really had ultimate authority, that is until Evans decided to
take control in what way. He goes to the press
with somewhat of a manifesto of taking control from directors
as a variety headline from those days read cut directors
(25:26):
down to size. Coppola was furious, of course, He dug
in his heels and kept going with the endless screen test,
with the role of Michael being the most hotly contested.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Al Pacino wasn't known then and he wasn't very good.
We decided to test Jimmy Conn for Michael. So the
tests were in New York and I remember it was
a scene at the wedding, which was you know, there's
a very talkie scene, there's not a lot of action,
and again Al just wasn't good in the test.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
He just was not You didn't.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
Imagine him as Michael o'curleio, but Jimmy Kahn was fabulous.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
Does cople ever sway from Paccino.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
No, he really doesn't, but there does come a point
where he just wants it finished.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
So this is going on and on and on, and
Francis just got so sick of everything. He goes, I'm
going to sicily just cast my fucking movie.
Speaker 4 (26:26):
Excuse my language.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
At this point, Paccino has tested for the part a
dozen times.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
So Copola takes off, with the role of Michael being
left uncast. What decisions are being made in the meantime.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
Well, Diane Keaton finally gets cast as Kay Adams after
about one hundred screen tests. Richard Castellano is a slam
duck as Clemenza and Salvator. Tessio goes to a Vagoda
who's discovered during an open casting call, and don't forget
about Fredo. Fred Ruse discovered the great John Case, the
(27:00):
actor who would so memorably play Fredo.
Speaker 4 (27:04):
I got invited by an old friend of mine, Richard Dreyfus,
to come see him in a play. I went to
this play and Richard, of course was good and all that.
But there was this guy at John Cassal who.
Speaker 5 (27:16):
I didn't know.
Speaker 4 (27:18):
I hadn't even heard of him before, but I could
see he was wonderful and he had all the qualities
of Afreido, and he was Italian American. And I remember
the next day Francis I found Freda.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
What about Talia Shire or Francis's sister who ends up
playing Connie.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Well, it was a controversial pick, with some of the
cast crying nepotism, but at this point Francis thought he
was getting fired anyway, so he got his sister an audition.
Speaker 6 (27:46):
I didn't know.
Speaker 9 (27:47):
About the politics of you know what I'm going to say,
filmmaking and how it could be that dicey. I honestly
didn't know that much about it. I simply just wanted
an audition. I had been more of the theater person.
I didn't know how to hit him mark. I didn't
know what that mark was. So I was the last
person you should want on your movie. But I just like, hey,
can I have an audition?
Speaker 1 (28:06):
And Evans liked her, He did, and he saw something
in her that I think Coppola didn't even see himself.
Speaker 6 (28:13):
Michael, you loves you best.
Speaker 4 (28:16):
You kill my husband.
Speaker 9 (28:18):
You wait until Papa died so nobody could stop you,
and then you killed him.
Speaker 6 (28:22):
You blame him for Sonny.
Speaker 4 (28:23):
You always did, everybody did.
Speaker 7 (28:25):
But you never thought about me.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
You never gave a dumb about me.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
Okay, how far are we from shooting now? With no Michael?
Speaker 1 (28:34):
We're only a month away, and Paramount finally makes the decision.
They land on Coppola's friend James Kahn as Michael and
the six foot four Carmine Karede as Sonny. That doesn't
sound right, no, But after being told that he's landed
the part of Sonny, KAREDI was already partying.
Speaker 7 (28:54):
He was running around with some guys, some friends of mine.
He was celebrating, you know, and I said, hey, don't
do this. You're gonna have an art fall that doesn't
want to.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
So what happened?
Speaker 1 (29:04):
Coppola takes off again to meet with Marlon Brando in London,
and at that point he felt the decision had been
made to cast James conn as Michael. But why he's
gone Everything changes.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
So I have my stuff clipped out for Jimmy and
we ran Panic and Needle Park and al Pacino like
jumped off the street.
Speaker 6 (29:25):
He was fantastic.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
I mean, he was great, which is how he wound
up getting.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Michael, and Paramount's casting director Andrea Eastman saw it as
an opening to push for Coppola's original vision.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
So we're sitting there in the screening room and so
now it's gonna be al Pacino as Michael. Jimmy Kahn
is not in the movie, and Carmi and Coariti, which
was ludicrous because you met Carmonkardi.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
He was about six y six.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
He kind of was like a Saint binal and Charlie
for the first time ever, had yelled at me before
this conversation.
Speaker 6 (30:04):
He goes, we have this this little pepscreek.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
Playing Michael and this big guy, you know, Carlin Coredi
is just it doesn't work, and he's right, it didn't work.
So I said, well, you know, why don't we go
back the way Francis wanted it. Al Pacino is Michael,
Jimmy conn Is Sonny and Bob said, no, actually, she's right,
that's because you believe.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
That they could be brothers, and so the deal was
made that Coppola could have Paccino as Michael if he
would move James Cohn over to place Sonny. And that's
what Coppola wanted all along. So the cast was set
and he had the actors that he wanted from the beginning.
Speaker 3 (30:47):
So we end up with the exact cast that Copola
did those secret screen tests with in San Francisco for
five hundred dollars eight months earlier.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Yes, but for the cool price of four hundred and
eight thousand.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
So smooth sailing from here, right, Mark.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
Yeah, Right. Next episode, we're heading to New York where
the real war begins. Leave the Gun, Take the Canoli.
As a production of Airmail and iHeartMedia.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
The podcast is based on the book of the same name,
written by our very own Mark Seal.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Our producer is Tina Mullen.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
Research assistance by Jack Sullivan.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Jonathan Dressler was our development producer.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
Our music supervisor is Randall Poster. Our executive producers are
Meet Nathan King, Mark Seal, Doan Fagan, and Graydon Carter.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Special thanks to Bridget Arseno and everyone at CDM Studios.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
Excerpts from Francis Ford Coppola's two thousand and one DVD
commentary on the Godfather were featured in this episode. A
comprehensive list of sources and acknowledgments can be found in
Marksial's book Leave the Gun, Take the Canolli, published by
Gallery Books. An imprint of Simon and Schuster
Hosts And Creators
Mark Seal
Nathan King
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.