Julian Dorey Podcast - [VIDEO] - The Vatican, Marilyn Monroe & JFK Affair, Whacking Pablo Escobar’s Henchman | Gianni Russo • 184

Episode Date: February 10, 2024

(***TIMESTAMPS in Description Below) ~ Gianni Russo is an actor, businessman, and author. He is most well known for playing Carlo Rizzi in the greatest movie ever made, “The Godfather.” EPISODE LINKS: - BUY GIANNI’S BOOK IN MY AMAZON STORE: https://amzn.to/3RPu952  - Julian Dorey PODCAST MERCH: https://juliandorey.myshopify.com/  - Support our Show on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/JulianDorey  - Join our DISCORD: https://discord.gg/QD7VhWWV  JULIAN YT CHANNELS: - SUBSCRIBE to Julian Dorey Clips YT: https://www.youtube.com/@UChs-BsSX71a_leuqUk7vtDg  - SUBSCRIBE to Julian Dorey Daily YT: https://www.youtube.com/@JulianDoreyDaily  - SUBSCRIBE to Best of JDP: https://www.youtube.com/@bestofJDP  GIANNI LINKS: - INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/realgiannirusso/  - WEBSITE: https://www.giannirusso.com/  ***TIMESTAMPS*** 0:00 - Gianni’s childhood; Battling Polio  9:22 - Gianni Assassination attempt; Gianni gets Stems 15:32 - Gianni meets Mafia Boss Frank Costello 23:31 - Carlo Gambino; JFK 28:05 - The 5 Families of New York; Joe Bonanno; John Gotti 34:22 - Gianni never “made”; The Vatican & the Underworld 40:33 - Sicily; Owning rights to Marlon Brando’s Don Corleone from “The Godfather” 49:11 - The Sopranos backstory; Gianni’s Nightclub Killing Incident 59:13 - Gianni meets Pablo Escobar 1:09:43 - Gianni in his 20s working with Frank Costello; JFK Thoughts 1:16:46 - The Mob & New York Skyscrapers; Who really got Kennedy; Fidel Castro 1:23:32 - Week before JFK; Gianni has a lot of kids 1:31:31 - Behind the scenes stories of “The Godfather 1:40:46 - Little Italy & the Mob during “The Godfather” Days 1:44:50 - Did Gianni think “The Godfather” would be as big as it was?; Gianni & Marlon Brando Story 1:54:45 - Carlo gets beat up scene; Crazy Joe Gallo 2:02:04 - Gianni helped on set of “The Godfather”; Hanging out w/ Marlon Brando 2:12:40 - Gianni’s relationship with Frank Sinatra 2:18:49 - Marilyn Monroe & Gianni 2:27:50 - Gianni remembers Marilyn Monroe’s death 2:36:21 - Kennedy Family & Bootlegging; The Copacabana Yankees Altercation 2:44:37 - Gianni’s fame after “The Godfather” 2:53:30 - Gianni’s Next Move CREDITS: - Hosted & Produced by Julian D. Dorey - Intro & Episode Edited by Alessi Allaman ~ Get $150 Off The Eight Sleep Pod Pro Mattress / Mattress Cover (USING CODE: “JULIANDOREY”): https://eight-sleep.ioym.net/trendifier Julian's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/julianddorey ~ Music via Artlist.io ~ Julian Dorey Podcast Episode 184 - Gianni Russo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up, guys? If you're on Spotify right now, please follow the show so that you don't miss any future episodes and leave a five-star review. Thank you. Because John gave her to Bobby, because Bobby said, you've got to stay away from Marilyn for the first couple of years. You're a Catholic president. And with that said, they were going to try to hook her up with Bobby. So they had a room set up. Like blackmail. Exactly, like they did with J.O. Hoover. So unbeknownst to us, we don't know this.

Now, sun's setting. Sinatra's telling them what they want her to do. She goes crazy. I'm not having nothing to do with these Kennedys. They're this, they're that. She starts screaming. I'm going to the press. I'm going to disclose these Catholics and this, that, and the other. So now I come back to New York. He's telling me what happened. He said, they're going to kill her. Johnny, you are officially the best-dressed guy I've ever had in here, man.

You are dressed to the nines. Well, I also own a clothing line. This is La Cosa Mia by Gianni. La Cosa Mia. That's what it's called. Yep. I like that. How long have you had that?

Seven years. Wow. By the way, you can lose the headphones if you want. Just stick them right over there. Make it easier. That was what I meant to do. I don't want to mess up the hair. Oh, it's not even a mess up the hair.

I don't want to look like a Mickey Mouse. So wait, where do you make your clothes? Are they made overseas or all here? Oh, yeah. No, all in Europe. My shoes, everything are made from Spain. Oh, wow. These jackets are Milan.

Wow. And you got some good ice, too. I see you are well jeweled out right there. You got some ice on the finger. What's that big one right there? What is that? It's a 14-carat diamond. Some wars fought over that stuff right there.

That's about a main five. Oh, my God. When did you get that? I bought that for myself when I was 70, 10 years ago. You're 80 years old? I'll be 81 in December 12th. You are looking spry, man. I hope I look like you when I'm 80.

Well, you will. I hope so. I hope so. I work out a lot, and I'm trying to keep the age off. I don't do any working out. You do nothing? Nothing. What's your secret?

I do Tai Chi, and I walk three miles a day. Well, that's working out. Well, walking. That's great for you. I get trashed, and I walk Madison Avenue. That's great for you. Walking's a... Oh, no. I mean, that's what's great for you. I get dressed and I walk Madison Avenue. That's great for you. Walking's a... Oh, no.

That's what keeps me going. So many people just sit around all day. That's how you age. I never did that. That's great. Well, I had some polio when I was a kid. That's right. You had polio.

How did that happen? God only knows. It was a big epidemic. So this would have been like the late 40s is my math right yeah it was August August

mine was August 7th 1949 wow I had it for five years now was it the type of thing where you just woke up wait five years you had it

yeah whoa I just woke up and just couldn't move my Couldn't move. My right side had all the strength, but I was sleeping in a utility closet at the time. So I can only get up on the left side, and the left side happened to be where I got afflicted, my whole left side. Oh, so it wasn't – it could be – I didn't know that.

It could be by the side. So your right side's moving, but your left side. Oh, so it wasn't, it could be, I didn't know that. It could be by the side. So your right side's moving, but your left side's not. It could be respiratory. It could be, that's why some people have an iron lung. Some people, no, I had no mobility and no strength in my left side. Wow. For almost five years. Hey, guys.

A lot of you have been asking me where we've been posting our shorts. They are on our other YouTube channels. almost five years. On another note, though, if you have not subscribed to this channel, please do that. It is a huge help. 60.3% of you who watched in the month of January were not subscribed. So if we could improve that number with more people hitting the red button, YouTube will put our videos into the algorithm, which will allow us to continue to get great guests like this. So thank you to all of you who have already hit the button. And to the rest of you, please hit it right now. Thanks. Between client meetings, managing your business, and everyday tasks, who has time to worry about website hosting? With Kinsta's managed WordPress

hosting, you don't have to. They handle the technical stuff, delivering lightning-fast load times, enterprise-grade security, and 24-7, 365 human-only support. Simply switching to Kinsta can make your site up to 200% faster. Kinsta's custom dashboard makes managing sites easy, Thank you. Get your first month free at Kinsta.com. That's K-I-N-S-T-A dot com. Kinsta. Simply better hosting. Thank you. Now, did you, when you woke up, was the only symptom you just couldn't move your left side? Or did you also, like, did you have a heavy fever?

Were you feeling? No, nothing. I just had nothing. There was no feeling. And then my mother and father, my father was always a gavone. on he's not just give some aspirin there must be some and then my mother snuck me out to a clinic downtown and the next thing I could eat my mother crying in the in the kitchen next day which I've heard a crying numerous times because my father was an idiot but

they were state ambulance drivers came to get me whoa yeah now were they was was this something where they were afraid of catching it oh my god yeah it was highly contagious I watched 2,300 kids die in five years in a 20-bed ward. So they put you in quarantine for five years? Straight in Bellevue. Oh. Don't leave. Oh.

Yeah. So what are you doing during that? You just sitting in bed the whole time? And it's not like hospitals now. There was no television. There was nothing. No. It's like a prison.

Yeah. Wow. But you know, the interesting thing about it, I mean, and I reflect on it so many times, I wouldn't change one day in my life. I'd rather go through the five years I did. I walked out of there when I was 12 years old and never stopped walking. And look what I did. But what did you get, like, because the vaccine came out in, what, the early 50s?

Yeah. So did you get that? I was part of Jonas Salk's vaccine. I was the poster boy for the March of Dimes. Wow. And I didn't even know nothing about it until later on when i did the research on my book which is interesting because franklin delano roosevelt was was backed by frank costello who basically took me under his wing now can you tell people who frank costello is because when i asked alessi about this earlier he's like oh from the departed right i was like no that's why you said that to me in the car, too, and I just let it go.

Can you tell people who he was? Well, Frank Costello ran the Genovese family for a long time. Bonvino was away. And then he and Maya Lansky created the syndicate in the United States where they actually organized the whole United States. So that's how I got to know every mob boss from New Orleans to Kansas City to Chicago. How did you meet Frank in the first place? I was selling ballpoint pens. I got out of the hospital. I was still a gimp.

Oh, you still couldn't really move the left side that well? Oh, yeah. I was dragging my leg and just I got out. There was a nurse, a floor nurse, who was Dolores Barone, who was Carlo Gambino's niece. Thank God. That's another big name. Yeah, another great name. But Carlo Gambino, I always thought he was my uncle.

You know, I saw him because we always had a call, my uncle called in the neighborhood. And my grandfather and all of them were from Sicily. And they all came from the same town. And so I really thought he was my uncle. So he let her know that this kid from the neighborhood is up there, he's very close to our family look after him and thank God She did because if it wasn't for I probably would have went crazy like so many other people did And a lot of people just gave up they stopped eating they stopped doing everything

So I stopped I'm making friends. I was I wanted to have a friend I'd make friends with kids in the ward and then two or three three days later or a week later, their bed was scrubbed, and they'd gone to heaven. Oh, wow. Yeah, and if you died during the day, they would leave you there like you were sleeping until all the lights went out at night because they didn't want to traumatize the kids.

And then I wanted to get up so many times, but I couldn't, to oil the gurney's wheel because you hear that wheel coming in. And I knew somebody must have died tonight. Whoa. It taught me so much, and my resilience is insane. You know, I'm talking to a guy who's been shot, stabbed, I don't know, my throat slit. I was shot 14 times so far.

So far. How many different times, though? Like 14 times individually? Oh, no, no. Like 14 bullets? My biggest hit was not too long ago, 14 years ago. It took 8, 8, 38. Oh, my God.

What happened there? That's a crazy story. All right. Let's go to it. Well, what happened over there was I was getting into the alcohol business in Europe. So I used to get DHL packages all the time. Or nighttime, whenever they come ring the bell, I had to sign for them because of alcohol. And I live on 61st Street.

So this particular night, the date is going to mean a lot to your audience. It was November 22nd. Oh, yeah, JFK. So I come down. They ring the buzzer. And they said, Mr. Russo, we got DHL. Come down. I knew it.

I'd been getting all kinds of samples. So I threw a full-length chinchilla coat on. It was cold. And nothing else. That's all I had. I think that's the one you wore today. Oh, no, no, no. That wasn't chinchilla? No, that's a black mink. That's a jacket, though. No, this

is to the floor. Oh, like the Frank Lucas one. Yeah. Gotcha. So with that the floor. Oh, like the Frank Lucas one. Yeah. Gotcha. So with that, I go down, open the door, and the girl lets go. Shoots me. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. She had the vest on, and I thought I was hallucinating because I didn't, and I'm all of a sudden getting shot.

And then I'm watching through my double doors on the sidewalk. There's a van on the sidewalk. Pulls up and I'm going in and out of consciousness and they throw me in the van. And thank God I'm on 61st Street. They took me right to New York Presbyterian on 67th. So was this just supposed to be

like a straight up robbery gone bad? No. This was a girl who her father was a major senator, and I promised I would never say who it was. She was a fanatic for the Kennedys. She worked in the literary congress reading books and galleys and all that and she read a book that i have something to do with the kennedy assassination well i did it was so far removed so she came to avenge his death kennedy kennedy's death some people are a little crazy 14 years ago

so you're talking about yes she really took that to heart yeah a lot of time passed there well she was a young kid you know she got the job in the library at 1819 and she had that's why she had a detail with her thank god unless she could have just walked out there and killed me and left me there, and I would have bled out. Whoa. But her detail, and she was in my cousin's restaurant, Scamonatella, a restaurant, a famous restaurant in New York. I've never been there. And the bathroom was upstairs. So she left her detail to go to the bathroom,

and now the story goes, they wonder where she went. Her lady detail went up, and they said, no, she went out the door. And just as they were going out the door, they hear the shots. So the detail goes up a one-way street on my sidewalk to find her, and she's standing there with a gun over me, empty. Empty. Yeah. Then they took me to New York Presbyterian, fortunately,

which has been my hospital ever since then for a lot of other reasons. And robotically, they just created that robotic thing for prostate cancer. And they moved every bullet without damaging any of my organs or anything. But that's when they realized that my left side was dwarfed to my right side. Because of polio. And they approached me then, two days later, and they said, would you be a candidate for us? We're going to start doing experiments on stem cells. Oh, so you've been doing stem cells.

I've been doing stem cells. They reversed my aging. Wow. That's a part. In addition to walking, that's doing something for you. No. That's why everything, I always say, anything in my life that's lemons,

I make lemonade out of it. Clearly. And every negative has turned to a positive. Yeah, we actually, I make lemonade out of it. Clearly. And it's everything I've, every negative has turned to a positive. Yeah, we actually, I want to bring this up. We have your book sitting right here. This is from four or five years ago, I think, right? Three years ago. Hollywood Godfather. Holding it up to the camera right now.

And I'll put the link to this down in the description as well. But in a lot of ways, your life story is kind of like the Forrest Gump of I'll just say the New York City scene that we all know goes global as well right right right but but it's not just New York it's global yeah absolutely that's what I'm saying like you've been very global with your stuff and I remember you had done a great podcast years ago with patrick beth david and i had seen it oh yeah i had seen it back then and he said something like i think it was if if 20 of what you say is true your life is fucking crazy man and i agree because you know to have the childhood you did is obviously unique for some very tough reasons. But to your point, you made lemons out of lemonade.

You come out of there. How old were you? You were 12 when you walked out of there? 12, yeah, 12. So you didn't go back to your parents' house at all? No. Who'd you stay with? What happened, my friend, my father, my grandfather had a friend

called Fonzie McNotty. They had a bakery. Oh, Fonzie. So I went to work at the bakery, which was great for me, unbeknownst to me, because of the coal ovens, the heat, and the flour, there was no humidity. That's why even at my age now, in my 80s, I have no rheumatism. I have nothing. Most people should be having arthritic pain and everything else.

Wow. I have nothing. It's crazy. So you just started working in there. Started working there. And then you ended up selling ballpoint pens at some point. And mixing the dough, 50-pound bags of flour. It's crazy. So you just started working in there. Started working there. And then you ended up selling ballpoint pens at some point. And mixing the dough, 50-pound bags of flour. It's like dynamic tension.

Yeah, yeah. The dry heat. And then when I was done, because the bread had to be out by 4 o'clock in the morning, I'd go into storage and go on the flour bags, 50-pound bags, and go to sleep. Wow. I stayed there for about a year, year and a half. And then how'd you get into the ballpoint pen thing? My grandfather used to come take me for walks.

I knew what he was doing every day, exercising me like a horse. He walked me down to Delancey Street, and ballpoint pens just came out. They were just, you know, no more inkwell and all that. And Leo Rabinowitz, who owned the store, my grandfather used to go there all the time for the pens and pencils for the club. They used to play ziggunat, you know. And he tried to sell them ballpoint pens.

He said, I don't want no pens. I want the pencils. I don't need these pens. But it stuck in my mind. The next day, I walked down there by myself. I said, you know, Rabinowitz, I think I could help your business. And he's looking at the scribble kid.

And so he was humoring me. So he called his brother over. David, this guy's going to help us. Come here and listen to this story. And I told him. I said, you give me 50 pence. Give? I give nothing to no one.

I said, lend me 50 pence.'ll go sell them come back the next day whatever i sold i pay you for you replenished them and i could bring the pens all around the neighborhood who's going to walk to delancey street and find these pens and at that time we were getting paid or people were getting paid cash and envelopes the banks were oh yeah yeah it was cash no checks or nothing like that so i went to mr pinto marine medlin bank and again because i'm he saw my infliction and all that and i said i got an idea can you tell me when certain officers get paid and he figured, you got it wrong, the guy's a cripple.

He said, why? I said, I have these pens. I showed him. I gave him one as a gift. It was like 10 cents. I gave it to him. I said, these pens just came out. You don't need ink wells.

Now I want to sell them. I can make some money. And I exhausted it for about four months. That when I would pull up to a secretary's desk who just got paid 15 minutes ago because I knew where they came timing baby she'd open the drawer and say she had more pens than me they were being nice so then I went uptown I took the N train on canal street got off of 59th street on park side, I'd never been up there before, and I walked out, and there was the Sherry Netherlands Hotel.

And everybody was dressed to the nines. I thought every day was Sunday. Everybody looked like they were going to church. Everybody had their suits on. And I started selling pens there. Is that where you met Costello? Not only did I meet him, he came almost every day. He'd be walking from the west side, and he'd stop there.

I didn't know what he was doing, but he was going to get a shoeshine downstairs in the barbershop to clean up his shoes every day, and he goes over to the Waldorf. And every day he'd give me words of wisdom, give me a few dollars, sometimes $5. And before he left, he always touched my left shoulder, put my arm around and hugged me. I didn't care what he touched. Keep giving me the money, show up every day.

That's all I cared about. It wasn't until later on, because when I left the neighborhood, I was still down living in the bakery. When I left the neighborhood, I used to stop by out of respect and see Gambino, because he used to go to Ferrara's in the bakery when i left the neighborhood i used to stop by out of respect and see gambino because he used to go to four hours in the morning when he came in from brooklyn down right on the ground street yeah yeah yeah so and it's still there put a pin on that we got a story for that later yeah he's still there so i'd go in and just wave to him if he was busy or he'd call me over how you feel and all that so when i left this one particular day, right next door, the other store that's still there is a religious store.

They sell artifacts and statues and all that. So he tells me, Johnny, you're from Sicily, right? I said, yeah. He said, well, we just got these logons from Sicily. I want you to see this. I want to look at it. And for your audience, I don't know, people wear horns, they wear these kind of things for the Maloikia. Yeah.

So he shows it to me. There's a hunchback on the top of the Lugorn. I said, what's that about? He says, Sicilians are very superstitious about touching cripples for luck well the blood drained out of my head because I thought this guy liked me I couldn't wait to go up to Canal Street I went to Canal Street and when I got out to the train there was a lady selling rabbit's feet so I bought a pink one for like 10 cents I put in my pocket. And sure enough, here comes Costello.

And this guy I thought was his friend, I found out later, Blackie, was his bodyguard. So he does his normal stuff and gives me the money and whatever. And he goes to touch me, and I move. No luck today, Frank. And he goes to touch me again, and I. No luck today, Frank. And he goes to touch me again, and I move. He says, what are you doing? I said, not what I'm doing. It's what you're doing.

Now, understand, I'm a 12-year-old kid talking to Costello. He's the boss of bosses. They called him the ambassador at that time. He says, what are you doing? I said, no, it's what you're doing. You think I'm some kind of freak? Did you know that he was who he was? You didn't know that yet.

I just thought it was a nice guy giving me money. So I said, you want luck? I gave him this pink rabbit's foot. And the guy, I found out later it was his bodyguard, almost laughed that I'm giving this guy a rabbit's foot. He said, you know who I am? I said, no. I said, I don't want to know who you are.

You took advantage of me. I really thought you liked me. He said, I do like you. I said, what are you touching me for then? For luck? And I had him. He said, what's your name? I said, Johnny Russo.

He said, who is Angelo Russo to you? I said, Angelo Russo is my great uncle. He said, when did you see him last? I said, I never saw him. He said, who is Angelo Russo to you? I said, Angelo Russo is my great uncle. He said, when did you see him last? I said, I never saw him. He said, why not? I said, why are you asking me all these questions if you know him? Because I was mad at the guy. And I had an attitude.

I should have had an attitude coming out of the Bellevue to begin with. So he said, your uncle I know very well. He said, Blackie, take that cigar box. He said, you ain't taking my cigar box. And I used to hold it in my right hand because that was my strength. He took a roll of money out. I never saw that much money in my life. He gives me three $100 bills.

That's a lot of money back then. He said, now I bought them. So I gave them to him so you know where the waldorf story is of course i know a republic bathroom in new york he didn't get it at first we met and i because i i did i didn't know where i had to go to a bathroom i even did hotels i still think about that today i think that should be like a law if you have to go to the bathroom, people got to open the door. Sometimes you're walking in the city, you're like,

shit, I got to go. I got to find a Starbucks or something. I go everywhere. I still go. I walk every day. You can imagine. I walk up to 80th, 90th Street and come back down. So anyway, long story short, he says, you know what o'clock in the lobby is?

Yeah. He says, be there tomorrow at 10 o'clock. I was there at 9 o'clock. I don't want to miss the guy. The guy gave me 300. Yeah, I'm fucking be there at 9. And then Blackie came and said, Mr. C wants to see you. I went back there, and he told me this story, that my uncle sent his mother and father here when he was a teenager.

Whoa. And what most people don't know about Mr. Gambino, sent his mother and father here when he was a teenager. Whoa. And what most people don't know about Mr. Gambino, Carlo Gambino came to America at 17 years of age as a made man. He was made over there at the Gambino family. It's still there. I was just. Yeah, he was a.

Go ahead. No, and he was here now, which people don't realize unless you're of Italian heritage at that time. The guys, Matarano and those, they were shaking down the Italian immigrants. Yeah. Maranzano. Instead of protecting them. Who was the other one? Mazzucca?

Marazzucca. Yeah. And so they came in, and that's when they created the five families. From that point on, they got rid of them. Yeah. Created the five families from that point on they got rid of them yeah created the five families but again they're all worked in my mind to my advantage and then he said to me from you'll never do that again I want you to be my personal messenger mmm okay I'll never let you get in trouble you just do all my errands meet me every day at 11 o'clock. Or unless you get a message from Carmine at the Copa,

which is where I used to go at night before I went home. Copa Cabana? Copa Cabana. He owned the Copa Cabana. Costello. Wow. Costello owned it. I mean, he had his finger in everything.

And that was it. So I was with him until 73, until he died. Wow. So you were just running errands for him all the time. I was running errands for him. And then Joe Kennedy I met, who was his partner during Prohibition, they were doing bootlegging. And they amassed $30 million each in the 30s. You're talking about John F. Kennedy's father, obviously.

Right. Wow. the 30s you're talking about john f kennedy's father obviously right wow and so what how i met him was just because what you just said senator john f kennedy wanted to run for president and he did you know senator john f kennedy yeah you met him yeah oh i hung out when i said i hung out with him for four or five months every weekend it It was insane. Wow. I was 16 years old. But they knew I was the eyes and ears. The kid is coming. And I met everybody.

I met the Savellas in Kansas City, Tony Ocardo in Chicago. I met everyone. Frank Nitti, those guys. Oh, yeah. Well, Nick Nitti, when you read my book, Frank Nitti's son, we became partners. Oh, you became business partners. He and I were the couriers for the Vatican money. All right, we're going to pin on the Vatican money. I mean, that story is insane.

Wow. So with that, all I was doing at that time was going to see Alan Dorfman, Culinary Union, Bramlett, insurance people, all the mob families. And it gave me a great entree to them all because they knew Costello. You know, he was head of the syndicate. And I worked for him. And I met everybody all during that time.

And then on the weekends, we'd meet in Vegas, and I'd watch the Rat Pack. And during that time, they were shooting Ocean's Eleven. This is the late 50s, early 60s? Yeah. Wow. So I'm sitting ringside. They're talking to me, Dean, Sammy.

They're talking, man, your kid's here tonight. Your kid, your kid. And people just come up to me, who are you? I said, I'm the kid. Don't worry about it. I'm the kid. Are you moving better now? Oh, yeah. Oh, now I'm, the kid's here tonight. The kid's your kid. And people just come up to me. Who are you? I said, I'm the kid. Don't worry about it. I'm the kid. Are you moving better now? Oh, yeah.

Oh, now I'm 16. I'm moving better. But most people didn't realize I had two different shoe size, glove size, and all that. And if you didn't study me, even now, this hand is a lot smaller than this hand. Can you hold them both out? Yeah.

Oh, wow, it is. Yeah, I know. Okay. No, so this is the side that's still gimped, even though I'm taking stem cells. It's done tremendous. But I used to have full head of gray hair, receding hair, my hair coming back, my skin.

Coming back? Through stem cells. That's crazy. It's reversing aging. How often do you have to do stem cells? Now I'm not. I'm only doing them every 90 days. But I go to the hospital every 30 days.

And how does it work? Do they just inject you in the arm? I don't know anything about it. No, no. What they do, they take my stems from my right side. They spin them and do that. And then they inject them to where I want or where they want that they know I need the work. Wow.

But it's, I mean, my energy level is insane. What it's done for my memory and recall and all that, it's like a 200-watt bulb. That's amazing. That's something I really want to do a podcast on at some point because I know so little about it. We hear about it in passing all the time But it seems like more you hear about like people going down to Mexico to get them and stuff like that

It's only going to power and order the only problem with that and unfortunately I mean unless you have a lot a lot of money you can get them now in the country is about 35,000 of treatment. Per treatment. Per treatment. But the wealthy are going to live forever. And a lot of the guys, like even His Majesty in Dubai and all that, they just built major clinics. And I'm with Cornell University in research.

So you can pull up my records. They have everything. Between client meetings, managing your business, and everyday tasks, who has time to worry about website hosting? With Kinsta's managed WordPress hosting, you don't have to. They handle the technical stuff, delivering lightning-fast load times, enterprise-grade security, and 24-7, 365 human-only support. Simply switching to Kinsta could make your site up to 200% faster.

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I know you have everything covered in New York, but if you need a body part, we have your records here. And we'll fly it right up to you. A body part? Of course, they're in a fourth world company, country. They buy hearts. They buy livers. They buy stuff. So if you have

money, you're never going to die. I'm projected right now to 115. Wow. Might need to get on that stem cell grind over there. Gotta get some more money, Alessi. I'm predicting right now to 115. Wow. That's why. Might need to get on that stem cell grind over there. Got to get some more money, Alessi. Let's figure out how to monetize this a little better.

That's amazing. But I cut you off from where you were talking about Costello. And Alessi, if you wouldn't mind, can you pull up a picture of Costello to put on the screen? Just type in Frank Costello five families but he he was a really fascinating guy because the kind of the mo i guess you get on a lot of mobsters is like they're just tough guys who aren't necessarily the brightest bulb but one of the things costello at least from the research i've done he was one of the guys me Meyer Lansky was probably another one, and Joe Bonanno was definitely another one who was actually extremely smart.

And the running joke among law enforcement was that these guys would have been CEOs of anything they tried. Oh, yeah. And the only, I don't agree with you with Joe Bonanno. I know him well. I knew of his son Bill and all that. I had Tori in here. How well did your grandfather know Joseph Kennedy? They did business together in the

bootlegging times. And my grandfather didn't like him because they were smuggling immigrants and they were smuggling alcohol or whiskey. And if they were getting chased and they needed to, you know, lighten the load, they would throw the people overboard, the immigrants overboard, before the alcohol. And my grandfather just hated Joe Kennedy because of that. The grandson. Excuse me? I had Tori Bonanno, Salvatore Bonanno, Bill Sonnen. What does he know about his grandfather?

I met him once. I had to go to Arizona a lot of times. I hated to go. I should get off the plane and go drive 200 miles into the desert to see him. I'm so against drugs, and they were very heavy into drugs. Now, they claim, the claim there is that, because we know the Bananos got heavy into drugs. You're 100% right about that but the claim is that part of the reason he was excommunicated from the family and they had the whole bananas war was because there was another faction of the family

that wanted to do drugs and he didn't that's their story okay that's fair i don't i mean you know i can't i'm not gonna yeah that's you know there's so many people that I know because as we're revealing now, I got to meet, like you meant, Maya Lansky, and I was like 12, 13 years old when I'm meeting these guys. And you really have no idea. I have no idea who they were. But why I'm saying that, that's how long I've been in this life,

and I'm not a made guy. Everybody says to you, I never want to be a made guy why would I want I I don't want to be a Boy Scout I don't like clubs I like meetings I ain't doing it I mean I used to go down to and I had a respect to Gambino and my family I could walk into the Ravenite anytime I wanted the social club down and what's that social club down a little early yeah that? The social club down in Lilloo. Yeah. Yeah.

But I could go there anytime. And normally, on Sundays, you couldn't go in that club before 12 noon unless you were a maid guy. And that's what gave me the problems with John Gotti later on in life. Because he was... His rabbi down there was O'Neill. O'Neill was... I mean, he turned it into into him all the hijacking he was doing and all that and then eventually but one day he says to o'neill he's why is this kid in the club he's what did you just say wait de la croce are you

talking about yeah well o'neill was like a major guy for years. I loved the guy. But he said, John was like 18, 19 years old, trying to earn his bones and get into this stuff. And he said, who are you talking about? He knew, but he just wanted to. And he saw me sitting with the old man at the table. And he had to wait until 12 o'clock to let him in to give his envelope every Sunday.

And he used to see me there. O'Neal smacked him. He said, who are you to ask about this kid? He smacked a young John Gotti. Yeah. Well, O'Neal took him out. O'Neal was nobody for me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. At that point, for sure. And he said,. O'Neal was nobody for me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, at that point for sure.

And he said, now you don't come down here for 90 days, but make sure my envelope comes every Sunday. They punished. But that's how long John and I's love-hate interest, because I never got along with John until later on. We met and we had certain things that we got involved with. In fact, he wanted slot machines in my casino in Vegas. I said, John, you can have them.

He said, really? I said, yeah, start a corporation. I'm going to give you 100 slot machines. It was like a gift. Yeah, for him. I think that's what he meant. That's how naive they were. I mean, it's crazy.

How did you not become a maid guy, though? It's so interesting because you were literally the errand boy as a kid, like being groomed by the boss of all bosses. But he never wanted me to either. He says, you'll never be a part of this. Because they wanted me out there.

They wanted me clean. I have carrying permits. I got everything. I got bonded from Lloyd's of London as a courier for the Vatican. What does that mean? Like bonded as a courier? Because when I left the casino on a Monday, Nick, Nady, and I, we'd fly, go to Chicago. Frank's son?

Yeah. And then we'd get on Alataya and fly to Rome. We didn't even get off the plane. The Vatican cars would pull up to the steps. How did you get so wired into the Vatican? Let's go there. Let's go there. Like, how did you?

Well, because of Bishop Marsinkas. See, people don't realize it. Marsinkas created this whole thing. Bishop Marsinkas. And Marsinkas was, I mean, Mario Puzo wrote a very good story. He did his homework. The Godfather. What's that?

You mean the book The Godfather. Right. And that's where you got introduced to the Vatican and laundering money. Marcinkus created the Banca di Roma. The Vatican owned it. The only branch of the Banca di Roma is in Chicago. Marcinkus was a cardinal from Chicago. This guy?

That's him. Whoa. So we were taking the money to them. Now, we could stop at an airport. We show them the letter from the Vatican. Good. Can't touch me.

I got, I'm a courier. Now, how much would you have, like, money with you? I'd be moving two or three million a week. So does the Vatican run the world? Huh? Does the Vatican run the world? Oh, they're the largest. Figure this out. Most people don't digest this.

They're the largest single stockholder in the world. They own the most property in the world that pays in no taxes. Every school, every Catholic church, figure out. I mean, there's an organization a lot deeper than them called the Solidarity. The Solidarity. I'm not familiar with that. Nobody is. The Solidarity.

It's about a 2,000-year-old club. It's a club. It's a club. And it's in the catacombs of the Vatican. You know, the Vatican's a city when it's in itself. I know. I used to live right next to it. Oh, well, okay.

Yeah. Then you know. I mean, I don't know like that. Most people don't know what I'm telling you. So they meet down there, you're saying? That's where they are. They only meet there, period. Right.

They're very high-level profile people throughout the world. You get invited to be in it. But they, like you said, who's running the world? I think they are. Wow. That's like a little breaking news for me. Their money is untold. It's ridiculous.

Sometimes I would walk by that place. And I was in college, so I couldn't appreciate as much. You're thinking about a lot of other things in college. But I'd be like, damn, it has so much history right there. That's really cool. cool i just keep walking and then later when i got a little older i was like oh my god there's some some interesting things that happened there like that that hit me well after the fact of living there i wish i had thought about it more when i was there i mean when you think of what they control and what they do, it's amazing.

It's like the – I met John Paul. I met – there was one guy. Was it – Benedict. 31 days. No, Benedict. I didn't even want to know him. He wanted to meet me. That was all over with now.

There was some talk that he was a Nazi. Was that? There was some talk that he was a Nazi. Oh that? There was some talk that he was a Nazi. Oh. Like they couldn't account for some of those years in Germany. I don't know anything about anything. I'm just saying. There was a little bit of talk about that.

It was a little sketchy. No, but the one pope that was in for – I was at the funeral. And then they said, stay around. We're going to have an inaugural when we get – so we were – I was all through Europe anyway at that time in the summertime. And they had the inaugural for the new pope, John Paul. And I found out they gave the guy a hot shot. They killed him. They killed that pope because he didn't want to go along with what the Vatican was doing.

Whoa. Hello. I don't know that part of history. That was John Paul I? No, no. Woo. Hello. I don't know that part of history. Who was that? That was John Paul I? No, no. He was, look him up. The Pope, that was. Can we Google Pope dead 31 days?

31 days. I don't know anything about this. I'm shocked that you know. Yeah, I am too. I should know shit like this. This is like. 33 days. Right there. 33 it was? Oh, yeah. Yeah was yeah hello Pope Bennett wait no Pope John

Paul was Pope for just yeah John Paul the first for 33 days 78 the Vatican issued a short and stunning bulletin this is from what the Washington Post yeah I guess it's behind a paywall or go down go down let's see. On the morning of September 29th, 1978, the Vatican issued a short and stunning bulletin announcing the Pope John Paul I was dead of a heart attack and his body discovered in bed by a priest who served as personal secretary.

Oh, so they took a little... They took a little bit of artistic license in Godfather III. Of course they did. Yeah, okay. Okay, I see you. So you were there. Oh, I was there for his inaugural and then for his funeral. But it was funny.

I went to two funerals and an inaugural within 40 days. There you go. That's like a two- deal or three nice to say anybody well you know rome pretty well yes i used to stay at the ambassadore hotel oh nice hotel good stuff i gotta how often do you get back to rome these days i don't go to rome much anymore i go to sicily more now i got my business i love sicily sicily's the climate's right it's easy where'd you say what town is your family from in Sicily? I don't know.

And that's like in the middle in the hills by Corleone? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Sicily is, I spent a lot of time there when I was over there. Sicily is like the best kept secret in the world. Yeah. It has every climate at all different times. It even has Mount Etna there. It looks like ski slopes at the top.

I wouldn't know. I didn't go ski. But, you know, the beaches, the countryside. Tom Mina. Oh, yeah. Chef Valou. Best seafood ever. Yeah, yeah.

You know, it's so wild because last year was the 50th anniversary of the Godfather. And Jacob, the Jeweler Jacob and Company on 57th Street, he was trying to come out with a watch for the Godfather. So they went to Paramount. He says, we got to talk to Johnny Russo. He says, Johnny Russo? He says, why? I said, you can't use Don Corleone.

He has a thing with the family. He owns all the rights to it. You own the rights to the name Corleone? No, no. I own the rights to Marlon Brando's image as Don Corleone and his voice from every movie. I digitized it. I have him now with the new technology, A1. I'm doing stuff well that's why he's on that's why he's on all my stuff when did you get that i i took total rights

about nine years ago all right because we're gonna be getting to the godfather there's a lot of stories there for in case people haven't read the bio yet or don't already know your reputation precedes you johnny played carlo in the godfather which is the greatest film ever made and you were a major character in that but all kinds of backstory with that and you were telling me off camera a little bit about some of the other stuff with that i don't know if we're allowed to say that on camera about the offer oh no no no all right yeah we'll stay away from that but it was interesting just because the story of how the godfather was made right had like a second

coming of people looking into it now because of that show that came out right and everything but when when marlon brando died in oh four i guess it is right, right? So you bought all this long before this whole concept of what you were just referring to, like the AI and being able to re-digitize someone was even a thought. Right. So it's just a smart buy. Well, I mean, people think I'm smart. I did it by accident.

Did you know AI was coming out? No, that's good. Not back then, I'll tell by accident. Did you know AI was coming out? No, that's good. Not back then. I'll tell you that. I'm making a deal with Kroger right now, Kroger department. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The grocery store. 4,900 stores they have.

Wow. And why they want me, it's so funny, is because I told them I could create more foot traffic in two hours than any ad you bought in paper, commercials, or whatever. Why is that? Well, I'm going to tell you. And I told them because they came to me because I'm going on QVC, introducing a whole new line of the Caudillon family collection of products. I'm reintroducing

Jenko olive oil, my balsamic vinegar. This all comes out next year. And you own Jenko too, right? Yeah. But what we did, I said, I'm not going to pay any slotting fees.

I'm not paying this. I'm not paying that. And I would like you, if you want to do this deal, you become my importer and I'll give you exclusive rights because I don't need more than 4,900 stores, but I'm retaining direct-to-consumer. So between QVC, which most people don't know, they're in six countries. So on QVC, they have an exclusive for that.

They'll have the supermarkets, and I'll have direct-to-consumer. So, I mean, look what Amazon does today, direct-to-consumer. Oh, that's crazy. And you pick up another 30, 40%. But with what the technology now, at the end caps, which I wanted, I want none of my product on rows. I want end caps. That means the end of the aisle. Right at the end of the aisle. I have a Marlon Brando.

You have a what? A Marlon Brando life-size in a tuxedo from the wedding. Oh, my God. And when you walk up to him, it activates him. He says, I made you a modern art you can't believe. You know what's going to happen. Everybody's going to take out their selfie and ask him again. That's genius.

It's going to go viral. It's genius. There'll be lines outside. And they fall apart. They couldn't believe it. And that's because you own all that. That's nuts, man. But along the way, where we were going, last year, I thought, I love Jacob.

I know Jacob for 100 years. The watch. The watch guy. He created a watch, and I went to see it. $500,000 and $900,000 this watch but I said are you kidding me who's gonna buy them he's why boy I made these ballpoint pants today $900 I said okay so we made a deal for me obviously and we traveled to Sicily on a 10 passengerpassenger private jet.

We kept that for three days. He took where Abalonia got blown up in the courtyard of that estate. Yes. We had a dinner party. He said, I'm paying a million dollars on that. At the same spot. Same place.

Last year. This was last year. Now, that was also filmed in Tormina, right? What's that? Was that home in Tormina, too? Yeah. Oh, it was beautiful. Yeah, people never filmed in Tormina right what's that was that was that home in Tormina too yeah yeah oh it's beautiful yeah people never been to Tormina I highly recommend he sold 10 watches that night I believe it yeah I mean it's a lot of money but but he has these people they all came for the party I was the only cast member. Wow. He paid me handsomely.

You couldn't get Al out there? No. Well, you know, Al's a strange guy. Him and De Niro, I mean, they ask for phone numbers. And then they tell you what they won't do. Not what they will do, what they won't do. You live like a block from De Niro, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah, he's like right there. Oh, yeah. You ever see him? We were just talking about it coming in. not what they will do what they won't do you live you live like a block from de niro right oh yeah

yeah he's like right there oh yeah you ever see him i we were just talking about it coming in it's every time he wants to meet me he has a disguise i mean it's crazy this guy he's got a wig on yeah yeah he's got i mean look people people are weird about that stuff they don't they don't care they'll just stop you you. I mean, when you're done. I mean, he and I have a great relationship. That's good. We went on a private trip together with Terrence Winter. Remember Terrence Winter did Boardwalk Empire?

The writer of The Sopranos. He did Boardwalk Empire, Wolf of Wall Street script. We were doing a project together, Terrence, DeNiro, and I. Major. What were you looking at doing? Are you allowed to say? They bought the rights to something, and then we went to Chicago,

and they wanted to meet a guy that supposedly was in Sicily on the lam, and he was gone for 16 years. So we took Bobby's plane, went. I said, we got to stop in Chicago first before I tell you where we're going because they had to give the flight tell you where we're going. Because they had to give the flight pattern to where we're going. So we go to Chicago. We land in Chicago, a private area.

And all these Chicago police cars come. And Bobby said, what's going on? I said, relax. We get off the plane, get in a police car, and go meet this guy. He's living in Chicago under his brother-in-law's name. Oh, shit. They all thought he was in Sicily. They all thought he was still in Sicily. Oh, my God.

When Bobby walked in and Terrence Winter saw this guy, they couldn't believe it. And they spent four or five hours with him, and then there were certain things that didn't work out. Didn't work out. I always kind of wondered why you weren't in The Sopranos. I didn't want to be in The Sopranos. Why not? David Chase wrote a movie for me when he was a writer for Universal Pictures.

They used to do those 90-minute movies for television. Yeah, yeah. Well, he wrote a movie called The Dwarf in the Helium Hat. The Dwarf in the Helium Hat. The Dwarf in the Helium Hat. He titled The Sopranos better. David Chase. Yeah. So now he writes The Sopranos script, and he's passing it all over Hollywood.

Nobody wanted it. Yeah, yeah. Nobody wanted it. Right. So he calls me, and he sends me the script. He said, read it, and called me back. Days go by. He calls me back.

He says, did you read the script? I said, I read one page. He says, why? I says, it's bullshit. Why'd you say it was bullshit? Well, when I tell you this, you'll agree. I said, the first page, he gets up in the morning, he walks down his driveway in his robe and gets his own newspaper.

If a mob boss walked down his own driveway, the next day he'd be shot down. Are you crazy with this? But it was a great thing yeah i mean then after i never watched the show and all the people made careers out of it today today maybe it would be like the world you knew for sure i i would agree with you today it might be and obviously we're talking late 90s with this but it might especially in jersey we still do well obviously yeah but i'm but it might, especially in Jersey. It would still do well, obviously. Yeah, but I'm saying that might have been a little more realistic today for him to go do that.

I mean, I know where his house is there in North Colorado. He ran his business out of a strip club. Yeah. Now, why would you do that? Just the attention there. I mean, come on. Well, that actual strip club, the Bing, Satin Dolls, that guy there was a little mobbed up. I know.

But that game, it's... Anyway. So you just weren't buying it? Well, no. And Joe Pantalone, who I love, was a major character. Ralphie. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're beating up women. Mob guys don't beat up women. Really? None of them? None of them.

Come on. Maybe they're wives and nobody knows about it. I love how you say that like it's a difference. No, I mean, no. But still. Women are sacred to Italians, real Italians. Yeah, I would agree with that, but it's not always what you hear from the mob stories. They're doing anything they want now with stories.

Everybody, I mean, it's crazy. Did he ever come back to you as the seasons went on and it was getting popular to bring you on the show? I would never do the show. You would never? Still, even when it was getting popular? How many mob pictures have I made after Godfather? Zero, I think, right? No, I made a couple.

I made a couple good ones. I did Four Deuces with Jack Palance. Oh, wait, you're talking in the 70s. Yeah. Now I did Lepke with Tony Curtis. I played out by Anastasia. He played Louis Bookalter. I never saw that. No, we did some classics. But, you know,

first of all, television is a commitment I don't want. They invited me for this book. I turned this book into a musical. You turned your book into a musical? I've been touring for two years with it. No shit. Mohegan Sun, 80-minute show, graphics, films, everything's perfect.

They wanted me to bring it to Broadway. Major producer. So I go and sit with them. They said, you've got to come to Broadway with this. This is going to be amazing. I know about Broadway. I'm not one to go see Broadway plays. So they said,

eight shows a week. Oh, wow. Six shows and two matinees. 80 minutes. I said, let me tell you something. I have never done anything but go to the bathroom that regularly. It is a good look. I hear you.

It's a dedication. It's a dedication for sure. Like Tom Selleck. I know Tom Selleck all my life. Yeah. The Magnum and all that. Now he's doing Blue Bloods. These guys, even Steve Schripper.

Steve Schripper worked for me. When did he work for you? He was going to UNLV Hotel School. And he was a big kid. And I hired him. I had a lot of guys from the college in a tuxedo. He looked great at the door. Bobby Bacalaw from Supremacist for people out there.

And now Blue Bloods. He was there the night I killed Lorenzo Morales in my club. Oh, you got to tell this story. He was the doorman. Steve Schripper was the doorman in the club. At that time, I'm sitting on my perch in my bar. I used to look at the different rooms, the casino, disco, and all that from this one area. And he says to me, I called him. who's that guy on seven you put in he said i don't know who

he is boss because a lot of guys came in giving out all the bills to everybody i said who is he i don't know caesar's sentiment i said is he their guest he's's, oh, Caesar the... Caesar's Palace. The hotel. Yeah, yeah. See, I serve gourmet food till six in the morning. I worked my club 12 hours a day. You were cooking it too?

Oh, no, no. I'm fucking with you. No, no, no. I could have, but I didn't. No, but I had the club for 10 years. Wow. I opened it in 1980 Sinatra demon Sammy Davis opened the weekend for me and charged me nothing and this is you know the years after the Godfather oh yeah no it's happening we are no no

it's happening so this guy comes in given a hundred all the bills like that we find out. And he said, no, he sees his guests. I said, well, load them up. So they sent a bottle of Louis XIII. He had an $1,800 bill in the mail. He didn't care. He signed it.

And he's giving money away anyway. He's not at the table. Half hour, maybe. He breaks the Cristal bottle and sticks it in his dates face like actually stabbed her or was holding no thank god he missed all right I I call the front door again is Steve get to seven he's I ain't going over there boss that's what are you talking about so hired you for. So now I go over there, and I said, you got to leave. You hear the sirens?

They're coming. Go out the exit door. I don't want no trouble. Because I had a lot of guys come down. I didn't know who they were with. They came because we were friends of friends. I said, I got to get her to the hospital. He said, no, mon.

I said, no, mon. Where are you from? He said, you don't want to know. And I didn't know he had the bottle yet in his hand. Oh, he still had it. So he goes like he's going to get the girl. He spins around to get me. And

unfortunately, I was agile enough. See this? 81 stitches. Whoa! My chin is hanging down. By the way, Alessi, you can pull up the article on this. This is a very public story from 1988. But the bottom line is

I'm saying, how am I going to defuse this guy? He's going to kill me. So I said, look what you did to my shirt. I waited six months for this to see Island Cotton. And he's looking at me. Yeah, I Island cotton. And he's looking at me. You're dripping from the neck.

Yeah, and I'm bleeding. And he's saying, like, wait a minute. This girl's bleeding. He's bleeding. He's talking about his shirt. Yeah. I just wanted to get my hand on my gun. So while I was showing him the shirt, I got my gun.

Boom. I put it right to his forehead. I said, I'm going to give you the same offer. Leave now. I got to get it to the hospital. There's cops coming here now. He's F you. I said, F me. I give you the same offer. Leave now. I got to get it to the hospital. There's cops coming here now. He's F you. I said, F me.

I put two right between his eyes. 150 people are watching me. You could hear a pin drop. The guy's looking at me. I'm looking at you. The blood is running out. It's fired. He goes like this.

Then I realized I need a bigger caliber gun. I was going to say say it's a shitty bullet fuck no but the guy was so high on coke so you got to close them down here that's where you shoot here it spins around for a couple of seconds but those couple of seconds you're looking at a guy bleeding and he still could kill you so i put the last year it It was a five-shot revolver. I put the last three in his heart, and that was it. He was a Lorenzo Morales. Three will do the trick. He was a Lorenzo Morales, the underboss to Pablo Escobar.

Like the Pablo Escobar. The Pablo Escobar. And this is late 80s, so he's at the height of his power. It was October 28, 1989. You got the article, Alessi? Yeah. That is nuts. The wild story of the real-life mobster who starred in The Godfather.

This is from Vice News. Love it. In 1988, a gangster from the Medellin cartel Holy shit. From the Medellin cartel was harassing a woman at State Street, a Las Vegas club and casino owned by actor Johnny Russo, who played Carlo Rizzi in Francis Ford Coppola's iconic mafia flick, The Godfather. When Russo intervened, the Colombian smashed a bottle of Cristal on his face, bleeding profusely and legally carrying.

Good you were legally carrying. Very smart. Russo took out his gun and fired two shots in the man's head. The killing was ruled a justifiable homicide, but Russo still had to deal with a contract being put out on his life by none other than Pablo Escobar. But when the cocaine lord found out Russo was an actor in the iconic movie Escobar's Favorite, he called the hit off. You cannot make that shit up nope wow so did you ever meet him i mean i flew over there you flew to see escobar this is a classic story all right i fly in to see john goddy because i knew they were dealing with

him so i said john and he's laughing now oh now you're you're a killer. You're an actor. I'm all bandaged up. I went to the hospital, and I left. Yeah, you got a second smile down there. Right. So I said, you got to help me. He said, what do you want to do? I said, John, this is not what you think it was. He stabbed a lady in my club.

I didn't know who the guy was. If I knew who he was, I probably wouldn't have killed him. I said, I got to go down there. He said, you got to go. You going to go there? I said, yeah. Been nice knowing you. He said, I'm going to buy you the ticket.

Because he thought he'd get rid of me. So I go there. The only comfort I had was to meet him. I met him in a church. Did you go with anybody? No, by myself. Just yourself? You know what it is?

That's what I do. I'm on a pass. God's going to watch me. You know what? They were marialitos. They kill your pets, your neighbors, your friends. Then you last. They want you to suffer.

So I said, I'm going to go. I went. Were you afraid at all? Well, you know, I have this crazy thing with the guy upstairs. I've been shot, stabbed, run over.

I'm here. I'm telling you about a Pablo Escobar story. I'm being tortured. I get to the church. I walk down the aisle. It was only him. I saw him up in the front. As I'm walking down the aisle, the pews are cracking and people are sitting up with rifles. I get to where he was lighting candles. Is you Johnny Russo? I said, yeah. That's all I remembered. I wake up. I'm in the prison he built for himself.

Black and gray draw. Yeah. Three floors under the ground. Body bags around me. I'm in a chair, totally nude shackle to that chair. And I'm going in and out again. I don't know how long I've been there or whatever. Next is a guy, totally dressed neat, not in fatigues,

and he has a book in his hand, The Making of The Godfather. He says, why don't you tell me you will call? Oh, I love that film. Clean him up, get the doctor to see him, and then bring him up to me when he's ready. I go, they give me, clean me up. I'm sitting at his dining room table. Oh, my God.

And he had people around, obviously. He says, why would you come here? I said, you have a daughter, Gina. I said, I have a daughter, Gia. I did my homework. If somebody was going to kill your daughter would you go he looked at me he got up and he come walking towards me stand up i stood up he hugged and kissed me he says there's few men in the world that would come here to see me i'll take care of this for you.

So he says, but could you do me a favor before you leave? And I was not kidding with him. I was so happy. He said, you want me to wash your windows, your car? What do you want me to do? He said, no, no, no, no. I want to do the closing scene of the garden. And I'm saying to myself,

he's going to kill me. Yeah, because you're supposed to be walking. So he says, come up here. And I sat where he was. He gets his man, goes to the door. I said, you want me to write down the lines? He said, no, I know the lines.

He did. He comes walking in. He looks at me for a minute. He says, Carlo, you've got to answer for Santini. The way you think this farce you played on my... He did the whole thing. He comes to me right up

to the ticket and all. Gives me the ticket. He's, now get out of here. There's a car waiting for you. I'll tell your wife you're coming. Did you do the cry when you said it was Bartini? everything you were right on cue I did the whole thing

this is either my academy award or I'm going to die now he walks me out he opens the door and instead of Clemenza in the back seat it's the guys that were down in the basement with me. Two guys in the driveway in fatigues.

And simultaneously, along with him, they said, hello, Carlo. They bust out laughing. He said, I'm going to get out of here. I would have shit myself. Hello, I did. Yeah, if people actually haven't seen Godfather out there, if you know, you know. Put it that way.

You know, but it's so funny because, you know, as we know, when we have a conversation off camera, we're not going to mention anybody's names now. If so many people read this book and say, oh, how much of this is true, how much of that? You can look up stuff and find out, man. That's the thing. There's some stuff you say that can be looked up. I say this with anyone I have in here though because I just met you today. You never know, right? There's stuff you – when there's public information, like we can check it. That's why some of the ones today, it's like holy shit.

Like that's real and you can look up the stuff on you. But a lot of it, like my friend Louisa was in here. There's people who will accuse him of everything he said is wrong, but some of it is verifiable. And then you find out he was one of the original cocaine cowboys in Miami, and he's the one – his father was a maid guy in New York, and he connected the Cubans with the Italians back in – I guess that was like the mid-late 70s, something like that. But people are going to say what they're going to say about it either way some of the places you have been verifiably in your life it's nuts i mean you know it's good your life is definitely it should be a movie i don't know how it has that you've been in movies obviously i don't know how your life hasn't been

made a movie yet because if you took that 20 percent of the rights i want to do it next year you want to do it have you talked to someone about oh yeah major people actually okay no my thought is now and my relationship with paramount viacom and cbs because the food business we're in together i i left them in they own 10 of my company because i felt it was smart because they're guaranteeing my IPs. So if I find somebody else is copywriting my stuff, I just call Viacom Lawyers. And they send the letter cease and desist. That's not bad. That's a good business choice right there.

Our Discord and Patreon links are in the description. We are starting to do AMAs on Discord, and we are also now releasing a new show called The Julian and Alessi Show with my producer Alessi Alamon on Patreon, along with some other exclusive content from episodes that we have been putting out on YouTube that are not seen on YouTube. Oh, but most people don't know about two months ago, Campbell Soup. Yeah, Camden. Campbell's Soup. Yeah. Bought a bunch of products,

one of them being Rayo's. Wait, they bought Rayo's commercial line? Yep. They paid $2,600,000,000. Whoa. That's what they paid for. My company... Do you have a table at Rao's, by the way?

I don't even go there. The food stinks. Rao's. I thought I was going to say yes. I went the other way fast. No. I used to go to Rao's when Rao was there. When the jet... Then he took over and Mary was cooking.

I mean, Frankie Pellegrino did a great job. He was in The Sopranos. He was in everything. Yeah, yeah. Because he owned Rayo. Right. And they gave him tables. But when he was alive, he wasn't even alive in the place when his uncle Rayo was there.

He came in later and thank God for Regis Philman and all those people. They made it what it is today and still doing well. God bless. Yeah. But what they just did for me, unbeknownst and indirectly. Because of that deal. That deal. Yeah.

My company went five times its worth. Because who owns a more recognizable brand than quarterly owner? I mean, it's incredible. I had no idea you had the IP on that. That's nuts that you got that. So now I'm doing, I'm putting a lot more money in. I'm relaunching with QVC in the second quarter, and I'm coming out with a Cornelio and family collection. Now, what's that comprised of?

I have six sauces. You're going to love this. I got Michael and Clemenza's meat sauce. Oh, let's go. You put in the sausage, a little red wine, and that's my trick. And now I got, that's right. But I got Sonny's hot and spicy, because that's who he was, my arrabbiato.

The soup, you're not going to believe. I got Connie and Carlos wedding soup. Come on. No, I got all the stuff. This line's going to go crazy. I think that, I mean, I would buy the shit out of all that stuff. So I'm thinking, you know, I already talked to those people because they came to me because they know about my line.

I said, you know, take a billion right now and I'll give you 40% of it. They said, well, your sales. I said, yeah, my sales are down because I was in 300-something stores. Then COVID came. Oh, shit. So I pulled back. I only went to direct sales. Like right now, if you pull up, you have to go this way.

You buy it. So now I came out with this whole new line. Because I saw that Clemenza was selling more than just the Maranat because it was named after a character. So now I have the family collection. There's six different ones. I love that. Mama's Maranat, Papa's tomato basil.

Oh, you would love this one, Fredo's Alfredo sauce. I mean, you have to. Come on. Like the play on words right there? You got to do it. No, that's what I'm doing. That's great, man. I mean, we've been jumping around. I love it because there's so many stories from all the different eras of your

life but you know there's time in between when you were working well earliest days of you working for costello all the way up to when i guess you were about 29 years old something like that when you got casted in the godfather so what so you had mentioned like you were out in Vegas when the Rat Pack was opening up, some of the clubs out there, I guess in the early 60s and your college age, that kind of thing. But in your 20s, were you still – I know you had said you were with Costello until he died in 73, but were you still like running errands for him all the time or were you doing other things too at that point? No, what happened was I really stopped the day-to-day after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Because, you know, I was traveling in 59 to get him nominated. Just messages, bringing money. When you say messages to who?

To Teamsters, culinary unions, all major guys that controlled everything. Because there was no way a Catholic was going to become president. So question for you on this. Because that's one end of whipping the vote, so to speak. So you were involved in that. The story that does seem to have a lot of evidence that has been going around for years is that Kennedy obviously won the electoral college by a very thin margin. Like it was an upset victory when he won this election in thanks to the mob and the story is that in the state of illinois which has chicago and then in texas which in particularly i think the story was dallas in those two cities a lot of dead people voted well here's the interesting thing about dallas July 15th, 1960, in California,

I was there at the Coliseum when they announced he got the nomination. Mm. Was that at the convention? Convention. Yeah. Now, you can imagine, Sinatra, all these guys were very instrumental.

Sinatra was the go-between for everybody. Sinatra really, I mean, Kennedy, JFK, and then we're like this. I was every weekend with them in Vegas. They kept an eye on them. November 5th, 1960. That's normally at a convention, they tell you who your running mate is.

He had none. Did you know that? No, I never knew that. I'm not going to tell why. Because then the mob got to Lyndon Bain Johnson in Dallas through Jack Ruby and convinced him and gave him money that Kennedy's going to do eight and then you'll do the next eight.

Lyndon Bain Johnson hated Kennedy. I know. So this is where this makes sense. He did hate him. Hated him. That was very real. Hated him. And Lyndon Bain Johnson, once the Kennedys didn't pay the mob what they were supposed to get,

see, Joe Kennedy convinced Costello, get all your friends to back me. The first duty, if my son gets in, he will invade Cuba and get your casinos back. Well, they also didn't, correct me if I'm wrong here, they had the Appalachian happen in 57. Yeah. So then I think it was the Kefauver hearings happened after that, where they're shown on TV for the first time and everything. Costello's like, paid my tax, like that whole thing.

Right. It wasn't part of it. They were, I don't know the Cuba angle, so you can explain that, but it wasn't part of it also. They're like, lay off. We don't want to be on TV in hearings. And then Kennedy gets in, puts RFK in, and he makes it his whole crusade. Robert F. Kennedy screwed it all up.

Yeah. See, when he—obviously, he was ready to do Bay of Pigs. Right. He made his brother Attorney General. I remember everybody scattering. Again, I'm just a kid. They were—phone calls go off calling Joe Kennedy. He can't do that.

We don't want that kid in there. Because John didn't even realize how bad Bobby hated him. You know, Bobby hated his brother and his father. Wait, he did? He was the youngest kid. He wanted to show them. RFK hated his brother, though? Yeah.

Or was it more like brotherly rivalry? No, no. He hated him because of the connection with the mob and all. He was a righteous guy. Here's something you're going to hear that nobody will ever tell you this. I was at Marcellus' house in New Orleans. Carlos. Carlos.

He's the boss of the New Orleans crime. Right, and he was, well, him and Anastasia ran all the waterfronts in the United States. And Albert and Anastasia was a boss in New York. That's right. But that's from San Francisco to Canada. Every waterfront they ran. Now, Anastasia got whacked in 57, though, right? So that's before.

Oh, yeah. No, that's Albert. Tony, his brother. Oh. Albert got kidnapped in 48 at the Park Sharon in a barber chair I thought that was 57 I think I'm right about that I feel like my photographic memories

maybe I'm wrong though you know better than me it's Albert Anastasia exactly as it sounds you're right he was killed in a barber chair 1948 it says 1957 assassinated. Oh, 57.

I got you on that one. I knew that was stuck in there in the photographic memory somewhere. But either way, he's dead. Oh, he's dead. Before Kennedy's coming out. Tony Anastasia. First of all, Tony Anastasia, my godfather. So I know.

Tony Anastasiaio my godfather so what was his was he in any way related to you or your parents just were friends no I used to see him

all the time at the club the Ravenite we you know how many of those guys used to go to church on Sunday

oh they don't want to church well the bottom line is now I'm 12 13 years old I gotta get a confirmation so I asked him to be my godfather. That's hilarious. And you know what's so funny?

Rosanna Scotto, her grandfather is Tony Anastasia. Wait, who's Rosanna? Rosanna Scotto. They own the restaurant, Fresco's in New York, big. Yeah, I don't know that family name. Her father was a Scotto. Her father married her mother. Her mother's father was Tony and gave him the position in the International Long Showman.

That guy went to jail for a year or two. He just died. I like the guy. But they own the restaurant on 52nd Street. Real quick, can we put a pin in that? I just got to go to the bathroom real fast, but we're on JFK. So when we get back, we'll talk about that. Hold on, everybody.

All right, we're back. And actually, just continuing what you and I were just talking about off camera before we got back on. I always think about this when I'm driving on 78 into – from Bayonne towards Jersey City and you come on the highway and you see – it's like one of the best views of the skyline coming into place right in front of you in New York. And every time I see it, there's always the thought that goes through my head of like, oh, my God, all these buildings went up with the permission of the mob. You know, the concrete, everything. Like it's whether you like it or not. Yeah, it's crazy. That's why you're so cautious to build in New York. Yeah, it was even today.

There's still a lot. I know less about how much control they have today with that. I don't know if you would. But, you know, there's they owned the unions for so many years. Like all the buildings were decided by the big five, you know, the five families. But they're so funny that you're saying that because early on, as soon as I was like 18, 19, I was getting all kinds of union books. You were getting what? They gave me full books.

Like, I'm a local one electrician and I got a full book. I'm not an electrician. Oh, right, so they let you... I got all kinds of books, but you know what is happening now? I'm getting maybe like $7,000 to $8,000 a month in pensions. From the union?

Still, to this day? What am I going to do? Yeah, they have to pay me. Comes in handy in New York. Shit's expensive. Oh, yeah. I mean, I'm really interested in what I'm doing now with this Yes You Can. The last sentence in this book is Yes You Can

because I was told no, you can't. So I created a 401C, 501C corporation, nonprofit. Yes, you can. And what does that do? I give scholarships to children in need. Oh, wow. That's awesome. How long have you been doing that?

Just about a year. That's awesome. I built a lot of homes earlier on in life. I made a novena that, you know, if I got out of the hospital. So I built a couple of homes on Staten Island for Down Syndrome kids. So I did that for a long time.

Then my older sister got sick so she can't run them so I turned them over to the state and just gave them to the state. They're 12 beds, 16 bed houses. Very cool. Education to me is so important. And that's not something you got to enjoy.

Yeah, and I actually enjoy it. I know myself how many times when I can't spell something, we have spell check and all that. But years ago, when I got out of Bellevue, I wasn't going to school. Right, right. I went to first grade. That was that's crazy that's wow that's like such a disadvantage too but you made lemons out of lemonade like you were saying yeah but to go back to it not to get off it we were talking about jfk we went on a little tangent we were talking about albert anastasia

and your connection to tony who's his, who's your godfather through your confirmation. But I think the way you had brought it up was we talked about RFK2 and how that deal went south once he became attorney general and started to go after the mob. But you had brought up that part of the deal was that, meaning the mobs deal with Joe Kennedy, was that they wanted John to invade Cuba because they had— Well, he promised them. See, when he first talked to Costello in 58 or 59, it was, he wanted the mobs' help.

And Costello said, well, what do we get? He said, well, the first thing he would do is have the Bay of Pigs and invade Cuba and get your casinos back. So that's why they went along with it. Right, because they lost the whole business. They just chased them out. Now, what were you telling me off camera, though, that before we started, that Santo Traficante, who is the boss of the Tampa Bay family, was friends with Castro? Of course. Fidel Castro for years.

But the mob, this blew my mind. The mob hated Castro because he kicked him out of Cuba. But they needed him as the conduit. He was still friends with them. When they were there, they knew about it, what was going on with the, I forgot what the organization was before Batista got thrown out. Cuba Libre? Yeah, something like that.

And Trevor Conti played both ends against the middle. In fact, the CIA, and I don't know this to be true, Johnny Rosselli was a close friend of mine. Dallas, Chicago Johnny Rosselli? Yeah. He was a shooter for, you know, he was one of the shooters in Dallas for Chicago. Did you hear that? I know that for sure.

You know that? Oh, yeah. Well, that's why they found him floating in a barrel down in Miami. And John always had J.D. on everything, J.R. on everything. So these idiots, when they killed him, then rigor mortis said they couldn't fit him in the barrel. They cut off his legs. And they painted the barrel, and they put J.R. on the barrel. Oh, man.

And the barrel breaks open, and it's in the intercoastal, down in there. I mean, that's what they knew. He was claustrophobic, and he was turning himself in. He would have flipped. That's nice of them. He would have flipped. He would have flipped. No, but that's the only reason the mob backed him.

And then they got Lyndon Bain Johnson, and they made a deal with him saying, JFK will do the first eight, you'll do the next eight, and they gave him money, and he was in. That was the first time when you, and I can't believe nobody, and I'm not into politics or anything else, but he got nominated in July. And he made the announcement November 5th, 1960, whose running mate was. That's nuts.

I don't even know how that would work. That would never happen today. No. They have to announce it at the convention. They normally announce it that way. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, usually like right before the convention, I think. Yeah.

Well, they're running as a team, even in campaigning. So what – November 22, 1963. Let's fast forward a day before that. Where are you the day before that? Do you remember? The day before that. Where are you the day before that? Do you remember? The day before that? Yes. Well, I was the Tuesday before.

Okay. I was with Costello. And there were certain things going on. He said, you've got to leave the country. He gave him a middle envelope. It was like $15,000. He said, go get some clothes. You're going to leave on the independence.

Friday, November 22nd. I said, why? He said, you don't ask me that. Just go. Get off the ship in Barcelona. It's in the book. Get off the ship in Barcelona when you get there. And I wish I knew that I wasn't getting back on because all the clothes I bought and everything is in my room. I left. Do you know why he wanted you to leave the country?

Because he knew, and unbeknownst to me, all the wiretaps, everything they had on, the kid was the messenger, so they wanted to get me. I was gone for 22 months. Nobody knew where I was. Wait, wait, I totally misunderstood that. Who wanted to get you? What happened was, like getting him into the White House three years later, I'm making the same trips now, bringing back a message. Five different people.

I flew, and a lot of times they wouldn't tell me or say something. It was a note or something I'd take, and then he'd burn it. But when they had to tell me, they'd go like this. That means they could come close. And they whispered by ear what they were going to say. Five major bosses

told me, it's on. That's it. I'm flying, oh Lord God, it's on. So when I see Costello that morning, Tuesday morning, he says, what's the message? I said, let me tell you something. I said, I did a lot of crazy

things for you. Couldn't they just said to you? But he said, what? I said, I was going to tell him. He said, no. Because they knew. Or he knew. But you didn't know i didn't know but it's on they all had a vote they're gonna kill him in dallas linda bay johnson arranged to bring him there the backup and i i've been interviewed on this so many times and it all comes out right.

The backup, Lyndon Baines Johnson plus the CIA. You know about that. CIA hated Kennedy. Well, the CIA and the Pentagon. Hello. Yeah, that's what I thought ran it. I've always thought the mob had to help out. The mob, CIA, and the Texas Rangers, Linda Mayne Johnson, had them backed up. I've heard that.

I get a little, when it gets to LBJ, though, not that he was a perfect guy. He was not. He's not a great guy. But I always have trouble with that one because he was literally in the car. What was it? Right behind them or in front of them? One of them. And he was the vice president.

If that ever got caught. He wasn't in the same car, no. He wasn't in the same car, but he was behind them or in front of them in another car. Yeah. It's a turkey shootout there, man. Huh? It's a turkey shootout there. Hello. It's a turkey shootout there, man. Huh? It's a turkey shootout there. You know, if there's someone, whether you think it was Oswald or not,

if there's at least one person behind who fired a shot, which I think there's good evidence for that, that that did happen, they miss a little bit. I mean, you get hit. Of course. If you're LBJ. Well, LBJ wasn't in the car. I know, but, you know, some guy slips on his rifle.

A little bit, that's a lot of missing. That's a lot of missing but you know from longer range like that someone making a dumb shot it could happen no i believe me i studied this is gonna be sound really bizarre to you i studied with a guy and you know you'll know the name the baladi brothers uh yes to. Tommy Bilotti was my best man in my first wedding. How many weddings have you had? I had three only. I have ten mothers, though, to my kids.

Ten? Ten different mothers. I stopped marrying them. You're replenishing the world's population over here. So it's a crazy story. I don't think it's in the book, but it may be. But I went to Joey Bilotti and told me they were very close to me. And Joey was a marksman, a great hunter.

So I said, Joe, I got an idea. I got an idea. Yeah, he got shot in front of Sparks with Paul Castellano. That's right. Hello. That's where it is. Okay, pin in that. Keep going.

So now I meet with him, and this is the world premier to Godfather. Now, this is another problem I had that nobody knows. This is years later now. The world premier to Godfather. Yes. Oh, yeah. No, but I'm saying, talk about marksmen. Right, right.

I think, who the hell is Johnny Russo? See, on June 28, 1971, the second rally for the Italian Defamation League, they shoot Colombo. Right. Tommy Bellotti calls me.

He says, you going to the rally today? I said, yeah. He says, you can't go. I said, what are you talking about? I'm on the dais. He said, you going to the rally today? I said, yeah. He said, you can't go. I said, what are you talking about? I'm on the dais. He said, you can't go. The old man don't want you to go.

I said, Tommy, the guy got me the part in the movie. I got to be there. He hung up on me. So Barry Slotnick, who was his attorney at the time, he was a young Jewish attorney. He was the attorney for the time it was a young Jewish attorney he was the attorney for the league he was in Columbus circle at the office with Joe Colombo and I when we sat with Al Ruddy and everybody else that they never even put in the movie

that they never put in the offer in the offer right right right we're gonna go back to this everything was out ruddy ruddy ruddy yeah once you keep going so anyway i made the deal with him to let them shoot it we got the world premiere in every city and they were ready to walk down i said well what about me so we'll we'll give them a part i said no no no i said joe tell him to sit down he didn't even tell him to sit down he went like this everybody sat him to sit down. He went like this. Everybody sat down. And I'm talking to Stanley Jaffe, Roos, I forgot his last first name,

and Coppola. Not Coppola. Roddy, oh, Bobby Evans. Oh, Robert, yeah They were all there So I said, he wouldn't be sitting here Unless I brought him here I didn't want no part

So I said to him Who's playing Michael? They said James Caan Oh, at the time, that's right Yeah Well, they had been looking at like Redford And Martin Sheen and stuff They wanted to do Billboard They wanted marquee people Right Oh at the time that's right. Yeah. Well, they had been looking at like Redford and They wanted to billboard they won my people, right? So then I swear, okay

Who's playing Sonny they said come on Carini isn't it? Oh, yeah, he was in play and The man from my mantra or something on Broadway and they wanted this guy. Didn't he end up playing Rosado in part two? Yeah. He's got it. The bone they threw. You know what they did? They traded for Pacino. Yeah, yeah.

They traded Pacino to get him from Columbia because that was the guy that couldn't shoot straight, and they put him in that movie to bomb. Francis, I mean, that's all Francis doing that because he almost lost the job because of that but he was so obsessed with michael being he wanted al pacino well he was smart look what he did hello yeah i mean look there was a movie i'm like the world's biggest al pacino fan but there was a movie he did a year before called the panic and needle park oh my god that was just that was his big movie fucking incredible yeah and that was it

and francis and nobody saw it yeah he went and visited the set it's about a heroin addict in new york city yeah and there used to be a thing called needle park there where people would shoot up and francis went and saw it and said that's the guy and he really i mean he almost no he went to bat with it he said let's not do it yeah i'm not doing it yeah that's crazy so you you had said michael sunny and then you also said or carlo so i said well who's playing carlo they said we didn't get to that part yet hello so i said to joe i want to play carlo so he said he's playing carlo that's how it happened just like that i think we said this but in case we said it off camera for people following at home you're talking about joeombo, who was simultaneously the head of the Colombo family, one of the five families in New York, and the head of this Italian defamation league, which is like this nonprofit.

And he created it because his son was arrested, and the book just came out, and he was using the book to say they're making all Italians look look like gangsters and all that and that's how we created the rally all right let's let's go there i think we kind of the the jfk stuff i feel pretty good about us getting through that if we come back to some of that we will but we're getting into the heart of the story with the godfather so setting the stage as you just laid out mario puzo writes this book i believe you can check the celeste i think it came out in 1969 and it's like a romantic take on the mob it's a little different than what the actual mob is for sure but guys like joe colombo and the mafia did not want the movie made well the mafia had nothing to do with joe Joe Colombo was doing it, personally.

So the mob didn't care that this was being made? Really? In fact, the mob shot Joe Colombo because he was creating too much attention. Yeah. They had him shot. Yeah. And Joe Gallo took that contract. Yes, Crazy Joe.

So Tommy Bellotti, that morning, calls me. So Tommy Bellotti that morning calls me. I'm supposed to be on the day. The only reason I got the movie was because of Columbo. Right. Thank God I called Barry Schlotnick that morning. The lawyer. The lawyer. I said, you got to talk to Joe.

He was already in the headquarters. And Joe was on the way in from Brooklyn for the rally. He said, I can't go. He said, what are you talking about? I said, I got stomach poison or something. The only place I'm sitting is on the toilet. Let him, Joe, you know, I had to say something. One

day goes by. Two days go by. Now they start looking at the because he got shot. They look at the crime scene. There's a chair on the stage with my name on it. And you weren't there. So they want to know why Johnny Rissa wasn't here. OCB wanted to know.

Colombo family wanted to know. Everybody wanted to know where he was and why wasn't I there. But if I didn't have that conversation with Barry Shlodnik so I tell Costello I said he said what happened I said good now we're now you know they've got to get shot and all this I said I Tommy Bolani call me, told me I couldn't go. He said, what'd you do after that? I said, I called Barry Schlotnick. He said, wait a minute, you called Barry Schlotnick?

I told him what I told him. He said, get out of here. Get lost. I'll handle this. Because he had to go see people to say, listen, talk to Barry. Barry called him. Why he wasn't there is because he had diarrhea. Legitimate.

I guess so. And you're filming The Godfather while this is going on. Oh, yeah. You're in the middle. This is June 1971. We're ready to wrap it in August. We wrapped it in August. The film came out in February. And how long was the shoot?

55 days? Something like that? Yeah, it was something crazy. Yeah, it was fast. You guys, you were loading a lot. Oh, no, we were doing it. So now, I want to come in. But I figured, you know, they're sending me invitations and all that. I didn't come in, they're gonna grab me. Come in where? I was in Vegas. I was gonna come in in for the premiere, so they were going to grab me.

Either the Columns were going to kill me or New York cops were going to say, why wasn't I here? I can't say Tommy Bellotti called me because then they knew it was a hit. So I wanted to come in, and I came up with this idea. I wrote me Joe Bellotti, who was a marksman. I said, when I get out of the car, we'll get to the premiere that night. They're going to announce,

because Armie Archer was on one side of the sidewalk, had his TV show, and Merv Griffin on the other side. It was live at Paramount, world premiere of The Godfather. I said, they're going to say Johnny Russo, and they're going to think I'm a pizza. Who's Johnny Russo? I said, I got an idea, Joe. Put you on a roof down there somewhere,

and when I get out of the car you shoot me he said what I said shoot me you're a great shot I said I'll be a hit I'll be a known star in a minute getting shot down on the sidewalk

in the Godfather oh yeah so we studied it we went up he did this. We did that. Like you're saying. He said, if a wind comes up, that bullet, you ain't going to control it. You're dead.

Yeah. He said, I can't shoot. I can't do that. I won't do it. I won't do it. Right up to the last minute, I canceled. In fact, I had Dr. Theodore Jacobs with me, my doctor, as my date that night because I was ready to do it. Wait, Theodore Jacobs.

Why do I know that name? Oh, that name, well, you must know Vegas. Is that? No, different guy. All right, never mind. I'm not going to bring it up. Okay. All right, that would have been totally different.

No, Dr. Jacobs is a doctor in Vegas, a very famous doctor, because of his association with Elias Gahnem, who was Dr. Feelgood to Elvis. Oh, shit. Yeah, you knew Elvis a little bit, too. Oh, yeah, did I ever. Okay, all right. We'll come back to that. But on The Godfather. So I'd said this book comes out.

Paramount buys the rights to the movie you're saying it was really colombo who cared more than anyone else about it being made because of his whole italian defamation league stuff so the way i understand is that colombo goes to the studio and says you're not making this movie oh we made send threats they blew up the gates they did a lot of. They blew up the gates. They did a lot of things. They blew up the gates at Paramount. They sent a message, yeah. Okay. So Paramount wants to make it. How did they approach? Did they just, did like Robert Evans reach out directly to Columbo and say, I want to meet about this?

We'll talk about your role. See, what I did, I had a few dollars at that time. I shot a screen test for Michael, Sonny, and Carlo, because they had in the newspaper they were going to use Italian-Americans to be Italians, and all this. The book was so good, you know, they don't need stars. So I made this tape. Had you ever acted before?

No. Never had filmed before, never did anything before. But I figured I could do it. So I shot a scene for each one. And when I shot it, not knowing film, Allen Photography in Vegas sold me the film. And it was 14 millimeter mag stripe. But it was old film.

It came out sepia color. Now, I knew nothing about this. I shot the thing. Coppola was trying to convince Paramount he wanted to shoot it in sepia to make it look old. Now, the only

thing they had was my test. So they sent it all around the studio. I didn't know that. So I'm sitting at the Gulf and Western building, which is Trump Plaza and Columbus Circle. That was the Gulf and Western building. Gulf and Western just bought

Paramount. Oh, they did? That was their first film. And what nobody knew, Gulf and Western was controlled by people in Italy, and they didn't know what the film made at all. Now, who are the people in Italy? The mob?

Yeah. Hmm. So maybe that's where you picked up that little thing, but New York didn't give it to me and made the movie or not. Well, there was a story that when they were shooting the scene in Little Italy where Vito gets shot, right, when he's going and buying the oranges. Right, right, right. That was actually in Little Italy.

And around the corner, the place you mentioned earlier that Carlo Gambino used to go to. Go to River Night. No, no, no. The place you had mentioned. Oh, Ferraris. Ferraris. That's it. He was sitting sitting there sipping a coffee and there was like I don't know if this is urban legend but there was like an understanding that this is okay this is allowed to happen like I'm here you can do it so I always thought it was it was more widespread that they didn't want it to happen but

it I guess you're saying it was the guys in Italy and Colossus you what what happened with little let's say little italy for instance they had to make a deal with everybody down there because what people don't realize when you see that scene and look up there's no air conditioners in the windows there's nothing they had to everybody. So that's how they got involved. They paid everybody to change that street. You think those... After them, we ain't taking our record. There's no July.

They had to pay. They had to pay. And then you think about what they did. I mean, the picture's right there behind you. But you think about what they did in the second movie where they transformed it into 1917. 1917 i love it it's amazing it's that shot that they have of de niro walking out of the fruit store with the fruit basket over his shoulder and the camera pulls out i don't know if we can put that in the corner screen while we're doing

this i'm not going to copyright but that is one of the coolest shots ever and then you think about that and and you see the set when he's climbing the rooftop to go to go kill the boss i'm just like my my head's going to change to change change change oh no man the amount of money that must cost even back well they made all that money from one that's true that's what it was about that's true but even the first one they made it look – they really – everything was period. Amazing. It was incredible what they did. Amazing.

But yeah, so you send in those tests and then they're, I guess, negotiating with Colombo. You find out that Caridi is supposed to – So how that worked for me, I go to Gulf and Western Building. I'm in the lobby. Yeah. And they all see that's the guy from the test. Hey, hello. So I said, you're having a problem with the Columbia.

Oh, no, we're not. I said, don't tell me you're not. I just left them. They're like, who the fuck is this guy? I said, what do you mean you just left him I said I just met the legal the legal office

was on Madison Avenue just left Barry and him because I told him let me go try to talk to him he said can you do that I said

well give me permission so he looked at Barry he said should we let him go talk I said what could you lose that's why I went up there so they said

wait down here. I thought maybe they called the cops. Stanley Jaffe's secretary comes down and says, they want you to come up. I come up. I said, let me tell you something. Why don't you bring the guy in? Sit him down. Barry Slotnick will read it.

If there's things that he wants taken out. The script. The script. The script. Let him mark it up. And if you approve it, they'll give you a go ahead. Get you the neighborhoods. Get you the cooperation. That's how that all happened.

You never saw that in the office. No. Wow. So you were, that's basically you and the big guy. And that's how I got the ball. And then right there, he's going to play Carl. In fact, there is a biography about Barry Shlodnick on his life. Page 70 and 71.

It says that's how it happened. Wow. Nobody even, you nobody even Joe Colombo Barry was there he read it did you because obviously the movie has not filmed even one scene at this point did you have any idea

how big this had the potential to be we never thought it was going to come out because Paramount kept going to pull the plug on it. They didn't like Pacino. They didn't like anything. Right, but before it even got filmed, before all the drama,

we'll talk about that in a second, but before all that, was there the thought like, whoa, if this movie gets made and some decent people are in it and they do a good job, this could be one of the biggest things of all time. They thought so, but nobody else did.

Paramount and Gulf of Weston, they wanted out. And they were threatening all the time to close it down. Yeah. Yeah, Coppola said it was the worst experience of his life, making that movie. Oh, no. He said he enjoyed the second one, but the first one was brutal. Yep. Because they had a guy. I don't know how true this is.

You can correct me if I'm wrong here. But apparently, they literally had a guy there ready to fire him at any minute with a director to step in. Yep. That's crazy. No. No, they had directors they wanted to use even. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I mean, it was crazy.

So you get the part. You guys filmed it all in 1971. No, they had directors they wanted to use even. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I mean, it was crazy. So you get the part. You guys filmed it all in 1971. Movie comes out, I want to say, like March 72, something like that? Yeah, something like that. Something like that, okay. What was your first experience? I assume you had like a giant cast meeting before you ever go to film and stuff like that where you meet the rest of the cast.

What did the other actors think of you? That is a classic. The only saving grace for me, I would have probably got fired the first cast meeting, was 119th Street Patsy's. I used to go up there all the time because I used to bring

overnight loans up there for Costello. Because, you know, that's fat Tony Salerno's place. Oh, yeah. And they had ziggurat games and all that. So when they put the call sheet out that that's where the thing, you know, the rehearsal's going to be, I go. And I had that time. I had a 65 Bentley with a Chinese chick chauffeur. I'm wearing Brioni suits already. So I go up there earlier because I wanted to see Tony Federici,

Danny Pagano, all these really guys. We're there all the time, and you have to know. So they said to me, what are you doing here so early? I said, I'm here for the movie. They said, what movie? The Godfather movie? I said, yeah.

They said, what are you going to do? I said, we're acting. I got a big car. They said, are you crazy? Get out of here. And everybody I used to say until the movie came out, they thought I was lying about it, which only leads me to where it happens with me and Brando in here.

You can't believe this story. I'm shocked you didn't hear this one. I've heard this one. Okay. But you got to tell it on the podcast for people to have it. So now, you know. I didn't realize this was the very first. Before they bring Brando into the room, the whole cast is there.

We're all in line and family. And they said, we're just going to read the script. And, you know, there's no acting. We're going to go through it. Everybody get familiar. But most important, all the Italians, we want you to exaggerate your hand gestures, your eating habits. We're going to have food because the non-Italians, like James Caan being Jewish, Marlon Brando being Polish, have to become Italian the next five days in these rehearsals.

And then they say, now we're going to bring him in. Don't have any eye contact with him during the breaks. I know you all want to talk to him. Brando? Brando. Don't go near him. Hey, I don't care. I'm just happy to be there.

We go through the rehearsal. Like 45 minutes, we're going to take a break. Brando comes walking over to me, and I'm looking around, where's he coming? He's coming to me he says you're a big TV actor I said no

he says you got a big movie coming out I said no he said well you're not on Broadway I know everybody on Broadway I said you're right again what's this a quiz show because I ain't gonna be intimidated by Brando

what do I care you're not have an actor. Guess what he says, though? He calls Coppola over. He says, Francis, this guy's not an actor. And Coppola didn't hire me. Coppola did not hire me. Joe Colombo hired me.

And he rolled his eyes. You knew I wasn't an actor. He says, and I never broke down the script. He says, this guy marries my daughter undermines my family gets my oldest son Sonny killed gets my son Michael involved in the business you got to rethink this you got to fire him and you're standing right there I'm standing there now I don't know protocol I don't know I can't dismiss Coppola. He's the director. I said, Francis, do me a favor.

Go over there. And he goes. Now the whole room, all these thespians that know all this, they're all saying, like, who's this guy? You know, Sterling Hayden's dead. Richard Conti, he's a major actress. Now I create a sacrilege. I put my arm around Brando.

I said, come over here. I want to talk to you. Because I didn't want to embarrass the guy. And I knew there was no zig and egg game in the back. So I get him out of earshot. I'm face to face with him. I said, let me tell you something, Mr. Brando. All due respect, I know who you are.

But you get me fired. You get me fired from here. I will suck on your heart. You will bleed out. You hear me? And he's looking at me. He steps back. He says, that was brilliant. That was excellent. He said, that was excellent. I was ready to take the bomb out.

I couldn't go back to the neighborhood if I didn't get the party after this. He's like, that guy will do. He's good. He can act. And we became very close friends. Did he actually think you were acting, doing that? Did he? I'm telling you what he did.

Dick Smith, his makeup man, he's on every film with him, took him three hours every day to transport him into that. And you couldn't go near the dressing room, couldn't do none of that. We were on the compound up there in Staten Island. That's where they filmed the house. But we went using them as dressing rooms, the interiors. And he used to

go get that kid. And we'd run lines. He came on the set on time for me to shoot. He wasn't working that day when Pacino and I were going to do that scene. And you could see the eight days. Number one's number who told number one to come.

They were. And he said, I'm here to help that kid. Wow. You were getting lessons from the greatest actor to ever fucking do it. Because when he said to me, and it's on screen now, he said, when he hands you the airline ticket, what are you going to do? I said, I don't know. He said, I want you to look at the ticket.

You read the script. You know you're going to die, but you can't telegraph that. You're on an 18-foot screen. They're going to see it. You've got to think. So you've got to look at that ticket like it's a security blanket. You're going to get out of here. I'm really going to get to Vegas.

So that was that whole thing. And then when you tear up, and I mean, now I'm an actor, but I'm sitting there, I'm saying, how am I going to do this? I remember the first time when I was a kid and researching because I was obsessed with the movie and finding out who you were and finding out that you had never acted before and that i was blown away because you were i can't see anyone else doing that role i mean i'm sure some great actors could have done it but you nailed it i mean everything felt it felt method actory you know what i mean like it felt very real obviously we all know the visceral nasty scene where you gotta beat up your wife in the movie and everything but you're just

you just embodied the whole thing but that let to hear the backstory that last scene that's it that's that's that's amazing because that's me, like that's what makes the actors great, making things simple and relatable at the same time. And that's exactly what he was telling you to do. You nailed it. It's amazing. You know, it's so funny because, you know, as we sit here and talk about it even now, it's like, I don't know what I would be doing today if I was not in that movie. Is that crazy to say? No, it's not because you were a young man when this was happening.

And this set your whole life on a whole different – you had a major part in hands down without question the greatest thing ever captured on film artistically. I mean do you ever pinch yourself with that? Just like, holy shit. Well, I think about it all the time. I mean, my house is surrounded by Godfather. Why wouldn't it be? Yeah. And it's not over.

No, no. It's not over. And obviously they've put it in, what's it, the American Film Institute, the official role that they did, but they've retouched it up over the years. You watch it now, minus the one part that they can't retouch because it's in the archives where Sonny's hand misses your face. That's like the only mistake in the whole movie. Well, they can't touch it because it's,

I found this out, the 25th anniversary. 97. We'll go to San Francisco. And we're watching the movie, and the thing is still in there. I said, Francis, why didn't you recut that? He said, we can't touch the negative because it's an Academy Award winner. And what's crazy is that the one mistake is in that scene where he, we can probably put this in the corner of the screen, Alessi,

but where Sonny is beating you up and they have the side shot of Jimmy Conn where his fist misses the front of your face. And I react to it. Yeah, and you're like, ah! But... And you know what's so funny? We had that covered. There were seven cameras rolling from the room and everything. But also the scene was...

Didn't he really hurt you in this scene? Oh, my God. Yeah, he did. So, like, he missed you on that shot. But the irony is he was really hitting you and shit. Well, the way he really hit me was with the garbage pail covers. They were steel. So he chipped my elbow.

And then I knew I had to crawl out because we choreographed it the day before. There was like 17 different camera setups from the porch where I run across the street. Then he throws me over the banister. And then I had to crawl out at the end of the scene when he drop kicks me and rolls me over to the hydrant. Now, we had that all down. As soon as he touched me, I rolled. He lifted me up and broke two ribs that day. Now, he hated me. Yeah, now the background there, you and Jimmy Conn from the get-go didn't get along.

Why was that i found out later on because jimmy kahn as i said earlier was cast as michael originally yeah you can see his tryout tape for that that's on the internet what i'm saying yeah he thought me taking the part and everybody getting involved, that's how he got the smaller part of Sonny. Sonny was gone halfway through the first one. Couldn't come back. Do you think Coppola would have ever stuck with him for Michael, though, because he didn't look the part?

No way. Right? But that was Bobby Evans wanted him. Because don't forget, he just did Brian Piccolo. He had all those TVQ stuff. They were looking at box office movie stars ryan o'neill was up for it i mean come on yeah i mean was he a dick to you from the start though oh from the start like the first day you're in patsy's was just giving you the cold shoulder well from day one always like i was one of them, you know. Got it.

But the FBI opened a file on him, apparently. I don't know if this is like, I've heard this. Because he's a junior. Junior Persico. Yeah, because he was hanging out with all the mobsters. Oh, you don't. Hold it. I'll tell you another story.

Please. When Tommy Bilotti was with me and Boozy DiCicco, you know with me and Buzzi DiCicco. You know the last name, Frankie Boy DiCicco, who got shot down in Brooklyn, the underboss. Well, Buzzi DiCicco was a boss in the Gambino family. And I was out with him. I know the guy for a hundred years. So I'm with Tommy Bilotti, Boozy DiGicco in Jilly's on 52nd Street on a Saturday

night. We're at the front bar. Jimmy comes out and he says, Junior's in the back and he wants you to come and say hello. He's with his daughter. I know Junior for a hundred years. So I go back to we

hug we kiss and junior had a nobody knew he had a a gimp him hmm so we had something common with polio so I'm looking though and then I turned around junior your daughter's gorgeous my god and he looked at me, and one thing about him, he telegraphs. And I said, uh-oh. Jimmy just set me up. And I left. So before going back to the bar, I went down to the stairs. So as soon as I go down the stairs, I don't catch it.

They're behind me. Two of Junior's guys are following me down. Tommy Bilotti catches it. Goes down. I'm at the urinal. They come in. One guy stands in the door on the inside. And the guy in the urinal, hey, asshole, you just embarrassed Junior.

That's his girlfriend, not his daughter. And just as I say that, Tommy, I don't know if he hit it with his shoulder or whatever, but the bathrooms are narrow. Pushed the guy, he had his head in banks and on the sink. Oh. Old jujitsu. He said, now what are you going to do? He said, well, this punk, punk and banging against him. He says, what's this about?

And he said, well, he went to the table and it was Junior's girl. He said, well, your friend, your Jewish friend, told him that Junior was there with his daughter. By this time, now Boozy's there. So Boozy goes upstairs. They could talk, Junior and him, because they're both made guys. Everybody else wasn't made yet. So they go in the kitchen in Jilly's.

Next, they call Jimmy. Jimmy goes back there and you hear, pa, pa. Junior smacks him twice. Oh, I thought it was a gun sound first. No, no, no, no, no. Smacks him. So we walk back and he apologized to me, Junior. He said, Johnny, I'm sorry. This guy wants to hang around with me to learn he's playing this part. I said, I know him. He said, well, I'm going to teach you something, Jimmy. Junior says to him, he's now they own you. He said, what do you mean?

He said, well, you did something here. This guy is a friend of ours. Johnny's a friend of ours. You're a friend in the street. He said friend of ours? Yeah, meaning me. Yeah, interesting, though. Interesting language choice there.

So Jimmy, Tommy wanted to kill him that night. I said, Tommy, we shoot it in the movie. You kill him, the movie's over. So and Tommy got right in his face. I own you that. You heard him say, I own you. I. You heard him say it. I own you. I'll get him with you. Never happened, but.

And so James was hanging out with some of these guys, though. All the time. Yeah, he got really into it. Ruchie John, Ruchie Russo, all those guys. Can you pull up Junior Persico, if you don't mind, Alessi? Oh, Junior was a major guy then. He didn't die that long ago. No.

Right? That was pretty recent. He was down with Madoff in prison, I think long ago. No. Right? That was pretty recent. He was down with Madoff in prison, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Because he was in the big 86 Rico trial, right? That was where there was the five bosses.

Yeah. I forget what they called that. Yeah, there he is. Yeah, there he is. Carmine Persico. God, what a bulb on him. Oh, my God. He could smoke a cigarette in the rain with a hand tied behind his that. Yeah, there he is. Yeah, there he is. God, what a bulb on him. Oh, my God. He could smoke a cigarette in the rain with a hand tied behind his back.

Yeah. Wow. Tough guy, though. So, yeah. I mean, he was the boss of the family. Definitely a tough son of a bitch. But, see, you and James didn't get along. So, when you were doing, how long was that shoot where he comes to beat up your character?

Did that take all day? Oh, yeah. I was hurt, but I figured, you know, my first movie, no, I wanted to do it. So we did it. You know, I ain't gonna complain. Even when he came out of the car and threw that stick at me, that wasn't in the rehearsals.

He got a billy stick and cut it in half, and he must have been practicing all night. Come here! Come here! Yeah. He threw a billy stick and cut it in half, and he must have been practicing all night. Come here! Come here! Yeah. He hit me right on the head, one take. Oh, my God.

Who else in the cast did you get along with really well, at least? Pacino was very nice. We had a lot of scenes together, so it was easy. But other than that, I mind my own business because, you know, I was making so much money. I was making the calls. Nobody knew this.

I can say it now. What do you mean you were making the calls? Well, we had 700 people up there for the weddings. The wedding scene. Yeah, the wedding scene in the movie. Yeah, yeah. Well, they were all 700 people, right? So I'm looking around, and we had a union delegate up there, and he's looking at

everything. So I went down, I called on him, because we had no soda to drink, no water to drink. Because then, what they'd have to do, when they say roll them, everybody had to get rid of the plastic cup. They're not plastic cups. So they

came to me, because I knew everything about Staten Island. I said, how can we get cases of soda up here and all that? I said, what's the budget? We take care of it? I said, yeah. You want to serve? They said, yeah. So I went to community college.

It was Staten Island Community College, right down the street where we were on the unit parking lot. And I went to the drama class. I said, you guys want to come on the set? Because it was a closed set. They said, yeah, you have to serve soda. Be quiet. And you followed them. They were paying me $18.

I was buying this soda for $6, $7 on Highland Boulevard. So you were running a little scheme right there. Oh, even the wedding cakes. They had to get a wedding cake. Make your daughter a bigger cake. Yeah. So I said, La Rosa. So I went to La Rosa's bakery down on Olympia Boulevard in South Beach.

I says, you want to make the cake for the wedding? He says, oh, yeah. I says, they ain't paying you nothing. He says, oh, well, they gave me $1,500 for the cake. They needed two. They needed one for cutting. They needed for the set, the styrofoam. Oh, so he made a few of them.

He made like $6,000, $7,000 on cakes. Oh, my gosh. Now, what's that conversation like with Coppola? Like, Frank, I got the cake. Relax. Is that it? Yeah, no, not even him. It was the set designer.

Don't worry about it. I got the cake. They said, see, Johnny, he knows everybody. I took care of them a little too. And you got Morgana King, the wife of Vito, cast? Yeah. Because they needed a woman that could speak Sicilian. Which is way different than regular Italian dialects.

That dialect, you know, yeah. Oh, it's different. And I knew her well. How did you know her? Just from hanging out in New Yorkork in the clubs she killed it she did a great job with that she was perfect yeah perfect and then also you casted them to musicians at the wedding too yeah you knew those guys well a lot of them and then luca braz, yeah. He was a real mobster. Yeah. Lenny Montana. He was a wrestler and a collector

for the mob. You don't say. They saw him. They loved him. And this is a classic for your audience to know. When you digest the scene of Luke Obrasi, he's a mobster killer. And he was his man.

Why would he be rehearsing his script, Godfather, on the day of his wedding? It wasn't real. I wish you were never. He was rehearsing his lines. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Frank thought it was good. Closed and shot it.

Put it in the movie. Nobody figured out why is this guy, guy can't even supposedly read. How is he reading his script over and over? Don Corleone. Yeah. I am grateful and on a – oh, my god. I had heard that one before.

That's – the other one because like when I was in college, I had some people close to me who were telling me I needed to get into acting. So I looked at it for – there was about a year there where I did – I didn't really talk about it, but I thought about it. You know, I read Lee Strasberg's book, the whole bit. And I studied these guys. I watched every frame that Marlon Brando ever filmed. And he was, in my opinion, without question, the greatest ever doer. But the genius of the Godfather to me with him was that he was at a point where he was kind of you know he was as you said and you would know a lot better than me but he was a different kind of guy right and at that point he had actually become a little bit within the studios persona non grata because he was a diva in some ways on the sets well he you know he wanted certain things. Yeah. And demanded it, and they didn't want to use him no more.

But when he did this movie, a guy who has 0% Italian blood in him embodied the bulldog of what this is. And there's a famous picture, Leslie. in the corner of the screen, but if you type in Robert Duvall, Marlon Brando, script Godfather. Oh, with the writing on them? Yes. Yes. So, Steve, do you see a picture of, you see the one where Duvall's wearing the script? Yeah, there it is. Yeah.

He never studied his lines. He didn't know a single fucking line no so when you watch the opening scene in that film which is the greatest i think a glorious bastards has the second greatest the opening scene seven minutes of the godfather is the greatest opening to a movie ever done i believe in america pulling it out for four and a half minute or three and a half minutes whatever it is on the slow zoom and you see this guy sitting around like, well, if I'm paralyzed in America, I'm going to go try it.

And he's looking around in what feels like this thinking man's way. And yet, as I understand it, they had the cue cards all over the whole. That's unbelievable. Yeah, but you know what he did too? Because I got really close to him. You know what... You know what I gave him as a gift? What was that? My Chinese chick driver. He took a picture.

She fell in love with him. She said, we're dropping me off first, and then we're going to go to the Elysee Hotel. He was staying at the Elysee. And she stayed with him all night. And then at the end of the movie, I said, why don't you go? She went to his island. Didn't you go? She went back

to his island. Didn't you get Al Ruddy one of those, too, at one point? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. Now, he loved Chinese Oriental girls, too. So he obviously liked you and was helping you out, but were you you said you kind of stuck to yourself and everything, but did

I guess if he was teaching you along the way, were you hanging out with him a little bit? Oh, I was with Brando every day. Yeah. When he was on the set, I was there every day. It was like a three-hour lesson a day, going over lines, going over talking. And that's another reason James Caan hated me. He wanted to be up his ass, and I'm with the guy.

And I used to pick him up. We used to pick him up at the hotel. Where was he staying? He was at the Elysee on 45th or something like that. He liked it there. That's a little hike to Staten Island every day, though. Yeah, but everybody was staying. The cast was staying at the Park Lane further up.

And you're living in New York at this time, right? Yeah. I'd swing by and pick him up and have a bottle of Covassier and we'd have his coffee and we'd sit there in the back with the tables open and drinking. That's how the mooning started. Keep with the mic.

You heard about all the mooning, right? When he would moon like other people on the cast? Yeah, they had a contest about Mooney. Yeah. And how it started, going down Park Avenue, as you know, there were red lights. You stop, red lights. You stop. So the station wagon, they had Robert Duvall, Jim Kahn, I think Pacino, the top cast, going to Staten Island.

We're at a red light. One red light, they look. Two red lights, they look. Two red lights, they look. After the fourth red light, Jimmy Conn stuck his ass out the window of the station wagon and mooned us. That's how the mooning started.

Oh, my God. I mean, I think there was so immature mooning. I swear, you're crazy. But he was like that, no? Like, he was a really immature guy. Oh, my God. Jerk. A jerk. Yeah, and Brando was also... He loved practical jokes. Yes.

Well, Brando won the contest. With the Luca Brasi thing? The fuck you on the... No. For the mooning. Oh, on the mooning. The weather... The, uh... The wedding picture we were about to take take and he looks and he says, where's Michael? And he wasn't there yet.

He said, no, we wait for Michael. He had his pants undone already. The whole wedding, the young kids are there. He mooned it. Cause it was,

I forgot how many you have to be the moon, the one that moons the most people or something like that. And he did. He mooned the whole cast was there. Little kids, ring bearers, everybody. Could you imagine doing that today? He'd be in prison. Oh, yeah. He'd be in prison.

And his ass was nothing to look at, believe me. Oh, my God. I can imagine. It wasn't a sight to behold. Did look at, believe me. Oh, my God. I can imagine that. It wasn't a sight to behold. Did you ever party with him? Oh, yeah. Do you take him to some places?

No. That's why he stood at the Elysee. It's the monkey bar. He loved the monkey bar. Wait, that's where? Is that the same monkey bar I'm thinking of? Yes. It's the only monkey bar in New York.

It's between Madison and Park. On what street? On 45th, I want to say. Fuck, I think I had an event there like five, six years ago. That's a good bar. Great bar. Great bar. He was staying there all the time.

I mean, I'll tell you a little history about where we are here. In Hoboken. Yeah. You know when they did On the Waterfront? Oh, yeah. It was we are here. You know when they did On the Waterfront? Oh yeah, I was right over here. They shot it here because they wanted the New York skyline. Yeah, four blocks from here.

You know who's Tendon Bar? The bar he was in every night? While he was waiting to shoot? This would be in like 52, something like that. Is it a big name, I assume? Dolly Sinatra, Frank's mother. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Frank's mother. There's Frank right behind you on the wall. He couldn't believe it. He was saying like, because he loved Frank, obviously. And do you ever get to meet her at all? No. Or know anything about her? No.

She was like a truck driver. Yeah. Hey, asshole, get the fuck over here. That's how she talked. And he wanted me, Frank wanted me to marry his daughter, Tina. Tina's the oldest daughter. How did you know Frank? Oh, man.

Frank Sinatra. When you hear this story, you won't believe. Try me. I'm in a polio ward. I've heard some today. I'm in a polio ward. Nothing's happening. No TV, nothing.

You're staring at ceilings. Dolores Barone. I was getting depressed. I got there August 9th. My birthday was coming, December 12th. The night before my birthday, she brought me a transistor radio. Carl Ogambino sent me a transistor radio for my birthday. He said I followed the truck.

Oh, yeah, because your family went way back with him. Exactly, yeah. And my uncle in Sicily. Right. My uncle was hung in 1948 when they were cleaning up Colo Cosa Nostra. Wait, in 48? Yeah. I thought they were more like that was post-World War II when Cala Vecini helped them get across the island.

They were still coming after them. What's her name? That was Vito Genovese. The tough guys. Do you ever hear of a guy called Grappa? He just died. I was his funeral. 98 is all he was when he died.

Maybe, but it's not ringing a bell right now. Well, you know, Grappa is the toughest, the strongest licker there is. Yes. Do you know why he got the name? I assume somehow he ended someone's life? No, you won't believe this. As a teenager, when they were doing all this cleaning up,

they handcuffed him to a light bulb while they were running around. Like a lamppost, you mean? A lamppost scene. They handcuffed him to them. When they came back... The lamppost is gone. No.

He cut off his own arm at the elbow, and his arm was still in the thing. To get out of handcuffs. He cut off his own arm. Cut his own arm, because everybody had knives then. But he cut off his own arm and then snapped it. What were they arresting him for? They were cleaning up.

He was going to go away. Then he went into hiding forever. He just died. He was the world boss. Wait, he was a zip? He was the boss of bosses. Over there? Yeah.

Oh, he never came here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, he never came here. All right. Whoa. But your uncle, was your uncle that got hung in 48? Yeah. So they were doing some, I didn't know about that.

I thought they were more powerful than ever at that point. There was a regime they wanted that was, I think they made a deal, to be honest with you. They gave up some of the people they wanted to get rid of. Got it. Because I was going to say, like Mussolini obviously went in and was cleaning house when he got in. That's why, that was part of why Bonanno came over here and everything. Okay. Very interesting.

But we were talking about this with Sinatra. So Carlo Gambino sends you a transistor radio while you're in the hospital. Because I was getting depressed. She gets it to me night before, December 11th. I turn the radio on 6 o'clock in the morning, and everything's about Sinatra. Frank Sinatra this, Frank Sinatra a, humble beginnings from Hoboken.

His father was Todd Shipyard. It's my birthday, and he's telling me about this. He inspired me to get out of that frigging hospital because I was getting depressed. Wow. That's cool. I figured if he could make hospital because I was getting depressed. Wow. That's cool. I figured if he could make it, I could make it. Spin forward four years later,

I'm working for Costello. I get to the Copacabana. There's lines outside already. Oh, wow. I go down to the kitchen, and he's doing a sound check. So he looks at me. He looks at Julie Bodell, like to say, who's this kid?

And Julie Bodell says to him, oh, no, that's Costello's boy. I felt six foot tall. So I sat down, listened to the sound check. They take a break. He puts a cigarette in his mouth. I walk over, light the cigarette. And I said, Mr. Sinatra, you saved my life. He said, yeah, how'd I do that? I said, well, I told him I had polio, that, the other, and Carlo Gambino sent me a transistor radio up for my birthday. He says, who? I said, Carlo Gambino. He said, Carlo Gambino gave you a transistor? I said, yeah. He said, okay, tell me the story. And I said, I turned to Radio 1, and you were doing six shows at the Paramount,

right up the block from me. I was in Bellevue, and you were up there. And I said, you gave me inspiration to get out of there. He said, that's amazing. He said, what's your name? I said, the kid. The kid. He said, the kid.

I said, no, what's your name? I said, the kid. The kid. He's the kid. I said, no, what's your name? I said, I was told not to tell you that. He said, who told you that? I said, Frank Costello. He said, who the fuck are you? He said, Gambino gave you Transistor Radio. Costello names you the kid.

He said, maybe I should get to know you. You're more important than I am. And that's how we stayed friends. You know, he baptized my son Luciano. He baptized your son? Oh, yeah. I was close to Frank. And then when they were trying to get JFK nominated, I was with them every weekend.

Yeah. Because he babysat him. Now, he was really good friends with JFK. That's well known. Right up until he got, I was at the inaugural. They gave a ticket for Costello to go out of respect. And he said, you want to go? I said, I'll go.

I was 18. I'm sitting like fourth row. I'm watching. There was four presidents, Eisenhower, Nixon, all there. And he was there, and Lyndon B. Johnson. And I go to all the balls. Frank Sinatra produced all the inaugural balls that time. Had every major star in the world that backed him.

They all wanted to be there. I have the last photograph, I've got to send it to you, of Sinatra and JFK together. And he already changed his house. He was getting ready to have him come visit him and all that. And that's when he went and stood with Bob Hope. Bobby said, you can't see him no more. You got to get rid of him.

That's when they got rid of him with Marilyn. I was going to say, weren't Frank and JFK both with Marilyn? Yeah. Everybody was, though. Yeah, that's true. Everybody, unfortunately. Every actor I made a movie with, when they found out I was with her, there was one way if you were with her, you knew you were with her. The scar.

Yep. She had that scar. And it was where? It was like where her... Right in her groin area. Right by the... Who told you about that scar? it was where it was like where her right up right in her groin area right there who told you about that's gone i heard you talk about that one oh okay yeah i remember that yes that was the identifier that's how do you ask you you know brando he said i heard you were brown he says well i said uh how would i know you were there? I said, I know the answer. Even Tony Curtis, we were doing, because, you know, she had such low esteem. It was terrible.

You know, she was in an orphanage. That's how hard I hit her off. Can you tell this story? I know you've told it before on many podcasts, but for people listening who haven't heard it before, can you tell your history with her? It's crazy, because she's been in, that picture of her over there has been in both studios since the beginning. It's like my favorite thing in here, but it's kind of wild to be with someone who knew her a little bit.

No, well, I got to know her by accident because, you know, they caught me as, I was doing all the errands and part of my route was, you know, I went to, you know, Cobra every night. Toots Shores was like my place. And then Dempsey's.

Jack Dempsey's. That's where they film, where Michael gets picked up. Yep, yep. Well, they had, you know, all the bookmakers and the bartenders were taking numbers and doing whatever, and I'd pick them up, bring them to the window motel. That was part of my duty.

So I come out of there, and a turn officer comes up to me. He had a brown uniform on him. I said, who's this guy? He said, why aren't you in school? I said, school? I was like 15. Out of school? I was 15.

I was wearing Brioni already. He says, how old are you? I said, I'm 15. He said, you've got to be in school until you're 16. He gives me a ticket. I'm saying, is this guy nuts or what? And you haven't talked to your parents like at all. No.

You're not even with them. So he gives me the ticket, and I walk into Tuchel's with him. He says, what are you doing with the ticket? You're walking too fast. It's a joke. I didn't even get it. He gets the ticket, and he reads it. He says, this is a truant

ticket. How old are you? I said, I'm 15. He said, we got to go to school until you're 16. He said, I'll take care of it. So I paid no attention to it. Next morning I go see him at the World Office. He said, I took care of that thing. Tomorrow when

you go to Dempsey's, 9 o'clock, go upstairs, Wilford Academy is up there, the hairdressing school. I said, I ain't no finocque. I don't want to be a hairdresser. You crazy. I want to do what I'm doing.

He said, no, no, just check in and walk out. So now. I see why you have great hair now. What? I see why you have great hair now. What? I see why you have great hair now. You know what you're doing. You're a pro. No, so I go there and he said,

where did you just come from? Because I had to meet him at 11. I said, I was at the school. He said, you don't have to go, just sign and leave. I said, Frank, where do you find 30, 40 girls nine o'clock in the morning. I stay there. I buy coffee for them.

I was taking them to the Copa. I was like a king. That's awesome. But fortunately, me staying there, I met Mark Sinclair and Kenneth. Kenneth was already Jackie Kennedy's hairdresser. She used to come in all the time. Kenneth was already Jackie's Kennedy's hairdresser. Wow. She used to come in all the time. And Mark Sinclair was a colorist for Clara, a major colorist.

But they were partners already. I thought they were partners. They owned the shop together. I didn't know they were lovers. Is this back when she stole Jackie Bouvet or Bouvier or whatever? Yeah. Right, right. Shortly.

Because she didn't get married to married until like 53, I think. Right. So now, you know, they're looking for shampoo boys. So I'm lined up, you know, and they see me. They figure, you know, they're going to have my way with me. And I said, yeah, hello. And the teacher told me if they pick you as a shampoo boy, you don't have to come to here.

It counts as your credits, but you can make tips. And I saw all the cars and limousines there, and I didn't need the tips, but I saw the ladies. The fourth head here was Marilyn Monroe. She just comes in there. She goes there all the time. Lily Deshaies. Because she was hiding out here, you know.

She had great hair, too. Oh. Yeah, it was pretty good. But she was here. Costello put her in the Waldorf for a year. Frank did. Yeah. Yeah, Frank loved her.

Yeah, why did he put her in? What do you mean he put her in the Waldorf for a year? Because she lived in California. She wanted to get away from the Xanax. Oh. Because they were prostituting her as a sex symbol. She wanted to be a thespian. She was studying with Strasberg to be an actress.

Yeah, yeah, she was brilliant. Very talented. So now she was there. So now I'm shampooing her hair. They can't believe it. I don't even know how long I'm looking at her. She now she was there. So now I'm shampooing her hair, and I can't believe it. I don't even know how long I'm looking at her. She's facing the ceiling. She said, is somebody in here? I said, excuse me, I'm sorry.

I go over. I have the card. It tells you the shampoo, the hard shampoo. I'm doing the touch the water. They teach me. It proves it. I start massaging her hair her and she's moaning and she's in a kimono I'm 15 years old I get a new year yeah yeah my three piece sets

on her shoulder I must have been poking her in the ear then she started requesting me. And Costello used to meet Ocardo to go deep sea fishing. Tony Ocardo? In Chicago. Come on. The two bosses are going deep sea fishing together? That's like putting the president and the vice president on the same plane. That seems a little dangerous to me. A little accident, you know.

Hobbs flipped over. No, no, no. So he said to me that Friday, there's somebody staying upstairs, check in on them, but don't go up until after 12 o'clock. At the Waldorf. At the Waldorf. I go up. It's her. She opens the door. She says, Johnny, what are you doing here?

I said, well, Mr. C told me to check in on you. You're not even 16 yet, right? Yeah. I said, well, Mr. C told me to check in on you. You're not even 16 yet, right? Yeah. She said, come on in. I just ordered room service. I never saw room service, carts and food and all this. And she's got her Terry Claude the Robot. She said, have breakfast.

I said, I already had breakfast. Well, have a glass of champagne. I said, I can't have champagne. I'm a kid. She said, you can have I said, I already had breakfast. Well, have a glass of champagne. I said, I can't have champagne. I'm a kid. She said, you can have anything you want in this room. I said, oh. I had one glass, two glasses. She said, I'm going to take a bath.

I said, I'll go downstairs. Just call the front desk. It's for the kid they know. She said, oh, no, come with me. Takes me by the hand. Turns the water on. And she's just in the vanity. She'll brush out my hair. Well, I've done that a hundred times after shampoo.

So I'm brushing out her hair. She gets up, takes me by the hand, goes to the tub, shuts off the water and drops her robe. Now you're, I mean, you're excited at this point. Yeah. She's, take off your clothes,

get in the tub with me. She's going to get me killed. She's, who's going to know? I said, you know what? Fuck it. Let's do it. This was Saturday afternoon. I left Monday. Oh, wow. You had a weekend in Maryland.

Hello. So you go. So now I got to meet Costello at 11 o'clock. I time it right, get there, walk in. He said, what the hell happened to you? Did you sleep at all? I said, no, I can't even. I would never lie to him. That's what I tell you.

You can't believe me. So I just sat down. We started our business. And that's how it all started. And then any time she was in, I'd meet her. She'd call me. She'd put a disguise on, go to Subway Bar. Go out the back door, walk up.

I'd meet her sometimes. And then when she was studying with Strasburg, the studio was on 15th Street, right off of Park Avenue. I'd go meet her there. It was like 11 o'clock and then we'd go and do whatever we had to do. And she died in what, like 60... She died, I'll tell you this one.

Can we look that up? She was in Calneva. Keep that, pull the mic in a little bit. I'm sorry. You're good. She was at Calneva. I was sent to go listen to what was going on. He said, go to Cal Neva

and that's for you audience don't know. Cal Neva was a gaming on Lake Tahoe on the California border. So you can come in on California and go in.

So they had Mal Monroe. I think there's pictures in the book of me and her and Sinatra sitting poolside. And what happened was that they brought her up there because she was, John gave her to Bobby because Bobby said, you've got to stay away from Marilyn for the first couple of years. You're a Catholic president. And with that said, they were going to try to hook her up

with Bobby. So they had a room set up. This is San Gene Connery. For like blackmail. Exactly. Like they did with J. Gover. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because J. Gover. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because J. Gover was a cross-dresser. Right, right, right. So unbeknownst to us, we don't know this.

Now Sun's setting, Sinatra's telling them what they want her to do. She goes crazy. I'm not having nothing to do with these Kennedys. They're this, they're that. She's been divorced. Was she married to Joe DiMaggio? That was already gone. Miller was already done.

She just did The Misfits. Got it. Okay. She starts screaming. She just had an abortion of Bobby's kid. All she ever wanted was a kid. She said, I'm going to the press. I'm going to disclose these Catholics

and this and that and the other. Bobby, not John. Bobby, not John. She stopped doing John because... She had the old calf. Now she wanted the young bull. Yeah, yeah. So now I come back to New York.

He said, tell me what happened. He said, they're going to kill her. That was the last weekend in July. They killed her August 4th, 1961. When did you pull it up? 62. 62, yep. Whoa.

Yep. Now, there's a lot of people who take wild conspiracies on her death. It does seem like she was probably killed. I think people take that to too far levels. It's in my book. I put it in there. My publishers, people that don't know the publishing world, they vet everything because they got the deep pockets.

They're going to get sued. I wrote this book three years ago and said Bobby killed her. Bobby at the time was denying even being in California. There's no way an attorney general could be in California and nobody knows about it. So I went to share a booker. And sure enough, Peter Lawford got a ticket that night on Sunset Boulevard and they looked in the car Peter Lawford was his brother-in-law

Peter Lawford married a Kennedy really? you didn't know that? I don't remember that so that's why he was always around so now not only did they put Robert Kennedy in California, they put her in the house for four hours before they called the ENTs.

Now the ENT came together with it. You've got to get this guy Mark Shore on the show. Yeah, that was the guy you were talking about earlier. This guy, he's opening the files again whoa yeah she was i mean read some of his books he's he'd been well acclaimed mark shaw yeah i i've always seen some they're very i want to be clear they're very very different and very different settings but there's i don't know why I do this. Maybe it's like who they were like as a social – as like a social symbol and stuff like that. But there's some odd little parallels I always play in my head with like Marilyn Monroe and Princess Diana.

You know? Oh, yeah. Because they met an early brutal end. There's questions about how they ended. Well, Princess Diana, obviously they said she was pregnant, and the queen was not going to let that happen. Yeah. That one's sketchy.

Oh, okay. All right, we're going to stop real quick. Bathroom break. We'll be right back. All right, we're back. So we left off with Peter Lawford, the ticket, and Bobby. You said Bobby was up there and and you're alleging you alleged in the book that bobby was the one who had her taken out which is definitely a controversial take but no it's it believe me it's it's more

and more now coming out in fact there's there's more tapes on it now because they did a Netflix four-hour thing on Marilyn. Yes, they did. Who played her? Anna De Palma? They put Bobby in it. They put Bobby was in her apartment for four hours before the paramedics took her out. He was physically there when I missed that. Physically in the apartment for four hours.

Now the stuff is all coming out now. You know, I always wonder when you look at power, you look at talent, these different things that get you places in society, right? Think about like a dynasty like the Kennedys and all the tragedy that's happened to them. I know. I always wonder about the world and the way it has a very mean way of balancing out if there's like a price you pay for, you know, not to oversimplify it, but maybe the things you do or the things that your power has you do. You ever think about that? Well, you know, I've thought about it a lot because, you know, these kids are so privileged.

Yeah. But they use it in the wrong way. I mean, look at, I mean, even Ted Kennedy. Yeah. I mean, there were so many unjust... Chapecoenic, is that it? Yeah. There were so many unjustifiable homicides, so many things that were not proven because of their power.

They sweep it under the rug. Yeah. And now you have one running for president again. It's like— But that I can't believe. I heard him. I had to hear this. So I had somebody send me their YouTube thing where he said, quote him,

his father woke him up one night to let him know that the CIA killed your uncle. Now, if you do the math, he was nine years old. Why would his father wake up a nine-year-old son to say, I just want you to know the CIA killed your uncle? If that's true and he was nine when that actual conversation happened, I agree. That sounds suspect. I do wonder, though, like some of these people are so disconnected from reality, I could see the lack of a filter system to, you know, why would you tell your nine-year-old that? That's the right reaction. But I could totally see his dad being like, yeah, the CIA killed your uncle.

Welcome to the family, kid. Like, you know, they don't think like you and me. They don't think, you know what I mean? No, but he said his father woke him up. Yeah. I mean, he's not passing at the table, and we're talking about it, and he came up. He went deliberately to your bedroom and told you this? Was he drunk?

Who? That's an important question. Was his dad drunk? I don't know that. No, I didn't get specifics. I could totally see that. I mean, I agree with you. That's crazy.

Yeah. But, I mean, who knows? I would love to be a fly on the wall in some of those houses sometimes just to see what it's really like. Well, I know Joe is totally insane. Did the father. Yeah. I heard stories from Frank. You know, there's a biographer.

I forget his name, Alessi. Maybe you can look it up. I think, I hope I have this right. I think he was given permission to do a biography of the Kennedy family, which creates bias, right? Who tried to say that Joe had nothing to do with prohibition and was not in it at all. And that's the exact – that was my reaction too. I was like, get the fuck out of here. Joe was running hooch from Scotland through Canada all the way down the coast. Forget about it. I was like, get the fuck out of here. Joe was running hooch from Scotland

through Canada all the way down the coast. Forget about it. Known fact. I think it was more money than that. Frank Costello told me he made 30 million, 50 million, like that. And then that's when he bought so much property because Costello always wanted to be a legitimate guy.

Yeah, yeah. So he went into real estate to try to have that image. And he bought, what he owns in Wall Street, you can't believe. Still today. What, like the buildings? Buildings. Yeah. He still owns them.

Yeah. My building is like 60 units. His partners are in my bar where I live well his estate like his family yeah Franklin oh see what no he always used George Wolfe George Wolfe was his lawyer it was his license 1943 so they created all these trusts and got it got it it was not in his name did he ever talk about lucky luciano with you never because they were tight oh no kidding they were really tight no but see my relationship with him and he was he was actually grooming me to do what i was going to do like like get the money, do this, do that, do this,

but wanted me clean. He did not want me associated with anybody, and that's why he wanted nobody to know my name. You know, most people didn't know my name until the Godfather came. They always called me the kid. Hey, kid, hey, kid. The thing is, when you're telling this about,

for people at home as my little mafia historian historian nerd ass follow some of this stuff Frank Costello would be the guy that would be like this because he you're a hundred percent right he really looked at he tried to tone down what the Mafia did he wanted to be known it's exactly like did. He wanted to be known. It's exactly like you say. He wanted to be known as a legitimate businessman. So it would make sense that you, being the kid, being around him, he you can correct this with Vito Corleone, is that the character was kind of a combination of Bonanno, Costello, and Gambino. And both Bonanno and

Costello were known for trying to go legitimate, and particularly with Bonanno. Well, even Bill. Bill was educated. Right. He wanted his son to not be in it. And then, like Michael, he came in. Very interesting. The situation, and I know it to be true, just because of the time I spent with all these people. You know, it was... That's why, like we said, did he ever talk to you?

No. He only talked to me to what he wanted me to do. I'd meet him every day, and then when there was other things going on somebody else would tell me like carmine from the copa those guys would say go here go there or all that was not handled by him and another thing always impressed me he went home every night for dinner and came back out and was home again by 10, 1030.

Never stayed out late. And he owned the Copa Cabana. He'd go to first shows and have a second shows. That's some good discipline right there. Oh, no. The Copa seems like that just comes up at the middle of every mob story. That was the spot. I remember.

I mean, to me, having people carrying their tables over their heads, in the middle of the night, bringing people in, ringside. I was privy because of being at the Copa. I was there the night Sammy Davis Jr. was being heckled by this bowling team in Brooklyn. A bowling team in Brooklyn. Was sitting ringside, heckling him, go dance, do a doodadda. And the New York Yankees cleared the place. They beat up everybody in the joint.

The Yankees, like DiMaggio and them? The Yankees, you got to look that up? Yankees, you gotta look that up. I mean, you won't believe who some of them were. Yankees, Copacabana. Major, major players. Sammy Davis Jr. And he swept it under the rug. He got it

swept under the rug. Nobody got charged. Nobody. And they destroyed these guys from Brooklyn. This is the 1957 brawl? Yeah. Yeah. 1957.

This is in an article. The Yankees' 1957 brawl at the Copacabana. Every Friday have been released. Oh, wait. Hold on. On this week's, I talked about the event for Billy Martin. Go down. The Bronx.

Go down. Go Bronx. Go down. Go down. Go down. The Rat Pack versus the Bowlers. After a World Series loss in 55 and win in 56, the Yankees got off a slow start in 57. Weiss had been campaigning behind the scenes to trade Martin. Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba. The incident that spelled the end for Billy happened when the gang and their wives were out celebrating his 29th birthday in May.

After a booze-filled dinner, they went to see Sammy Davis Jr. at the Copacabana nightclub, a spot Yankees players frequented in the 50s. They encountered a bunch of bowlers who were heckling Sammy Davis, and the Yankees players were pissed. There were numerous versions of what actually happened but here's what i've pieced together billy told the guys to stop it or they'll have to quote step outside unquote they actually ended up going downstairs where they brawled one of the bowlers a bronx deli owner you can't make this shit up ended up with a concussion and a broken jaw some people thought martin punched the guy, but it was most likely Hank Bauer, and that's who the eventual lawsuit was brought against. Bauer denied ever punching the guy, and the Yankees players never said who actually hit him. Go down a little bit.

Do we? Yeah, there, wow, there's a Daily News, there's a screenshot of a Daily News article. So they kept this enough under wraps that obviously people, you're right, people didn't get in trouble for it. But that's crazy. Costello handled it all. Of course he did. They called him up. Said, we have a problem here.

He said, save it till the morning. When did Vinny the Chin try to hit him? That was a joke. Do you remember what year it was? Well, I mean, he actually did take one. 54, I think. Wasn't it 54? Sounds right.

It was somewhere in there. I saw him the next day. Yeah, he had like the bandage around his head or something. I don't know if we have a picture of Frank Costello with bandage around his head. You can probably Google that. You know, I think about that. How does a guy get in an elevator with you and can't shoot you in the head? Bad shot.

I don't know. Well, no, but three weeks later, I met Chen with him. With him? With him. Now, this was the thing where he went in and said, didn't see the guy, or whatever. Like, he refused to turn in who it was. I didn't remember him. I didn't see him.

Now, why didn't he whack Vinnie the Chin? Why would he? He would never. That's not who he is, man. He'd handle it himself. Wow. No, no, these guys. Because at this time, the other guys weren't like that. Oh, no.

They would have handled that a different way, for sure. Oh, there he is. Yeah, yeah, we'll put that picture in the corner. Because Vinny the Chin obviously ended up being a boss of Genevieve's family. Yeah. Yeah, with the bathrobes outside and everything. That whole thing with the brother, the priest and all that. That was crazy, man.

In the years after The Godfather, though, so the movie, we didn't talk about this. The movie comes out in 72. It's an instant hit. And within, I mean, I wasn't I wasn't alive but from what I've heard within a year people are like this is the best movie ever made right were you getting recognized everywhere you went oh my god yeah even now even more so you know it's funny and now how many people know me I constantly hear hey call not my name their call yeah yeah no it's it's uh i mean i again we i said

it earlier i don't know if i didn't do that movie what i'd be doing yeah i'd probably you know i mean i always made money that's one thing you have to you know and i live modestly i don't gamble i don't do drugs i don't do you know i don't do, you know, I'm in business. I love business. You like jewelry and business. That's it. That's it. That's a good love of life.

But did the, you had said obviously when you were on set, you kind of kept to yourself a little bit with Brando and everything. But over the years, as the anniversaries were coming up and stuff, did the cast get really tighter and bonded through this? No. Not really? No. You know, they were all so big. I mean, look now.

They're all nominated against him. All of them. Constantly. Yes. And then Jimmy's dad. I mean, I was shocked when the New York Post called me when Jimmy Kahn died. That was recently. That was like last year, right?

And they said, we want you to utilize him. Are you kidding me? They said, no. I said, I don't like the guy. They said, we want your take on it. They printed it. They printed you saying, I don't like the guy. No, they printed everything I said about him.

What did you say about him what'd you say about him well it's just stupid stuff like you know who he was i mean i can go oh hey glorify now because he's dead who cares wow no no i i am i am who i am i'm this is this is it this is yeah yeah you definitely wear it on your sleeve for sure yeah that's but uh but you were telling me before we went on camera when you came back to do the This is it. Yeah, yeah. You definitely wear it on your sleeve for sure. Yeah. But you were telling me before we went on camera when you came back to do the cameo for the end of Godfather II where they have a flashback scene. Right. You said you made more money doing that than the whole first movie? Yeah.

For the whole first movie, I made $38,000. Back then, that's not horrible. Not horrible, no. But it gave me $50,000 for one day. Better budget. But Brando, that's why Brando Not horrible, no, but it gave me $50,000 for one day. It's a better budget. But Brando, that's why Brando wasn't in the scene, you know. He was supposed to be in it, right? He was supposed to be in it, and he felt what they did to him,

because they topped him out a million dollars. He had a percentage, small salary and a percentage, but it topped out at a million, a million dollars. Somebody said, well, I'm going to make a million dollars. He could have made $4 million, but they cut him out. So that's why he wouldn't go back. I hired him. I did three movies

produced with Michael LaBelle and Andrew Bergman. We did Script Tease, Chances Are, and The Freshman. Did you ever see The Freshman? I saw The Freshman, yes. You were the maitre d' in that, right? Oh, yeah, but I was a producer. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, I was just at the end. I wanted to be in it. Right. No, but we got Brando back to play The Godfather because it was a spoof. And all we had to do was we just couldn't mention The Godfather. That's why every time he was about to say, no, you can't say that.

Can't call him that. But that movie was a great, we had so muchfather. That's why every time he was about to say it, no, you can't say that. Can't call him that. But that movie was a great, we had so much fun. That's a good movie. That's Edward Norton with him, right? Yeah. Yeah, that's a really good movie. Yeah, it was a good movie. And he was a big boy at that point.

What? He was a big guy at that point. Oh, my God. He was a fucking balloon. Yeah. Well, I have a house on Mulholland. I have a house up there. My two youngest kids live up there

between Jack Nicholson and Mulder Brandt. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I got a 10,000 square foot house up there. No shit. How many kids do you have? I have nine boys, four girls, ten grandsons, and six granddaughters. That's a big family, man.

That's good. And you have some that live, you were telling me you have some grandkids that live in Italy? Yeah, Italy, Romania, my son Diamizia, his grandmother's Princess Anna, his mother's Princess Boniatosca. Wait, not Princess Anna who lives in New York now? His mother's Princess Boniatoska. Well, I never... Wait, not Princess Anna who lives in New York now? No. No, that's another one. Okay, keep going.

Sorry. No, but my kids, I never dated women who needed their rent paid. They were all from wealthy families because I had my boat, and I bought a boat when I was 21. I paid $3 million for it. At 21?

Yeah, cash. You were running some good errands for fucking Costello over there. Oh, man, no. We made a lot of money, thank God. I'll bet you did. That guy was probably printing money. So you have kids all over the world,

and you said you go to Italy like every 90 days? You try to? I try to. Where do you usually go? Where do you usually go? I go to Sicily. Always Sicily? Always Sicily. Where's your favorite. Always Sicily? Always Sicily.

Where's your favorite spot in Sicily? Cefalo. Oh, Cefalo's beautiful. Yeah. I stayed there a few days. I love Cefalo. Every time I see those scenes of Michael, where it's supposed to be Corleone,

but they filmed it right outside Tormino, whenever I see that, I get real nostalgic because all those same hills, like I walk through those. Right. It's absolute. Like if people can go somewhere, go there. I always tell people that. Yeah. Forget Rome. I mean,

you got to see Rome if you never saw it. But my destination, I always said I'd retire there. I was there or I'm off the coast because my Nabilan family is over there. Yeah, right. And they own all of that. I mean, you go to Capri, everything is Russo, Russo, Russo.

In fact, Giovanni Russo, my cousin who looks like me, he just built a billion-dollar hotel at 80 years old. A billion-dollar hotel. I said, why are you doing this? He said, I wanted to. That's a good reason. No. He wants to do it. He's selling his island right now

for $280 million. He has an island? He has an island between the Malfi Coast and Capri. There's one island. He owns it. How big is the island? Oh, I don't even know. Let's see if we can find it. You can find it. Is there an island?

Giovanni Russo. It's for sale right now. Sotheby's is selling it. Oh, Sotheby's is selling an island. Oh my God. Giovanni Russo. Biggest landlord in And that's your, because Russo's like a really common Italian name too.

Like it's everywhere. But you can't deny us, haven't I? Yeah. 263 million. Wow. Hello. There it is. Those stem cells are working, man. You got a good recall. No, but you know what the funniest thing is?

I have 147 Riva. The biggest Riva. A what? A Riva. That's what you named it? Like a Riva? No. It's a Riva. R-I-. A what? A Riva. That's what you named it? Like a Riva? No.

It's a Riva. R-I-V-A is the name of the boat. Oh. It's a manufactured boat. Oh, okay. I don't know about companies that well. It's a big boat. You have a 147-foot boat?

I paid three million for it, cash. Wow. It's worth now $600,000 a square foot, mind you. Wow. The boat's all wood. Wow. I keep it in Madeira, Spain. You keep it in, why Spain? Because it has no reciprocity with nobody.

Oh, that's right. It's very hard to get in here right about that. I've had some guys talk about that on the podcast. No, no, no. Do you have any projects coming up besides some of the business stuff you talked about? You doing any acting ever again? I want to do my book, obviously. I came up with a great idea.

We have some people with it. I want to be telling my grandsons my story. Oh, that's cool. And I think that's a good way to go in and out of it. It's good for my ego. It keeps me in it. I don't want nobody to do my life story but me. Yeah.

I will have younger ones, you know, but I just want to do it. That's awesome. I'm shocked how well this book has been received. The one you wrote in 2019? Yeah. Yeah, it's a great cover, by the way. I like that. Thank you.

And like I said earlier, we will have this link down in the description below. But you also, I think we were talking about this before camera, you own, you might have mentioned this quickly, you own Genco too? Yeah. Like you bought the name Genco, like Genco olive oil from the movie? Yeah, I own it. Apparently I didn't even own it.

Do you do any like olive oil stuff with that? I got all of it. Go up, pull up, because you'll see it's on the website. Quarterly owned fine Italian foods. And you have Genco underneath that. I got the label. I got the label, the can from the movie. I own the can that you saw when he went over there.

De Niro. There it is. There's Genco. There's the cans too. Wow. I might have to buy that. That's great. That looks so cool. And might have to buy that. That's great. Oh, it's so cool.

And you own this likeness. That is fucking crazy. Hello? Jenko, look at that. And that's the vodka. That vodka is now the number one vodka in the world by the Rob Report. The Rob Report said that's the number one vodka in the world? Right now.

November 22nd. Number one. Number one in the world for mart november 22nd number one number one in the world for martinis okay okay all right we're gonna have to try that out we're gonna order some of this stuff unless they see how it is put it to the test that's crazy man you ever you ever call up your buddy bobby and say i'll throw you a few. He's going through a divorce right now. I mean, times are hard. He's tough. You're driving me back, right?

Yeah, yeah. I'll give you a couple of bottles of vodka. Let's go. A little vodka in the car. Don't get a Dewey on the way there. That's not good for the business. No, no, I can't do that. We'll be alright. Listen, Johnny, this was awesome, man. It was a real honor to talk with you no thank you

it's it's crazy like the little kid in me right now who grew up watching the godfather more times than you can count sitting across from a guy who not only was a part of it but was a key part of it it's unbelievable and and i can't believe that movie is over 50 years old. It's 52 this year. It would pass today. It's that good. And it's still doing it. Oh, my God. It's so funny. They just renewed all the licensing again

for another 10 years with AMC, all the channels. We're in 73 countries. Do you get royalty checks at all from them? Hello. Yeah, I was going to say. I get two, producer and actors. God damn.

Pays to know the right people. That's what we learned today. But listen, sir, thank you so much for coming in. Oh, you're kidding. My pleasure. All right. Thank you. Alessi, thanks as always for helping put this together.

Everybody else, you know what it is. Give it a thought. Get back to me. Peace. Thank you for watching this episode, guys. If you haven't already please smash that subscribe button and hit that like button on the video it is a huge huge help to getting our videos into the algorithm on youtube so thank you to everyone who does that and also if you don't

already follow me on instagram you can get me at julian dory podcast for daily exclusive clips that we put out from the show or on my personal page at julian d dory the links are in the description below see you guys for the next one