GODFATHER Actor GIANNI RUSSO: His Life in the Movies and the Mob; Early Childhood in Little Italy; Surviving Polio; Vatican Bank Courier, Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe. Dustup with MARLIN BRANDO.

GIANNI RUSSO was born in Manhattan in 1943 and raised in the then close-knit Little Italy, and later Rosebank, Staten Island. After reprising Carlo Rizzi in a brief flashback scene at the end of The Godfather Part II, Russo acted in more than 46 films, including Goodnight, My Love (1972), Lepke (1975, as Albert Anastasia), Laserblast (1978), Chances Are (1989), The Freshman (1990), Side Out (1990), Another You (1991), Super Mario Bros. (1993), Any Given Sunday (1999) and Seabiscuit (2003). Russo claims that he started a fledgling career in organized crime working as an errand boy and mob associate for Frank Costello as an adolescent but later abandoned the dangerous and volatile lifestyle of organized crime. The Staten Island Mafioso Tommy Bilotti was reportedly best man at Russo's wedding. Since the beginning of his acting career, Russo owned a Las Vegas restaurant called Gianni Russo's State Street at 2570 State Street on the Las Vegas Strip (closed in 1988), and reportedly defeated 23 federal criminal indictments on a variety of charges stemming from alleged organized crime associations. Russo is also a singer. In 2004, he released a CD called Reflections that pays homage to Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra. Russo owns a wine brand, Gianni Russo Wines, which debuted in 2009. In 2019, he published his memoir, Hollywood Godfather: My Life in the Movies and the Mob. Listen to his podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/john-aidan-byrne0/support