Vito Andolini Corleone is a fictional character in Mario Puzo's novel The Godfather and in
Francis Ford Coppola's first two films, where he was portrayed by Marlon Brando in The Godfather
and, as a young man, by Robert De Niro in The Godfather Part II.
Premiere Magazine listed Vito Corleone as the greatest film character in history.
He was also selected as the 10th greatest film character by Empire.
Character overview Vito Corleone is the head of the Corleone
crime family – the most powerful Mafia family in New York City.
He is depicted as an ambitious Sicilian immigrant who moves to the Lower East Side of Manhattan
and builds a Mafia empire.
Upon his death at the end of the novel, his youngest son, Michael, succeeds him as the
head of the Corleone family.
Vito has two other sons, Santino and Frederico, as well as a daughter, Connie, all of whom
play major roles in the story.
He also informally adopts Sonny's friend, Tom Hagen, who later becomes a lawyer and
the Family's consigliere.
While he oversees a business founded on gambling, bootlegging, and union corruption, he is known
as a generous man who lives by a strict moral code of loyalty to friends and, above all,
family.
At the same time, he is known as a traditionalist who demands respect commensurate with his
status; even his closest friends refer to him as "Godfather" or "Don Corleone" rather
than "Vito".
Vito prides himself on being careful and reasonable, but he is nevertheless willing to use violence
when he thinks it is necessary.
When his godson, singer Johnny Fontane, wants to get out of a contract with a bandleader,
Vito offers to buy out the contract.
When rebuffed, Vito threatens to kill the bandleader unless he releases Johnny for a
token amount.
Later, when movie mogul Jack Woltz refuses to give Johnny a role in a film, Vito has
one of Woltz's prize horses killed and the horse's severed head placed in Woltz's bed.
Early years The novel establishes Vito's backstory, which
is also portrayed in The Godfather Part II.
Vito was born in the small town of Corleone, Sicily, on December 7, 1891.
Antonio Andolini, his father, was murdered by the local Mafia boss, Don Ciccio, for refusing
to pay tribute to him.
His older brother, Paolo, swore revenge, but he too was murdered soon afterwards.
Eventually, Ciccio's henchmen come to the Andolini family's home to kill Vito.
In desperation, Vito's mother takes her son to see Ciccio and begs him to spare Vito.
Ciccio refuses, reasoning that Vito will also seek revenge as an adult.
Upon Ciccio's refusal, Vito's mother puts a knife to his throat, allowing her son to
escape while she is killed.
Later that night, he is smuggled away, fleeing from Sicily to seek refuge in America on a
cargo ship full of immigrants.
In the film, he is renamed "Vito Corleone" because the immigration workers at Ellis Island
mistake "Andolini" for his middle name and the name of his hometown for his last name.
According to The Godfather Part II, he later adopts the middle name "Andolini" to acknowledge
his heritage.
Vito is later adopted by the Abbandando family in Little Italy on the Lower East Side and
he befriends their son, Genco, who becomes like a brother to him.
Vito begins making an honest living at the Abbandando family's grocery store on Ninth
Avenue, but the elder Abbandando is forced to fire him when Don Fanucci, a blackhander
and the local neighborhood padrone, demands that the grocery hire his nephew.
During this time, Vito befriends Peter Clemenza and Salvatore Tessio, who teach him to survive
and prosper through petty crime and performing favors in return for loyalty.
In 1920, he commits his first murder: killing Fanucci, who had threatened to turn him, Clemenza
and Tessio over to the police unless he got a cut of their illegal profits.
Vito chooses the day of a major Italian festival to spy on Fanucci from the rooftops as Fanucci
goes home, and surprises him at the door to his apartment.
He shoots Fanucci three times, as the din from the festival and the towel he had wrapped
around the gun as a makeshift silencer drowns out the noise from the gunshots.
Vito then takes over the neighborhood, treating it with far more respect than Fanucci had.
As a young man, Vito starts an olive oil importing business, Genco Pura, with his friend Genco.
Over the years he uses it as a legal front for his growing organized crime syndicate.
Nevertheless, Genco Pura is highly successful and grows to become the largest olive oil
importing company in the nation.
Between Genco Pura and his illegal operations, Vito becomes a very wealthy man.
In the mid-1920s, he returns to Sicily for the first time since fleeing as a child.
He and his partner Don Tommasino begin systematically eliminating all of Don Ciccio's men who had
a hand in murdering his family.
They set up a meeting with the aging Don Ciccio himself, during which Vito kills him by carving
his stomach open, thus avenging his family.
By the early 1930s, Vito Corleone has organized his illegal operations into the Corleone crime
family.
Abbandando becomes his consigliere, with Clemenza and Tessio as caporegimes.
It is soon reckoned as the most powerful crime family in the nation.
Later, his oldest son Santino becomes a capo as well, and eventually his underboss.
Around 1939, he moves his base of operations to Long Beach, New York on Long Island.
Main character arc In 1945, Vito refuses the request of Virgil
Sollozzo to invest in a heroin operation and use his political contacts for the operation's
protection.
Vito believes that the politicians on his payroll would recoil at the prospect of providing
cover for drug trafficking.
At the meeting with Sollozzo, Sonny intimates that he is interested in the offer; after
the meeting, Vito warns his son that he should never let anyone outside the family in on
his thinking.
Some time later, near Christmas, while on his way home, Vito crosses the street to buy
oranges from a street vendor when two of Sollozzo's hitmen come out from the shadows with guns
drawn.
Vito tries to sprint back to his Cadillac, but he is shot five times before he can get
to safety.
His son Fredo fumbles with his gun and is unable to return fire as the attackers escape
Sollozzo finds out Vito survived, and makes a second attempt two weeks later.
He has Mark McCluskey — a corrupt police captain on his payroll — throw the Don's
bodyguards in jail and withdraw all police protection, leaving him unguarded.
However, Michael comes to visit his father minutes before the attack is due to occur.
Realizing that his father is in danger, Michael has a nurse help him move Vito to another
room and pretends to stand guard outside the hospital.
Vito's injuries incapacitate him for the next three months, during which time Sonny serves
as acting head of the family.
Michael persuades Sonny to allow him to avenge their father by killing Sollozzo and McCluskey
himself.
The plan goes through perfectly, and Michael is smuggled out of the United States and sent
to Sicily to safety under Don Tomassino's protection.
The killing of Sollozzo and McCluskey sparks off a major war between the Corleone and the
Tattaglia Families, with the Five Families of New York backing the latter.
After Sonny is killed by the Tattaglias, Vito assumes personal control again and brokers
a major peace accord among the Families, confirming his suspicion in the process that Don Emilio
Barzini, head of the Barzini Family, was the brains behind Sollozzo and the Tattaglia Family
all along.
The peace allows Vito to have Michael returned home in safety, and Vito installs him in the
family business — something he had never wanted for his favorite son, who he had hoped
would pursue a non-criminal lifestyle.
Vito goes into semi-retirement after Michael marries his longtime girlfriend Kay Adams.
Michael becomes operating head of the family, with Vito as an informal consigliere.
He even supports Michael's long-term plans to remove the family from crime, though an
early draft of the script suggests that it was actually Vito's idea.
Michael sends Hagen to Las Vegas to act as the family's lawyer there and lay the groundwork
for a planned move of most operations there after Vito's death.
Clemenza and Tessio request permission to break off and form their own families in New
York after the move to Las Vegas; Michael's bodyguards Al Neri and Rocco Lampone are chosen
to be the future caporegimes of the family.
Vito dies of a heart attack while playing with his grandson Anthony in his garden.
His last words in the novel are, "Life is so beautiful."
Vito's funeral is a grand affair, with all the other dons, capos and consiglieres in
New York attending.
Days before his death, Vito tells Michael that Barzini would set him up to be killed
under cover of a meeting "to fix up things".
Barzini would use a trusted member of the Corleone family as an intermediary, and that
whoever came to Michael about the meeting with Barzini was a traitor.
At the funeral, Tessio tells Michael that he could set up a meeting on his territory
in Brooklyn, where Michael would presumably be safe.
Michael concludes that Tessio is the traitor.
A few days later, Michael orders the deaths of the other New York Dons, as well as Tessio.
He also avenges Sonny's death by arranging the killing of Connie's abusive husband Carlo
Rizzi, who "fingered" Sonny for the Tattaglias.
Michael and Vito had begun planning this mass slaughter soon after Michael's return to the
United States; in a last demonstration of Vito's cunning, they had deliberately allowed
the Barzini-Tattaglia alliance to whittle away at their interests in order to lull them
into inaction.
Sequel novels Vito is a supporting character in The Godfather
Returns, Mark Winegardner's 2004 sequel to Puzo's novel, and a major one in The Family
Corleone, a 2012 novel by Ed Falco.
Both novels portray his rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s, as well as his early relationships
with his wife and children.
Family
Carmela Corleone — Wife, played by Morgana King
Santino "Sonny" Corleone — Eldest son; played by James Caan
Tom Hagen — informally adopted son, played by Robert Duvall
Frederico "Fredo" Corleone — Middle son; played by John Cazale
Michael Corleone — Youngest son; played by Al Pacino
Constanzia 'Connie' Corleone — Daughter; played by Talia Shire
Frank Corleone — Grandson Santino Corleone, Jr.
— Grandson Francesca Corleone - Granddaughter, twin of
Kathryn Corleone Kathryn Corleone - Granddaughter, twin of
Francesca Corleone Vincent Corleone — Grandson; played by Andy
García Anthony Corleone — Grandson; played by Franc
D'Ambrosio Mary Corleone — Granddaughter; played by
Sofia Coppola Victor Rizzi- Grandson
Michael Rizzi- Grandson Portrayals and influences
In The Godfather, Don Vito Corleone was portrayed by Marlon Brando.
He was portrayed as a younger man in The Godfather Part II by Robert De Niro.
Both performances won Academy Awards — Best Actor for Brando, Best Supporting Actor for
De Niro.
Vito Corleone is the only motion picture character played by two different actors, each of whom
received an Oscar for his or her portrayal.
Brando declined his Oscar, having Sacheen Littlefeather state his reasons.
The character has also had a major influence on entertainment, most notably: the movie
The Freshman, where Marlon Brando's character is almost a parody of Corleone; the Only Fools
and Horses episode "Miami Twice", where the primary antagonist is Don Vincenzo "Vinny
the Chain" Ochetti, another parody of Corleone; and the comic book mini-series, Batman: Year
One and Batman: The Long Halloween, where the character Carmine Falcone is loosely based
on Vito Corleone.
Vito Corleone is based on a composite of mid-20th century New York Mafia figures, chief among
them Frank Costello.
Brando apparently used tapes of Costello from the Kefauver hearings as the basis for the
character's accent.
Notes and references