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In the order in which they are received, the books will be read, then reviewed, and subsequently, cited in upcoming editions of the series. We ask only that our book donors remain patient.
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Tuesday, March 7, 2006
In Today’s column: "Mario Puzo's The Godfather (1969);'" “The Chicago Outfit Prototype For The Godfather (March 2002);” "Who Was Quarico Willie 'Willie Moore' Moretti (1894-1951)?," "Who Is 'Luca Brasi?'," "Why Quarico Willie 'Willie Moore' Moretti Is The Prototype For 'Luca Brasi;'" and "A Question In Search Of An Answer.”
Who?: The Prototype For 'Luca Brasi' In The Hypothetical Chicago Outfit Scenario of The Godfather (March 2002)
Since the first edition of Mario Puzo’s (January 1, 1969) novel, The Godfather, Fawcett Crest; B000BJGTXC, readers have been engaged in a debate concerning the genesis of its characters. The film version, The Godfather (1972), of the novel, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, only heightened the disparate interpretations of various disputants. "Who is the real life prototype for such and such a fictional character?"
Mario Puzo's The Godfather (1969)
"Moe Greene" is a character who is clearly based upon the real life Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel (1905-1947). Some argue that Carlo Gambino (1902-1976), the patriarch of the organization that became the Gambino Cosa Nostra Family, was the prototype for Don Vito Corleone, The Godfather's (1972) protagonist. Bill Bonanno (April 15, 1999) argues that Don Vito Corleone was modeled after Joseph Bonanno, his father and the patriarch of the Bonanno Cosa Nostra Family. See: Bound by Honor : A Mafioso's Story, by Bill Bonanno (April 15, 1999), St. Martin's Press, 0312203888.
In fact, Don Vito Corleone is a hybrid, a fictional composite of at least both, if not still other, mafia leaders.
The characters of The Godfather, (March 2002), Peter Bart (Afterword), Robert J. Thompson (Introduction), Penguin Group (USA), ISBN: 0451205766, are fictional composites of real life individuals.
Suppose the characters of Mario Puzo’s (March 2002) The Godfather were modeled after members and associates of the Chicago Outfit?
The Chicago Outfit Prototype For The Godfather (March 2002)
Some posters on the mob forums argue that Paul "The Waiter" Ricca (1892-1972) was the model for Don Vito Corleone, that Anthony "Joe Batters" Accardo (1906-1992) was the prototype for Michael Corleone. and that Santino "Sonny" Corleone was modeled after a Sam "Mooney" Giancana (1908-1975) prototype. Others advocate a Murray Llewellyn "Curly" Humphreys (1899-1965) prototype for Tom Hagan, a Frank "The Enforcer" Nitti (1884-1943) prototype for Fredo Corleone.
If these contentions are to be taken seriously, they must stand on their relative merits. I argue that "Luca Brasi," the Mario Puzo (March 2002) character in The Godfather, is more similar to Quarico Willie 'Willie Moore' Moretti, of New Jersey, than he is to any other real life gangster, past or present.
Who Was Quarico Willie 'Willie Moore' Moretti (1894-1951)?
From 1933 to 1951, Willie Moretti, the supposed Mafia boss of New Jersey, was the muscle behind Frank Costello, Charlie Lucky Luciano (1897-1962) and Meyer Lansky (1902-1983), the Genovese Cosa Nostra Family founders. During the 1940's, Moretti, in association with Joe Adonis (1902-1972) and Abner "Longy" Zwillman (1899-1959), ran lucrative gambling dens in New Jersey and Upstate New York from his Monmouth County home.
In A Man of Honor: The Autobiography of Joseph Bonanno, Simon & Schuster , 0671467476, Joseph Bonanno (November 1, 1984) refers to Willie Moretti as Frank Costello's (1891-1973) "strength."
Mario Puzo's (March 2002) Luca Brazi, likewise, is Don Vito Corleone's "strength."
Who Is 'Luca Brasi?'
A long time henchman for Don Vito Corleone, Luca Brasi is a minor character of The Godfather (March 2002).
Brasi speaks both English and Italian. In The Godfather (1972), Lenny "The Bull" Montana, an actor and former professional wrestler, portrayed Luca Brasi. Lenny Montana died in 1992.
As a fictional character reminiscent of real life gangsters past and/or present, Luca Brasi is most similar to Quarico Willie 'Willie Moore' Moretti. He is more like Willie Moretti than he is any other real life gangster.
Frank Sinatra (1915-1998), the crooner par excellance, was allegedly personally linked to Willie Moretti. Nancy Barbato, Sinatra's first wife, was a cousin of one of Moretti's senior henchman and SInatra sang at his daughter's wedding in 1948. According to testimony from Moretti, Sinatra received help from him in arranging performances in return for kick-backs.
In their dealings with Les Halley, i.e. Tommy Dorsey, in The Godfather , Mario Puzo (March 2002) has Don Vito Corleone steal Luca Brasi's, i.e. Willie Moretti's, thunder.
"The story was quickly told. Eight years ago Johnny Fontane had made an extraordinary success singing with a popular dance band. He had become a top radio attraction. Unfortunately the band leader, a well-known show-business personality names Les Halley, had signed Johnny to a five-year personal services contract. It was a common show business practice. Les Halley could now loan Johnny out and pocket most of the money.
Don Corleone entered the negotiations personally. He offered Les Halley twenty thousand dollars to release Johnny Fontane from the personal services contract. Halley offered to take only fifty percent of Johnny's earnings. Don Corleone was amused. He dropped his offer from twenty thousand dollars to ten thousand dollars. The band leader, obviously not a man of the world outside his beloved show business, completely missed the significance of this lower offer. He refused.
The next day Don Corleone went to see the band leader personally. He brought with him his two best friends, Genco Abbandando, who was his consigliere, and Luca Brasi. With no other witnesses Don Corleone persuaded Les Halley to sign a document giving up all rights to all services from Johnny Fontane upon payment of a certified check to the amount of ten thousand dollars. Don Corleone did this by putting a pistol to the forehead of the band leader and assuring him with the utmost seriousness that either his signature or his brains would rest on that document in exactly one minute. Les Halley signed. Don Corleone pocketed his pistol and handed over the certified check.
The rest was history...." (pp. 42-43).
John William Tuohy (June 2002) gives us the true to life account of what happened between Willie Moretti and Tommy Dorsey...
"Another version, now part of popular lore, was that for several months Dorsey refused the $60,000 that Jules Stein had offered him to release Sinatra from his contract, simply because Dorsey had grown to despise Sinatra and intended to hold on to his contract and drive the singer's career into the ground, which he could easily do by simply keeping him off stage and radio.
But, Sinatra's strong willed and politically connected mother went to see New Jersey's Mafia boss, Quarico Moretti, better known as Willie Moretti, who controlled large parts of the East Coast entertainment industry. In fact, by the early 1940s, the national syndicate still held a virtual lock on the entertainment business unions nationwide and Mobsters were always looking to expand their control of the industry by managing the careers of promising entertainers.
Moretti saw that Sinatra's prospects were good, and agreed to get the young man released from his contract with Dorsey for a cash payment from Sinatra, plus a percentage of his future earnings. Working through Jules Stein, Moretti's first offer to Dorsey was $60,000 cash. When Dorsey turned that down, Moretti, who was considered, in mob circles, to be a madman, decided to take matters into his own hands, and make the band leader an offer he couldn't refuse.
One night after a show, Moretti pushed his way into Dorsey's dressing room, put a gun in the band leader's mouth and told Dorsey to sell Sinatra's contract. Which he did. For one dollar.
As for the $60,000 paid by MCA to release Sinatra, supposedly that money, in cash, went directly from Dorsey's bank account into Moretti's greedy little hands, after Dorsey paid the taxes on it.
Sinatra always denied the story too, and claimed he barely knew Moretti, who lived only a few doors away from him in suburban New Jersey.
Dorsey spent the rest of his life denying the gun in the mouth story, but in 1951, right after Moretti was killed, Dorsey only added credence to the tale, when he told American Mercury Magazine that he signed the contract releasing Sinatra because one night, three men paid him in his dressing room, placed Sinatra's release in front of him and said, 'Sign it or else!'" (p. 2). See: "I ain't no band leader!" by John William Tuohy (June 2002) at http://www.americanmafia.com/Feature_Articles_212.html
Why Quarico Willie 'Willie Moore' Moretti Is The Prototype For 'Luca Brasi'
If it is true that Quarico Willie 'Willie Moore' Moretti's ultimatum to Tommy Dorsey was instrumental to the maintenance
of Frank Sinatra's long term career success, then it is likewise
true that Frank Sinatra was the prototype for the Mario Puzo (March 2002) character, "Johnny Fontane." Moreover, Willie Moretti was the prototype for "Luca Brasi."
The reader of The Godfather (March 2002) hears about Luca Brasi before his emergence in the novel front and center. As Mario Puzo (March 2002) noted,
"The Don raised his head inquiringly. Hagen said, "He's not on the list but Luca Brasi wants to see you. He understands it can't be public but he wants to congratulate you in person.
For the first time the Don seemed displeased. The answer was devious. "Is it necessary?" he asked.
Hagen shrugged. "You understand him better than I do. But he was very grateful that you invited him to the wedding. He never expected that. I think he wants to show his gratitude.
Don Corleone nodded and gestured that Luca Brasi should be brought to him.
In the garden Kay Adams was struck by the violent fury imprinted on the face of Luca Brasi. She asked about him. Michael had brought Kay to the wedding so she would slowly and perhaps without too much of a shock, absorb the truth about his father. But so far she seemed to regard the Don as a slightly unethical businessman. Michael decided to tell her part of the truth indirectly. He explained that Luca Brasi was one of the most feared men in the Eastern underworld. His great talent, it was said, was that he could do a job of murder all by himself, without confederates, which automatically made discovery and conviction by the law almost impossible. Michael grimaced and said, "I don't know whether all that stuff is true. I do know he is sort of a friend to my father."
For the first time Kay began to understand. She asked a little incredulously, "You are not hinting that a man like that works for your father?"
The hell with it, he thought. He said, straight out, "Nearly fifteen years ago some people wanted to take over my father's oil importing business. They tried to kill him and nearly did. Luca Brasi went after them. The story is that he killed six men in two weeks and that ended the famous olive oil war." He smiled as if it were a joke.
Kay shuddered "You mean your father was shot by gangsters?"
"Fifteen years ago," Michael said. "Everything's been peaceful since then." He was afraid he's gone too far.
"You're trying to scare me," Kay said. "You just don't want me to marry you." She smiled at him and poked his ribs with her elbow. "Very clever."
Michael smiled back at her. "I want you to think about it," he said.
"Did he really kill six men?" Kay asked.
"That's what the newspapers claimed," Mike said. "Nobody ever proved it. But there's another story about him that nobody ever tells. It's supposed to be so terrible that even my father won't talk about it. Tom Hagen knows the story and he won't tell me. Once I kidded him, I said, 'When will I be old enough to hear that story about Luca?' and Tom said, 'When you're a hundred.'" Michael sipped his glass of wine. "That must be some story. That must be some Luca.
Luca Brasi was indeed a man to frighten the devil in hell himself. Short, squat, massive-skulled, his presence sent out alarm bells of danger. His face was stamped into a mask of fury. The eyes were brown but with none of the warmth of that color, more a deadly tan. The mouth was not so much cruel as lifeless; thin, rubbery and the color of veal.
Brasi's reputation for violence was awesome and his devotion to Don Corleone legendary. He was, in himself, one of the great block's that supported the Don's power structure. His kind was a rarity.
Luca Brasi did not fear the police, he did not fear society, he did not fear God, he did not fear hell, he did not fear or love his fellow man. But he had elected, he had chosen, to fear and love Don Corleone. Ushered into the presence of the Don, the terrible Brasi held himself stiff with respect. He stuttered over the flowery congratulations he offered and his formal hope that the first grandchild would be masculine. He then handed the Don an envelope stuffed with cash as a gift for the bridal couple.
So that was what he wanted to do. Hagen noticed the change in Don Corleone, The Don received Brasi as a king greets a subject who has done him an enormous service, never familiar but with regal respect. With ever gesture, with every word, Don Corleone made it clear to Luca Brasi that he was valued. Not for one moment did he show surprise at the wedding gift being presented to him personally. He understood.
The money in the envelope was sure to be more than anyone else had given. Brasi had spent many hour deciding on the sum, comparing it to what the other guests might offer. He wanted to be the most generous to show that he had the most respect, and that was why he had given his envelope to the Don personally, a gaucherie the Don overlooked in his own flowery sentence of thanks. Hagen saw Luca Brasi's face lose its mask of fury, swell with pride and pleasure. Brasi kissed the Don's hand before he went out the door that Hagen held open. Hagen prudently gave Brasi a friendly smile which the squat man acknowledged with a polite stretching of rubbery, veal-colored lips.
When the door closed Don Corleone gave a small sigh of relief. Brasi was the only man in the world who could make him nervous. The man was like a natural force, not truly subject to control. He had to be handled as gingerly as dynamite. The Don shrugged. Even dynamite could be exploded harmlessly if the need arose... (pp. 23-26).
The mob executioner lives a tenuous and high risk lifestyle. Often times, to his ultimate detriment, the mob executioner's reputation precedes him.
"On the night before the shooting of Don Corleone, his strongest and most loyal and most feared retainer prepared to meet with the enemy. Luca Brasi had made contact with the forces of Sollozzo several month before. He had done so on the orders of Don Corleone himself. He had done so by frequenting the nightclubs controlled by the Tattaglia Family and by taking up with one of their top call girls. In bed with this call girl he grumbled about how he was held down in the Corleone Family, how his worth was not recognized. After a week of this affair with the call girl, Luca was approached by Bruno Tattaglia, manager of the night club. Bruno was the youngest son, and ostensibly not connected with the family business of prostitution. But his famous nightclub with its dancing line of long-stemmed beauties was the finishing school for many of the city hookers.
The first meeting was all above-board. Tattaglia offering him a job to work in the Family business as enforcer. The flirtation went on for nearly a month. Luca played his role as man infatuated with a young beautiful girl, Bruno Tattaglia the role of a businessman trying to recruit an able executive from a rival. At one such meeting, Luca pretended to be swayed, then said, "But one thing must be understood, I will never go against the Godfather. Don Corleone is a man I respect. I understand he must put his sons before me in the Family business."
Bruno Tattaglia was one of the new generation with a barely hidden contempt for the old Moustache Petes like Luca Brasi, Don Corleone and even his own father. He was just a little too respectful. Now he said, "My father wouldn't expect you to do anything against the Corleones. Why should he? Everbody gets along with everybody else now, its not like the old days. It just that if you're looking for a new job, I can pass along the word to my father. There's always need for a man like you in our business. It's a hard business and it needs hard men to keep it running smooth. Let me know if you ever make up your mind."
Luca shrugged. "It's not so bad where I'm at." And so they left it.
The general idea had been to lead the Tattaglias that he knew about the lucrative narcotics operation and that he wanted a piece of it free-lance. In that fashion he might hear something about Sollozzo's plans if the Turk had any, or whether he was getting ready to step on the toes of Don Corleone. After waiting for two months with nothing else happening, Luca reported to the Don that obviously Sollozzo was taking his defeat graciously. The Don had told him to keep trying but merely as a sideline, not to press it.
Luca had dropped into the nightclub the evening before Don Corleone's being shot. Almost immediately Bruno Tattaglia had come to his table and sat down.
"I have a friend who wants to talk to you," he said.
"Bring him over," Luca said, "I'll talk to any friend of yours."
"No," Bruno said. "He wants to talk to you in private."
"Who is he?" Luca asked.
"Just a friend of mine," Bruno Tattaglia said. "He wants to put a proposition to you. Can you meet him later on tonight?"
"Sure," Luca said, "What time and where?"
Tattaglia said softly, "The club closes at four in the morning. "Why don't you meet in here while the waiters are cleaning up?"
They knew his habits, Luca thought, they must have been checking him out. He usually got up about three or four in the afternoon and had breakfast, then amused himself by gambling with cronies in the Family or had a girl. Sometimes he saw one of the midnight movies and then would drop in for a drink at one of the clubs. He never went to bed before dawn. So the suggestion of a four A.M. meeting was not as outlandish as it seemed.
"Sure, sure," he said. "I'll be back at four." He left the club and caught a cab to the furnished room on Tenth Avenue. He boarded with an Italian family to which he was distantly related. His two rooms were separated from the rest of their railroad flat by a special door. He liked the arrangement because it gave him some family life and also protection against surprise where he was most vulnerable.
The sly Turkish fox was going to show his bushy tail, Luca thought. If things went far enough, if Sollozzo committed himself tonight, maybe the whole thing could be wound up as a Christmas present for the Don. In his room, Luca unlocked the trunk beneath his bed and took out a bulletproof vest. It was heavy. He undressed and put it on over his woolen underwear, then put his shirt and jacket over it. He thought for a moment of calling the Don's house at Long Beach to tell him to tell him of this new development but he knew the Don never talked over the phone, to anyone, and the Don had given him this assignment in secret and so did not want anyone, not ever Hagen or his eldest son, to know about it.
Luca always carried a gun, He had a license to carry a gun, probably the most expensive gun license ever issued anyplace, anytime. It had cost a total of ten thousand dollars but it would keep him out of jail if he was frisked by the cops. As a top executive operating official of the Family he rated the license. But tonight, just in case he could finish off the job, he wanted a "safe" gun. One that could not possibly be traced. But then thinking the matter over, he decided he would just listen to the proposition tonight and report back to the Godfather, Don Corleone.
He made his way back to the club but he did not drink any more. Instead he wandered out to 48th Street, where he had a leisurely late supper at Patsy's, his favorite Italian restaurant. When it was time for his appointment he drifted uptown to the club entrance. The doorman was no longer there when he went in. The hatcheck girl was gone. Only Bruno Tattaglia waited to greet him and lead him to the deserted bar at the side of the room. Before him he could see the desert of small tables with the polished yellow wood dance floor gleaming like a small diamond in the middle of them. In the shadows was the empty bandstand, out of it grew the skeleton metal stalk of a microphone.
Luca sat at the bar and Bruno Tattaglia went behind it. Luca refused the drink offered to him and lit a cigarette. It was possible that this would turn out to be something else, not the Turk. But then he saw Sollozzo emerge out of the shadows at the far end of the room.
Sollozzo shook his hand and sat at the the bar next to him. Tattaglia put a glass in front of the Turk, who nodded his thanks. "Do you know who I am?" asked Sollozzo.
Luca nodded. He smiled grimly. The rats were being flushed out of their holes. It would be his pleasure to take care of this renegade Sicilian.
"Do you know what I am going to ask of you?" Sollozzo asked.
Luca shook his head.
"There's big business to be made," Sollozzo said. "I mean millions for everybody at the top level. On the first shipment I can guarantee you fifty thousand dollars. I'm talking about drugs. It's the coming thing."
Luca said, "Why come to me? You want me to talk to my Don?"
Sollozzo grimaced. "I've already talked to the Don." He wants no part of it. All right. I can do without him. But I need somebody strong to protect the operation physically. I understand you're not happy with your Family, you might make a switch.
Luca shrugged. "If the offer is good enough."
Sollozzo had been watching him intently and seemed to have come to a decision. "Think about my offer for a few days and then we'll talk again," he said. He put out his hand but Luca pretended not to see it and busied himself putting a cigarette in his mouth. Behind the bar Bruno Tattaglia made a lighter appear magically and held it to Luca's cigarette. And then he did a strange thing. He dropped the lighter on the bar and grabbed Luca's right hand, holding it tight.
Luca reacted instantly, his body slipping off the bar stool and trying to twist away. But Sollozzo had grabbed his other hand at the wrist. Still, Luca was too strong for both of them and would have broken free except that a man stepped out of the shadows behind him and threw a thin silken cord around his neck. The cord pulled tight, choking off Luca's breath. His face became purple, the strength in his arms drained away. Tattaglia and Sollozzo held his hands easily now, and they stood there curiously childlike as the man behind Luca pulled the cord around Luca's neck tighter and tighter. Suddenly the floor was wet and slippery. Luca's sphincter, no longer under control, opened, the waste of his body spilled out. There was no strength in his body anymore and his legs folded, his body sagged. Sollozzo and Tattaglia let his body go and only the strangler stayed with the victim, sinking to his knees to follow Luca's falling body, drawing the cord so tight that it cut into the flesh of the neck and disappeared. Luca's eyes were bulging out of his head as if in the utmost surprise and this surprise was the only humanity remaining to him. He was dead.
"I don't want him found," Sollozzo said. "It's important that he not be found right now." He turned on his heel and left, disappearing back into the shadows" (Chapter 7, pp. 106-110)."
Later, Luca Brasi's bulletproof vest is sent to the Corleone's with a fish inside it, signifying that "Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes."
Long before either Willie Moretti or Luca Brasi were murdered, they had become known as a serial killers. See: Why We Are Unlikely To Think of Mob Enforcers and Executioners As “Serial Killers” in the Tuesday, 25 January 2005 edition of the Sho'nuff Mob Study, Why Mob Enforcers and Executioners Are Serial Killers, Part I, pp. 6-7.
In American organized crime history, Willie Moretti remains underrated despite the fact that he was, indeed, a major underworld figure. Willie Moretti was allied to the losing side of a power struggle between opposing factions in the Luciano Crime Family. Late in his life, Willie Moretti suffered from tertiary syphilis.
Luca Brasi's murder precipitated a mob war. Brasi had to be killed before the war could be officially declared.
Both Willie Moretti and Luca Brasi were doomed.
The Question In Search Of An Answer
The Chicago Outfit has had a greater respective degree of impact, than the respective degree of impact the Five Families of New York have had, on the American film industry. Frank Sinatra/Johnny Fontane became a successful actor only with the help of the mob.
Willie Moretti/Luca Brasi helped Frank Sinatra/Johnny Fontane break free from a singing/recording contract but, that help ultimately made it possible for the mob to aid Frank Sinatra/Johnny Fontane gain a coveted
film role which lead to an Oscar.
What is the name of the Chicago Outfit member or associate
who, in the hypothetical Chicago Outfit scenario of The Godfather (March 2002), can reasonably serve as a prototype for 'Luca Brasi?'