‘Godfather’ actor claims he knows who killed Marilyn Monroe

Lengthy earlier than the homicide, the women and a task in “The Godfather,” Gianni Russo was a 13-year-old with a bum arm. Freshly sprung from Bellevue’s polio ward, he ditched his neglectful dad and mom to sleep on flour sacks behind a Little Italy bakery and promote pens in entrance of the Waldorf-Astoria. It was 1956 and certainly one of his common prospects was mob boss Frank Costello. The don would throw Russo a fiver and rub the boy’s withered shoulder for luck. After just a few months of that, Russo objected to being touched. Costello revered the child’s gumption — and was much more impressed when he came upon that Gianni’s great-uncle was Angelo Russo, a Sicilian kingpin who had been hanged by the Italian authorities in 1947 after having performed a task in establishing New York’s 5 crime households. As chronicled in Russo’s new memoir, “Hollywood Godfather” (St. Martin’s Press), out March 12, Costello rapidly had Russo delivering packages of money all through Manhattan after which throughout the USA. Costello put up his younger cost in certainly one of a dozen flats he stored across the metropolis. Russo by no means left and continues to reside free of charge within the five-bedroom Higher East Aspect unfold. “I’ve all the time had an angel on my shoulder,” Russo, now 76, advised The Publish over lunch at Patsy’s in Midtown. “I nonetheless carry the St. Anthony medal that my grandmother pinned to my diaper.” Russo has loved a life that’s half Scorsese characteristic, half manifest future and half pores and skin flick. He claims he had threesomes with Liza Minnelli after each took a liking to the identical Vegas showgirl, and remembers scrapes with Frank Sinatra. (“He tried to slap me; I grabbed his skinny wrist and mentioned, ‘I’ll rip off your arm and shove it up your ­f–king ass.’ ”). As soon as, whereas watching a western with Elvis Presley, Russo took cowl because the King mimicked the on-screen pistol play with actual weapons. Much less harmful was his bizarre date with Zsa Zsa Gabor; the evening ended together with her setting him up for intercourse with a blonde who, “on a scale of 1 to 10, was a 12.” “Hollywood Godfather: My Life within the Films and the Mob” by Gianni Russo. Then there are the 2 killings he owns as much as, however was by no means arrested for. One alleged sufferer was an affiliate of Colombian kingpin Pablo Escobar. “Escobar wished to homicide my household in retribution; so I acquired John Gotti to set me as much as meet with him in Colombia,” mentioned Russo, acknowledging that he anticipated to take a beating or face demise to avoid wasting his household. “Escobar’s guys tied me to a chair and roughed me up. Then Escobar walked in, carrying ‘The Making of the Godfather’ e book. He mentioned, ‘Why didn’t you inform me you performed Carlo Rizzi?’ … He let me go in change for me re-enacting certainly one of my scenes, with him taking part in Michael Corleone.” (The Clark County, Nevada, prosecutor dominated the killing a justifiable murder, and Russo, who was not charged, mentioned it was in self-defense. He claimed that, as a pre-teen, he additionally murdered a person who was preying on kids, however Russo mentioned he was by no means charged. There is no such thing as a recognized documentation of this.) Russo added, “My life would make an amazing film, however it’s wilder than what anyone’s seen on display screen.” For example: “Marilyn [Monroe] was the most effective lover,” Russo recalled. “She simply wished to please you.” He was 16, Russo mentioned, when he struck up an affair with the actress, then 33. Costello had requested him to control her for the mob, which stashed its favourite moll in New York Metropolis whereas settling a problem she had with producer Darryl Zanuck on the West Coast. Monroe and Russo noticed each other, on and off, for 4 years. He claims to understand how she actually died. Russo confirmed The Publish a photograph of himself and the actress in 1962, on the CalNeva Lodge, a resort on the California-Nevada border. “It was taken three days earlier than she was discovered useless in Los Angeles of what coroners deemed to be a drug overdose,” Russo mentioned. The person behind the digital camera: Chicago crime boss Sam Giancana. In keeping with Russo, key members of the mob had convened at CalNeva in hopes of setting a lure for President John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert, then the US lawyer normal. “They wished to movie the Kennedys in a threesome with Marilyn,” mentioned Russo, including that the mob anticipated utilizing the footage to blackmail JFK into invading Cuba and returning the island’s casinos to organized criminals. The plan was scuttled after JFK didn’t present. As Russo tells it, Monroe had fallen in with the mob whereas courting favor with JFK years earlier than. When she realized of the aborted CalNeva scheme, she threatened to go to the media and mainly wrote her demise sentence. “A man often called The Physician — a killer for rent and an precise MD; he had performed main hits for the mob — injected air into the vein close to Marilyn’s pubic area,” Russo mentioned. “She died of an embolism, but it surely seemed like medication to the coroner.” Nonetheless, he insisted, it wasn’t the mob that killed Monroe however, relatively, the youthful Kennedy, who feared the story of his and JFK’s involvement with Monroe going public. “It needed to be Bobby,” mentioned Russo. “Nobody else would kill her. The mob wouldn’t have performed it. They appreciated her. She was that celebration woman. Give her a pair drugs, a pair drinks and she or he’ll f–ok everybody.” No stranger to presidential partying, Russo additionally remembers his personal excessive occasions with JFK. “Once they opened the Copa Room on the Sands Lodge [a mob-run casino in Vegas], Jack Entratter [who managed the Copacabana in New York] got here out to run it and a home was constructed for him on the lodge’s grounds,” mentioned Russo, including that the president would minimize free there. “Usually, [JFK] wore a 20- or 30-pound metallic brace [and suffered from severe back pain] however mentioned he felt good when he did coke. I felt like telling him, ‘All people feels good, a–gap.’ He liked doing traces off of [dancer] Juliet Prowse’s abdomen.” Russo made dwelling as a utility participant for the mob — monitoring Vegas money skims and laundering hundreds of thousands by way of the Catholic Church’s financial institution in Vatican Metropolis. Gianni Russo and Marilyn MonroeBrian Zak When Russo landed his position in “The Godfather,” it didn’t occur through regular channels. After director Francis Ford Coppola introduced his plan to show Mario Puzo’s novel right into a film, there was pushback from the American-Italian Anti-Defamation League. The group, overseen by Brooklyn mobster Joe Colombo, anxious in regards to the 1972 film making Italians look dangerous. Threats have been made that movie unions in New York Metropolis, the place the film movie was to be shot, wouldn’t cooperate with the manufacturing. Seeking to leverage the discord, Russo confirmed up at Paramount’s New York headquarters and strongarmed his approach into brokering a deal between Colombo and studio brass. After studying the film’s script, Colombo agreed to sanction “The Godfather” in change for Paramount permitting the Anti-Defamation League to placed on a for-profit gala in each metropolis the place the movie premiered. In return, Russo claims, he was given the position of Carlo Rizzi, abusive husband to Connie Corleone. He didn’t arrive quietly. “I wore Brioni fits to the read-throughs whereas all the opposite actors dressed like slobs,” mentioned Russo. “I employed a Chinese language showgirl to drive me there in a Bentley. All people else took station wagons.” Unimpressed, star Marlon Brando voiced issues that the neophyte actor would screw up his film. “I’d simply had a celebration … celebrating getting [the role],” mentioned Russo. “This man was going to destroy it for me? It could not occur.” In keeping with Russo, he acquired in Brando’s face and menacingly advised the older actor, “Who the f–ok are you to strive to do that to me? I’ll minimize your f–king coronary heart out, you rat motherf–ker. I’m a part of this image whether or not you prefer it or not, you c–ksucker.” The 2 turned mates — a relationship cemented by Russo establishing Brando with the showgirl chauffeur, who took up residence within the latter’s lodge room. The icon supplied the newbie with performing classes that contributed to Russo snagging small roles in 46 films (together with “Each Given Sunday” and “Sea Biscuit”). They have been tight sufficient that Russo was the primary individual Brando known as in 1990 when tragedy unfolded on the display screen legend’s Hollywood Hills mansion. “Christian [Brando’s then-32-year-old son] had simply fatally shot his sister Cheyenne’s boyfriend,” recalled Russo. “I mentioned, ‘Don’t name the police.’ Then I phoned [lawyer] Robert Shapiro and so they acquired Cheyenne out of the home.” Christian served 5 years for the homicide and Brando stored himself from being implicated. “The capturing was performed with Brando’s gun,” Russo mentioned. “Christian had advised him that Cheyenne was getting crushed up and Brando mentioned, ‘You’re her brother. Kill the son of a bitch.’ He in all probability didn’t anticipate Christian to do it.” Sixty-three years after his probability encounter with crime king Costello, Russo ranks among the many few golden-age mobsters who aren’t useless or in jail. However he knows that no matter he does, he’ll all the time be recognized for his portrayal of a gangster onscreen. Certainly, when the waiter at Patsy’s serves dessert on the home, Russo can’t assist however quip, “‘Depart the gun, take the cannoli.’ I can’t get away from that film.” Share this: https://nypost.com/2019/03/02/godfather-actor-claims-he-knows-who-killed-marilyn-monroe/ The post ‘Godfather’ actor claims he knows who killed Marilyn Monroe appeared first on My style by Kartia.