This book is written by Gianni Russo, the guy who played Carlo Rizzi in the Godfather who details his life as a real life wiseguy. I have no way of knowing what is real or not, but it actually sounded pretty good.
It is not published yet but will be out soon. It is supposed to be out on Mar 12.

Among other things Russo claimed to have slept with Marilyn Monroe, and gotten his role in The Godfather as Connie's abusive husband after he worked out a deal and gave the production his
blessing and that of the Columbo family. According to the article on the book, Joe Colombo worried about the 1972 movie making Italians look bad. So he had his guys make threats to film unions in New York City, where the movie film was to be shot. As a result they supposedly would would not cooperate with the production.


Here is link to a detailed article on it in the NY Post, but do not follow their link to Amazon to buy his book because it is linked to the wrong book. Here is the right link to the book: https://www.amazon.com/Hollywood-Go...oding=UTF8&qid=1551603130&sr=1-1

And here is a link to the article in the NY Post: https://nypost.com/2019/03/02/godfa...YfjzmNvPDvX9TmjYzcK8TIS3YQQQOCmBXLBrQZmo

I brought this up in the "books" thread in the real organized crime section.

I'm pretty sure we already know Russo's relevant stories but the book still seems like a good read. Vegas is really trending for some reason, and I can't help but to think it's because it increasingly appears as if America in a nutshell resembles Las Vegas and the way things are done there.

Supermob by Gus Russo (no relation to Gianni I know of) has a lot of good Godfather production stories, including ones that involve Gianni.

Al Lettieri was one of the two most influential members of the crew of the Godfather, as he was related the the Eboli family in the Genovese crime family, and grew up knowing some of the local mob guys in his neighborhood. Richard Conte is the other one has he was the one who was able to broker a deal with his good friend Frank Sinatra, Joe Colombo, and Al Ruddy over the script with certain references and removal of names. They wanted him to play Vito Corleone but he declined in favor of Brando, and instead took the role of Don Emilio Barzini, he also slept with Marilyn Monroe. Richard Castellano is the last major one to help in that he was able to meet Joe N. Gallo through Paul Castellano and worked out some problems the mafia had with the production of the movie. Castellano never reprised his role in the Godfather as he did not liked that his character became a rat, thus the character of Frank was created when Richard refused to take part in the Godfather 2.

Castellano wasn't yet forty when the godfather came out. He looked a lot older. Nice to know he wouldn't play a rat. Talk about some fucking pride.

I'm new to the forum; allow me to introduce myself. My name is Patrick Picciarelli and I wrote the book "Hollywood Godfather: My Life in the Movies and the Mob" in collaboration with Gianni Russo. I'm a retired NYPD Lt, active private investigator, and college professor. I've specialized in collaborating with both "gangsters" and police officers to write their memoirs. After eight published books, I'm sought out mostly by mafia types, who, while not writers, have some great stories to tell. Some of these guys initially found it difficult to open up to a cop, but after twenty years of writing these books, I've developed a reputation as a guy who can be trusted.

I'm not here to sell books. I came across this forum accidently, and it seems like a good place to share my experiences and answer any questions you folks might have.

Gianni and I came from the same neighborhood, and knew many of the same people, so this book was fun to write. We also have a podcast. I couldn't possibly put into 300 pages everything Gianni has accomplished in his life, and had to omit various stories due to space considerations and an effort not to piss off the wrong people (some of whom are alive and well and wouldn't like to read about their escapades).

Looking forward to sharing and enjoying the forum.

Welcome PatPic. I've read a few of your books and kudos to you on your career as an author. I am currently reading Street Warrior and it's very good. I just have one problem, you wrote the book Undercover Cop with Mike Russell. That was total nonsense. He was a cop once who was fired for wrongdoing and then became a rat. He says he was a NJ State Trooper but that was a lie. It's all full of fiction, Even the NJ Star Ledger debunked Mike Russell's accomplishments. I was surprised to see that even George Anastasia wrote a blurb for it. Your new book is about a real cop, Street Warrior. Do you regret writing Russel'ls book? And has Mike Russell ever come clean and apologized to you for lying? I read somewhere that one of the mobsters in the book sued, is that true? I have not read Russo's book yet but it is in my to do list.

Yes, Mike was a bit of a problem. A word about what a collaborator does. We write a memoir as it is told to us e.g. the individual themselves can't write a book (some of the people I've written about never even read a book). That said, when the manuscript is complete, the publisher unleashes their team of lawyers and is supposed to vet the entire book, line by line. In Undercover Cop, that was obviously not done.

And yes, one of the people mentioned in the book sued everyone associated with it for $50M because he was labeled as an associate to a NJ mob family. He vehemently denied this, saying he was friends with some of the characters in the book "back in the day," but was a "born again" Christian and wouldn't dream of doing anything illegal. A cursory investigation revealed that he was very much involved in things he shouldn't be involved in. This information was passed along to the publishers and they decided to write him a check for $25K to make him go away, reasoning that it would cost many more times that to send lawyers to court. I told them very strongly not to do that because every wiseguy in that book would see a payday and sue them. They did it anyway and opened up the floodgates for many lawsuits. I can't say I didn't warn them.

Glad you're enjoying Street Warrior. Ralph Friedman is a unique individual, and the NYPD will never see the likes of him again.

Al Lettieri was married to Tommy Eboli's (aka Tommy Ryan) sister. There were other family relationships of actors to mobsters in the movie which is detailed in the book. The entire wedding seen was made up of members of the Columbo crime family at the insistence of Joe Columbo.