The Time Al Pacino Actually Met A Real Mobster While Filming The Godfather

By his own admission, Mario Puzo, writer of the crime novel "The Godfather," never had any contact with the real American Mafia. His model for Don Corleone, the gangster patriarch of the work, was his own mother. When production of the film adaptation of his book got underway, Puzo's advice to director Francis Ford Coppola was to never associate with anyone from organized crime. Coppola didn't need to be told twice (even though he couldn't stand the author). "It's romantic and stuff," he told Condé Nast Traveller, "but they're horrible murderers and who wants to know a horrible murderer? I don't."

But not everyone involved with "The Godfather" had the same hesitancy when it came to the Mafia. Producer Al Ruddy's efforts to win over initially hostile mobsters resulted in a script change (notice how the word "Mafia" never gets used in the first film) and inspired a Paramount+ show decades later. But where Ruddy had to work with the criminal organization to get the film made safely, some of the cast sought out underworld figures to help them shape their characters.

One of those actors was the man behind the true protagonist of "The Godfather," Michael Corleone. Al Pacino had a difficult time during the film's production — he nearly lost the role due to studio dissatisfaction with his early work. And by his own admission, Pacino wasn't sure how to approach the part. But he got an early insight into his character when a co-star, Alfredo Lettieri, brought him along to a dinner party at the home of a real mafioso.

That Al Pacino was cast at all in "The Godfather" was a minor miracle. Director Francis Ford Coppola had to fight the studio to cast him, a fight he briefly lost, then had to fight again to keep him. Pacino himself was well aware that he wasn't wanted, which didn't help his anxieties over how to play Michael Corleone. Michael is a cold, detached character, one who keeps much of himself internalized. His transition from the clean-cut war hero of the Corleone family determined to stay out of the Mafia to a violent crime boss hinges on his murder of Virgil Sollozzo, the drug dealer played by Alfredo Lettieri.

That moment is gradually built to in the novel, but in the film, it was a big, explosive action. Reflecting in his memoir "Sonny Boy," Pacino was unsure of how to handle the scene until Lettieri brought him over to the house of a real gangster. That meeting let Pacino see a respectable front — the mafioso "looked like a normal businessman," had a wife and two grown children, and their household appeared to be a normal, loving American home.

"I was being given a taste of how this thing looked and operated in reality," Pacino wrote later, "not how it was shown in the movies." He was not given any details into how the Mafia operated, much less how a hit like the one on Sollozzo was carried out. But he did absorb the atmosphere — and get a look at a real gun, brandished by Lettieri.

Al Pacino wasn't the only actor to consult with an underworld figure for his part in "The Godfather." James Caan was friends with the eventual boss of the Colombo Mafia family and hung out with other Colombo figures during filming. Gianni Russo claimed to have lifelong ties to figures in three different Mafia clans. And Luca Brasi's actor, Lenny Montana, was a one-time enforcer for the Colombos. Pacino left it unsaid in his memoir which crime family his and Alfredo Lettieri's mob contact was from.

The relatively heavy presence of the Colombos in the production of "The Godfather" was partially coincidence and partially due to Joe Colombo. The reigning head of the family at the time the movie was made raised the biggest stink about the film's production and was the mob boss producer Al Ruddy had to pacify. Once they were placated, mafiosi began turning up on the set, either to watch quietly or to offer unsolicited critiques of the actors' clothes and mannerisms.

Once the movie was out, however, life began imitating art. Besides being a hit nationwide, "The Godfather" was a treasured gem of cinema by many mafiosi, who looked to it as affirmation and inspiration. "Federal and local investigators on surveillance duty saw and heard made men and wannabes imitating the mannerisms and language of the screen gangsters," reporter Selwyn Raab wrote in his book, "The Five Families." "The film validated their lifestyles and decisions to join the Mob and accept its credo," he added.