Highlights

• Don Vito Corleone's character was inspired by real-life mob bosses like Carlo Gambino and Joe Profaci, with similarities in backstory and careers.
• Marlon Brando studied Frank Costello to prepare for his role as the principled mafioso in The Godfather, portraying his distaste for violence.
• Other characters in The Godfather, including Johnny Fontane and Moe Greene, were inspired by real-life people like Frank Sinatra and Bugsy Siegel.

The Godfather is considered one of the best movies ever made. When it was released in 1972, the Francis Ford Coppola movie was instantly praised and became the highest grossing film of the year.

The Godfather's patriarch Don Vito Corleone, played by Marlon Brando and later by Robert DeNiro and Oreste Baldini, was a fictional mafioso devised by Italian American author Mario Puzo.

Although Corleone is fictional, his personality, appearance and actions are loosely based on a range of real life mob bosses. The patriarch's backstory lines up with Carlo Gambino, who also emigrated from Sicily to rise to the top of the American mafia. Joe Profaci also inspired Don's career in the olive oil business.

The biggest inspiration for the on-screen version of Don Vito Coreleone was Frank Costello. Marlon Brandon even studied Costello when preparing for his Oscar-winning performance.

In the following, we look more at how Frank Costello inspired Marlon Brando's character from The Godfather and how The Godfather, in a way, predicted Frank Costello's death. We also discuss which other characters from The Godfather were inspired by real-life people.

Real-Life Mob Boss Frank Costello Inspired Marlon Brando's Godfather Character, Don Corleone

Frank Costello is the mafia boss considered the biggest inspiration for Don Vito Coreleone. Marlon Brando studied recordings of Costello's testimony at the Kefauver Senate hearings on organized crime.

Frank Costello stood out from his mafia counterparts for his distaste for violence. He was known as “The Prime Minister” for his diplomatic skills, including graft and blackmail. His lawyer, George Wolfe once said that his client was unlike other mob bosses because "...he was civilized, he spurned the bloody violence in which previous bosses had reveled."

These principles were mirrored by Brando in his performance as the principled mafioso.

Frank Costello, like Vito Corleone, was born in Italy at the end of the 19th century, but did not spend much time there. Both had Italian names (Vito Andolini and Francesco Castiglia) and both were born into communities rife with criminal gangs. Unlike Corleone, Frank Costello made the move alongside his parents.

Frank Costello, much like Corleone, lived in a predominantly Italian neighborhood but didn't immediately immerse himself in a life of crime. He originally worked in his parents' grocery store but soon discovered the life of selling vegetables wasn't for him.

Pulitzer Prize–winning scribe and noted Mafia historian Anthony M. DeStefano revealed why Costello was less well known than other mafia bosses and why Brando used him as inspiration: "He was not a tough guy. He was more of a politician, a facilitat, a diplomat of sorts."

"Costello was not a killer. He was not a tough guy. He was more of a politician, a facilitat, a diplomat of sorts. Gotti and Capone got more publicity because Capone was [portrayed] in The Untouchables. He was a really major gangster in the mid part of the 20th century. Gotti wanted to be a gangster and he sort of filled a need in the 1980s and early 90s to have some sort of mob [figure] like they had in the old days for the press and public."

Frank Costello Died Of A Heart Attack, Just Like Marlon Brando's Godfather Character

In 1973, Frank Costello died of a heart attack at his home, aged 82. He is one of the few mob bosses to live a long life and die peacefully at his home in old age.

In 1972's The Godfather, a year before Frank Costello's real life death, Vito died of a heart attack in his garden while with his grandson. Unlike Costello, Don Vito was slightly younger, passing away at 68. In the novel, his last words are, "Life is so beautiful." His heart attack in the movie predicted the real life death of Frank Costello.

Although there is some controversy behind Costello's death. In his final months, he was speaking to crime author Peter Maas for a proposed biography. The book was never completed as Costello passed away just weeks after the recorded interviews started. There are rumors that Costello watched an early screening of The Godfather, which prompted him to go public with his memoirs.

Other Characters From The Godfather Based On Real People

Don Vito Corleone wasn't the only character from The Godfather who was based on a real person. In fact, some of Puzo's inspirations became angry over his use of their stories.

Vito Corleone's godson, Johnny Fontane, was inspired by Frank Sinatra, which the singer hated .In Coppola's movie, Fontane begs for Corleone's help him land a role in a war movie to help resurrect his struggling career. It's rumored that this is how Sinatra landed a role in 1953's From Here to Eternity.

Frank Sinatra was deeply offended about being the inspiration for the desperate crooner with mob ties. Despite publicly denying his connection to the mob, he has social connections to organized crime. A scene in The Offer, a drama based on the making of The Godfather, recreates the infamous confrontation between Sinatra and author Mario Puzo. The show also shows how Sinatra uses his influence to pressure actors to turn down the role of Johnny Fontaine (Al Martino ultimately played Fontaine on the big screen).

Another The Godfather character inspired by a real life person is Moe Greene. Greene was a Jewish mobster inspired by Bugsy Siegel. He is shot in the eye, something that mirrors Siegel's own death when he was shot multiple times in the head.

Lenny Montana, who played Luca Brasi, had worked for the real-life Colombo family before he was cast in The Godfather. Puzo had based Brasi's story of the real-life story of Willie Moretti, the muscle behind Frank Costello. Moretti is said to have negotiated the dissolution of Frank Sinatra's contrast, something that is mirrored in The Godfather.