17 Facts About Mario Puzo

1.

Mario Francis Puzo was an American author, screenwriter, and journalist.

2.

Mario Puzo is known for his crime novels about the Italian-American Mafia and Sicilian Mafia, most notably The Godfather, which he later co-adapted into a film trilogy directed by Francis Ford Coppola.

3.

Mario Puzo received the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for the first film in 1972 and for Part II in 1974.

4.

Mario Puzo was born in the Hell's Kitchen section of New York City to Italian immigrants from Pietradefusi, Province of Avellino, Campania.

5.

When Mario Puzo was 12, his father, who worked as a trackman for the New York Central Railroad, was committed to the Pilgrim State Hospital insane asylum for schizophrenia, and his wife, Maria, was left to raise their seven children.

6.

Mario Puzo served in the US Army Air Forces in Germany in World War II, and later graduated from the City College of New York.

7.

Mario Puzo married a German woman, Erika, with whom he had five children.

8.

Mario Puzo stated that this story came from research into organized crime, not from personal experience, and that he was looking to write something that would appeal to the masses.

9.

Coppola and Mario Puzo then collaborated on sequels to the original film, The Godfather Part II and The Godfather Part III.

10.

Coppola and Mario Puzo preferred the title The Death of Michael Corleone for the third film, but Paramount Pictures found that unacceptable.

11.

Coppola said the film is the version he and Mario Puzo had originally envisioned, and it "vindicates" its status among the trilogy.

12.

In mid-1972, Mario Puzo wrote the first draft of the script for the 1974 disaster film Earthquake, but he was unable to continue work because of his prior commitment to The Godfather Part II.

13.

Mario Puzo retained screen credit in the completed film as a result of a quickly-settled lawsuit over story credit, and Mario Puzo's name subsequently featured heavily in the advertising.

14.

Mario Puzo wrote the original screenplay for Richard Donner's Superman, which then included the plot for Superman II, as they were originally written as one film.

15.

Mario Puzo collaborated on the stories for the 1982 film A Time to Die and the 1984 Francis Ford Coppola film The Cotton Club.

16.

Mario Puzo never saw the publication of his penultimate book, Omerta, but the manuscript was finished before his death, as was the manuscript for The Family.

17.

Mario Puzo died of heart failure on July 2,1999, at his home in Bay Shore, New York, at the age of 78.