The Godfather is a classic 1972 family gangster film following Don Vito Corleone,
the aging patriarch of the Corleone crime family as he looks to transfer control over
his empire to one of his three sons. As the second film shows us in flashback segments,
Vito’s rise to power, eventually becoming the most powerful of the 5 New York Dons, consisted
of befriending and teaming up with two low level crooks – Peter Clemenza and Salvatore Tessio.
The trio work together as criminals, facing off against the likes of the oppressive Don Fenucci
in Little Italy, and when Vito murders Fenucci, he gains the respect of both Clemenza and Tessio,
and as Vito rises in the underworld, so too do Clemenza and Tessio, as his underlings.
Eventually, as the first film shows us, Tessio and Clemenza would remain loyal to their Don,
acting as his caporegimes in Vito’s crime family, being instrumental in both Vito’s rise to power
and his maintaining of his status as the most powerful gangster in New York. Clemenza and
Tessio both operate their own regimes under Vito, and when Vito goes into semi-retirement
and places his son Michael in charge, it’s only the friendship of Vito that stops the duo from
breaking off the Corleone family and forming their own, as they do not trust Michael’s leadership,
and their territories face constant threats and attacks from the rivals of the Corleone family.
The pressure the Corleone’s face and the untested leadership of Michael
even prompts Tessio, one of Vito’s oldest, sharpest and most loyal of friends,
to jump ship and switch sides in the Corleone’s fight against their enemies.
His betrayal and death is something I’ve covered already in another video called The Final Moments
of Salvatore Tessio, so feel free to check it and while you’re at it, subscribe to the channel
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Even though Clemenza’s loyalty is called into question in The Godfather, like with him being
so adamant to start his own family and Tom Hagen telling Michael he always thought it would have
been Clemenza, when discussing who would betray the Corleones – Clemenza, as it turned out,
actually remained loyal to Michael, and when Michael takes out the heads
of the rival New York families and moves his family out to Lake Tahoe, it is Clemenza who
remains in New York and essentially takes over what is the Corleone crime family.
However, by the time we get to The Godfather Part II, Clemenza is already dead,
and his operations have been taken over by his trusted lieutenant, Frank Pentangeli,
also known as Frankie Five Angels. Practically every major Corleone mobster from The Godfather,
even the silent assassin Al Neri or the buttonman Willie Cicci is in the second Godfather movie,
but such a pivotal character like Clemenza is bizarrely absent,
with him having died in between the events of the first and second movie.
Very little is mentioned of Clemenza during Michael’s timeline in The Godfather Part
II – Michael mentions that Pentangeli took over his operations after his death,
and that’s about it, aside from one small exchange, easy to forget about after you’ve
sat through the entire 3 and a half hour film, between Pentangeli, Willi Cicci,
who is now part of Frankie’s crew, and Fredo Corleone, Michael’s idiot brother.
Pentangeli and Fredo greet each other after after having not seen each other after a long time,
both jubilant and talkative. Pentangeli then introduces Cicci,
saying “You remember Willie Cicci who was with the old man Clemenza in Brooklyn?” and then all
of a sudden the mood changes, there is a pause, and Fredo is quiet and sombre before saying “We
were all upset about that. Heart attack, huh?” and Willie chimes in, saying “No no, that was no heart
attack” and an emotional Frankie then says “That’s what I’m here to see your brother Mike about.”
And when he goes to see Mike he discusses his beef with the Rosato brothers,
with it seemingly being that Clemenza promised some territories to the Rosato
brothers after he died, but Pentangeli refusing to give the territories to them.
That’s how Michael puts it, but Pentangeli says that Clemenza promised them nothing,
and that he hated them, and the Rosato brothers are giving Pentangeli grief, taking hostages and
whatnot, and he’s unable to do anything about it because Michael won’t let him, as the brothers
are backed up by the Hymen Roth and Michael is in the middle of some delicate business with Roth.
The point is, there seems to have been issues with the Corleone family,
run by Clemenza and Pentangeli, and the Rosato brothers.
But that line from Cicci, “it was no heart attack”
you’d think that would open up a whole can of worms, that it would be referenced later,
that it would be revealed that Clemenza was murdered by someone we know, but it’s
literally never bought up again. So what’s all this about, and how exactly did Clemenza die?
First of all, it’s important to note that Richard Castellano, the man who played Peter Clemenza,
was supposed to reprise his role in The Godfather Part II, but he was dropped from the film after
disagreements between him, Paramount Pictures and director Francis Ford Coppola. I go into this in a
lot more detail in another video of mine called Why Was Clemenza Not In The Godfather Part II,
so be sure to check out that video as it’s essentially a companion piece to this one,
and I won’t go over the same points here for the sake of viewers who have already seen that video,
but to summarise, the character of Clemenza was written out of the script and he was pretty much
replaced by Frank Pentangeli. So everything you see in The
Godfather Part II with Frankie 5 Angels was originally supposed to happen to Clemenza,
only of course the actor was fired from the movie. That’s the real reason why Clemenza
wasn’t in the movie, the real life reason as to why the character died. So when you think to
yourself – why did they kill of Clemenza? – that’s why, because the actor was fired from the film.
But in terms of the in-movie universe, the only point of reference we have
is Fredo mentioning it was a heart attack and Willie saying it wasn’t,
and then Frankie saying that he wants to speak to Michael about this and his entire rant is about
the Rosato brothers. The implication is clear, Cicci believes that Clemenza was taken out,
with it being insinuated that it was the Rosato brothers.
It’s quite bizarre really, that such a prominent character from the first film
gets such a meagre mention in the second. And if the character is dead because the actor was fired,
why not say he died from a heart attack and leave it at that? Why the need for the extra drama by
suggesting there was foul play but never following up on it? It seems like a bit of a random creative
choice on part of the film makers, or maybe it was intentionally left there as a talking point, so
that 50 years later a YouTuber who doesn’t really get out much would end up making a video on it.
So did he die of a heart attack or was he bumped off? It’s left ambiguous for us to discuss,
and the book the films are based off, Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, is no help because none of these
events with Pentangeli or the Rosato brothers actually takes place, and Clemenza does not die.
Of course, it wouldn’t be surprising if Clemenza did die of a heart attack, given his poor diet
and seeing as though he was so overweight. You wouldn’t think twice if someone told you that was
his method of death, and interestingly this is how Castellano himself died, of a heart attack.
Even if it was a heart attack, and it remained just a heart attack, Pentangeli and Cicci might
think they’re still justified in thinking there are 3rd parties to blame. After all, Clemenza
was an old man, and the stress that the fight against the Rosato brothers would have placed
upon him could have induced a heart attack. Maybe Pentangeli even thinks Michael shares the blame?
He was drunk and and accusing of Michael in their meeting, and it’s possible that Michael’s refusal
to back the Corleone’s against the Rosato brothers put pressure on Clemenza’s health, or at the very
least caused him grief and anguish, since the old man might feel Michael is turning his back on his
old family. Of course, none of these players in the game have the foresight of Michael.
Everyone involved sees this as a street beef over power and territory,
but Michael’s strategy was to wait until he could work out with Hymen Roth’s strategy was,
and if that meant the Corleone’s had to lose a few territories, then so be it.
So Cicci and Pentangeli might have accepted that the death of Clemenza was natural in the technical
sense of the word, but they still bought the blame to Michael and the Rosato brothers’ doorsteps.
There’s also the more obvious implication of Cicci’s line – that Clemenza’s death was a
mob hit. Poison, perhaps? That’s one of the more obvious ways of killing someone without making it
look like an execution, and you could then simply pay off a doctor to say it was a heart attack.
Michael is removed from the action in New York,
whereas Pentangeli is in the thick of it, so if anyone would be able to work
out that it wasn’t a natural death, it would be him, and that’s his position.
If it was a hit carried out by the Rosato brothers, then this would be Hymen Roth’s
first major move in taking down Michael, and Old Man Clemenza was Michael’s man in New York,
and with him out of the way and a turf war being launched between
the Rosato brothers and Pentangeli, it could weaken Michael and distract him.
Pentangeli would have put his theory to Michael, and it seems as though Michael dismisses it? Why?
Again, either because he doesn’t think the theory has any weight or to keep the peace
until he can sort out the Roth situation. It seems sad that Michael wouldn’t consider avenging
Clemenza as part of a manoeuvre, but Michael isn’t exactly known for his sentimentality,
and he would instead play the long game and take his enemies out in the distant future.
Now whether this was actually the case, we’ll never know. Sure, Cicci and Five Angels think
the old man was whacked, but it’s in their interest to blame the Rosato brothers,
and even if Clemenza slipped coming down the stairs Pentangeli would rationalise it in
his head that the Rosato brothers sabotaged Clemenza’s staircase with a set of bananas.
That’s the kind of fiery mode he was in, and the kind of emotional character he was anyway,
so Cicci and Pentangeli aren’t exactly witnesses without a vested interest,
so it might be that it WAS a simple heart attack, but they just want to pin it on their enemies,
their enemies having a strategic reason to want Clemenza dead. It could be simply a case
of the duo being dramatic and proposing a theory which suits their narrative.
Maybe it was Frankie himself? Stranger things have happened, maybe Frankie
didn’t like the way the old man was handling things and wanted the top seat from himself,
but as there is literally no suggestion in the film that this could be the case,
there’s little use in discussion this possibility.
Maybe it was one of the other major New York families,
looking for revenge after the baptism of fire at the end of the first film
with a simultaneous attempt to re-establish themselves ?
What about a Corleone inside job? Michael himself giving the order?
But for what? Maybe the disconnect between him and New York led to Clemenza attempting to consolidate
power for himself and turn his back on Michael, so he was taken out. But again, this theory is
far fetched and there is nothing in the film to suggest this – in fact it seems Clemenza was
running things a lot better than Pentangeli was, so it would be a poor move on Michael’s part.
Ultimately, Willie Cicci’s line serves the purpose to inform us, the viewers, of the disconnect
between the New York street guys and the champaign-drinking lot of Michael Corleone, and
it sets up the mistrust surrounding Pentangeli, which climaxed with his eventual betrayal.
Interestingly, the actual death of Peter Clemenza is depicted in a sequel novel to The Godfather
called The Godfather Returns, written by Mark Winegardner and published in 2004.
It’s a cool little passage, and it goes as follows:
Pete Clemenza was holding court at a diner just outside the Garment District,
a place with a back dining room where no one who was not with Clemenza was ever seated.
The man who owned the place was old enough to be Pete’s father, and Pete was seventy. They’d been
friends longer than either man could remember. This particular morning, the boss was home sick
and Pete was in the kitchen, an apron tied over his silk suit, cooking peppers and eggs, redoing
the chopped oinion and showing the ropes to the punks who worked for his friend, keeping them in
line. Two of Clemenza’s men sat at a metal table crammed in the corner, listening to Clemenza do
what he’d done for the better part of his walking life, which was tell a story. It had been what had
sealed his bond with Vito Corleone. Pete was a born storyteller, Vito was a born listener.
This one happened five years ago, right after Pete got out of prison for a short stretch he’d
had to do for extortion (the case was overturned on appeal). Pete had gone to see Tessio’s new TV.
“Compared to the TV sets in the joint” Pete said, “this one’s got a picture so pretty it made your
d*** hard. It’s Friday night, and Tessio’s got a few of us over to watch the fights,
hoist a couple, place a friendly wager or two. Tessio had inside dope on every fight in creation,
but he’s extending his hospitality, so losing money to him, it’s like slipping the house
a little something for a good seat. Only guy there I don’t know is this one kid – new guy,
wound tight as a squirrel. For somebody who’s not well known, he’s asking a lot of questions,
and at a certain point I say something about it. Kid goes white, But Sally says, “Let him ask,
how else does a guy learn?” A little later I’m in the hall comin’ out of the can when Ritchie
Two Guns asks what the squirrel’s story way. I didn’t know shit, I said, which maybe outta be
on my tombstone. The first fight starts, and Sally tells Ritchie to turn the sound off, that he can’t
stand the announcer. Then Sally tells the squireel to announce the fight. Kid laughs, but Sally pulls
out a gun and waves it at him like get on with it. Kid looks like he might piss himself, ‘Welcome to
Madison Square Garden’ he says, and , I shit you not, his voice comes out of the TV! ‘Who’s
in the dark trunks?’ Sally says. The squirrel says, ‘In the dark trunks, we have Beau Jack’
which again comes through the TV. Sally smiles and says he don’t like this announcer, either. Ritchie
rips the squirrel’s shirt off, and damned if this hairy b******* ain’t wearing a wire. First one I
ever saw with a transmitter. Primitive government piece of shit played right through Sally’s new TV.
Sally goes over, leans into the microphone part, and says, ‘Fatta la legge, trovato l’inganno.’
For every law, there’s a loophole, I guess you’d say. Anyway, this cop of whatever he
was must have known Italian and figured that despite the rule against killing cops, Sally
was going to get the job done anyway. So then the squirrel really does piss himself. It shorts out
the fucking transmitter. Squirrel starts jerking and screaming. His nuts are on fire! His nuts!”
Everyone in that cramped kitchen laughed.
Clemenza keeled over onto the grill.
They must have thought he was going for a bigger laugh yet. For a moment – as the big
man’s great big heart blew like a bald truck tire – he got one. Then the flesh
of his fat face seared and crackled and his suit coat burst into flame.
His men leapt up and pulled him from the grill. They smothered the fire in no time.
All the last original employees of Genco Pura Olive Oil – its president, Vito Corleone; its
manager, Genco Abbandano, and its two salesmen, Sal Tessio and Pete Cleemnza - were dead.
Later in the book, the funeral of Clemenza, Vito Corleone’s oldest friend, takes place,
but the only member of Vito’s family who attends is Fredo, out of symbolic value. Nick Geraci, a
Corleone man who is something of a main character in the book, doesn’t know why Tom Hagen doesn’t
attend the funeral, but is aware Vito’s wife Carmela has had a flare up of blood clots, Michael
had business, Kay was supposedly leaving him, Connie was off on some beach somewhere in Monaco,
and all of the members of the organisation, even Rocco Lampone, were out in Nevada.
It’s thought that Michael doesn’t attend because of his obsession with becoming legitimate,
and not wanting to be photograpped at a gangster’s funeral.
At the funeral, Fredo remarks to Geraci that he’s heard that Clemenza’s death was no heart attack,
but Geraci dismisses the rumor,
saying the autopsy said heart attack and people today watch too much TV.
The book then says:
The prevailing rumor was that the men who said they pulled Clemenza from the grill
had actually pushed him onto it, that they were trying to burn him up and along with it,
the diner, too, but lucked out: he had a heart attack, which streamlined things.
There were men both inside and outside his own crew who were suspected of the killing,
if there had been a killing, which was highly debatable.
That didn’t stop other rumors from flying. Many seemed to think Clemenza had been
killed by Hymen Roth, the Jewish gang leader, if only because Roth
was in the middle of negotiations with Michael Corleone for control of Cuba.
Louie Russo’s Chicago outfit couldn’t be ruled out, either. If it HAD been murder,
Geraci would have bet on the Rosato brothers, a rogue element in Clemenza’s regime with
ties to Don Rico Tattaglia. All that said, both Ockham’s razor and Clemenza’s diet pointed to an
unadorned heart attack. An autopsy showed that his heart was twice the size of a normal man’s.
So the way this book plays it is to basically toe the line from The Godfather Part II – that
Clemenza died of a heart attack but that there was also suspicions of foul play. It does its job I
guess, but doesn’t add anything new to the table that we haven’t already discussed in the video.
So how do you think Clemenza died? Do you think it was a simple heart attack,
or do you have any suspects in mind? Be sure to check out my video on why Clemenza wasn’t
in The Godfather Part II, subscribe to the channel, and thanks for watching.