Mario Puzo

Puzo was born in the Hell's Kitchen area of New York City to Italian immigrants from Pietradefusi, Province of Avellino, Campania.[2] When Puzo was 12, his father, who worked as a trackman for the New York Central Railroad, left his family, and his wife Maria was forced to raise their seven children.[3] He served in the US Army Air Forces in Germany in World War II, and later graduated from the City College of New York.[3] Puzo married a German woman, Erika, with whom he had five children.[4] When Erika died of breast cancer at the age of 58 in 1978, her nurse, Carol Gino, became Puzo's companion.[3][4]

In 1950, his first short story, "The Last Christmas," was published in American Vanguard. After the war, he wrote his first book, The Dark Arena, which was published in 1955.[3]

In 1960, Bruce Jay Friedman hired Puzo as an assistant editor of a group of men's pulp magazine with titles such as Male, Men. Under the pen name Mario Cleri, Puzo wrote World War II adventure features for magazine True Action.[5][6]

In 1969, Puzo's most well-known work, The Godfather (1969) was published. Puzo stated this story came from research into organized crime, not from personal experience, and was looking to write something that would appeal to the masses.[3][7] The novel remained on The New York Times Best Seller list for 67 weeks and sold over nine million copies in two years.[8] The book was later developed into the film The Godfather (1972), directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The film received three awards of the eleven Oscar category nominations, including Puzo's Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. Coppola and Puzo then collaborated on sequels to the original film, The Godfather Part II (1974) and The Godfather Part III (1990).

Coppola and Puzo preferred the title The Death of Michael Corleone for the third film, but Paramount Pictures found that unacceptable.[9] In September 2020, for the film's 30th anniversary, it was announced that a new cut of the film titled Mario Puzo's The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone would have a limited theatrical release in December 2020 followed by digital and Blu-ray.[10] Coppola said the film is the version he and Puzo had originally envisioned, and it "vindicates" its status among the trilogy.[11]

In mid-1972, Puzo wrote the first draft of the script for the 1974 disaster film Earthquake, but he was unable to continue working on it because of his commitment to The Godfather Part II. Work continued on the script, with writer George Fox taking the helm, with a final draft completed by director Mark Robson. Puzo retained screen credit in the completed film, and featured heavily in the advertising. Puzo also wrote the original screenplay for Richard Donner's Superman, which then also included the plot for Superman II, as they were originally written as one film. He also collaborated on the stories for the 1982 film A Time to Die and the 1984 Francis Ford Coppola film The Cotton Club.

In 1991, Puzo's speculative fiction The Fourth K was published; it hypothesizes a member of the Kennedy family who becomes President of the United States early in the 2000s.[12]

Puzo never saw the publication of his penultimate book, Omertà, but the manuscript was finished before his death, as was the manuscript for The Family. However, in a review originally published in the San Francisco Chronicle, Jules Siegel, who had worked closely with Puzo at Magazine Management Company, speculated that Omertà may have been completed by "some talentless hack". Siegel also acknowledged the temptation to "rationalize avoiding what is probably the correct analysis – that [Puzo] wrote it and it is terrible".[13]

Puzo died of heart failure on July 2, 1999 at his home in Bay Shore, New York, at the age of 78.[3]

• The Godfather (book series)

• Moore, M. J. (March 8, 2019). Mario Puzo: An American Writer's Quest. ISBN 9781942762638.

• FreshAir Interview – Audio interview from Fresh Air. Originally broadcast July 25, 1996.
• Mario Puzo at the Encyclopædia Britannica
• Mario Puzo at IMDb
• Petri Liukkonen. "Mario Puzo". Books and Writers
• Mario Puzo Books
• The Official Mario Puzo Library
• "Saying Goodbye to Mario Puzo", an affectionate recollection of Mario Puzo written by his friend Jules Siegel on being notified of his death.