Ross Warner
“Johnny Fontaine never gets that part! It’s perfect for him! It’ll make him a star! And I’m gonna run him out of the business!”
Barely twenty-four hours after “Hollywood big shot” Jack Wolz spouts those words, he finds himself embroiled in the most infamous equestrian incident this side of Catherine The Great. While the resulting scene is probably the most indelible image left by “The Godfather,” even more powerful is the underlying message conveyed by the film--the Corleones would stop at nothing to protect one of their own. Even the seamy underbelly of the film world was not immune to their influence. Hollywood’s private rulebook did not apply to “Friends of the Family.”
Twenty-five years after Francis Ford Coppola used “The Godfather” to launch himself and protégés Al Pacino, James Caan and Robert Duvall into the mainstream, Al Scaglione occasionally wishes he¬ had been a member of that exclusive fraternity. But the perceptions and biases that are the law of the land in Tinseltown were to be his downfall. His is a tale that is hardly the first of its kind, but nonetheless disturbing. Coppola has always said that “The Godfather” was a film by a family, about a family. In addition to actors he had previously used, he cast his sister, Talia Shire, as Connie Corleone. As one America’s greatest films celebrates its silver anniversary, the film community fondly recalls the chaos out of which “The Godfather” was born. All the major participants still remember the feeling of camaraderie that existed between the director and the cast as Paramount executives almost pronounced the project dead. But Al Scaglione only knows what it was like being on the outside looking in.
Known then by his stage name, Al Steffens, he grew up in the same Manhattan from which Mario Puzo built his novel. “These were stories that all the Italian kids in New York already knew,” Scaglione says. “All Puzo did was combine them into one fictional character. Marlloco was this guy who lived in a compound in Long Beach and had a son. Prafachi had an olive oil company that served as his front for the Mafia. And it was Genovese who objected when all the families started selling drugs.”
The days where a paparazzi would get roughed up just for photographing the wrong guy are long gone. Now, men like Henry Hill, Sam “Ace” Rothstein and Sammy “The Bull” Gravanno are as quick as any to sell their tales. “Back then, guys like Sollozo and Luca Brasi were the ones we didn’t know,” he says “Those kinds of things were kept quiet.” But, unlike Hollywood, Scaglione knew how things worked in New York long before the Corleones entered his life. His uncle, singer Lou Monti, used the same manager as Tony Bennett. “The manager, George Brown, me how Bennett’s contract was bought out by ‘The Boys,’” he says. “And after Bob Hope told him to change his name from DiBenedetto, things started to happen. Vic Damone didn’t have any ‘connections’ and when he returned from the army, he couldn’t work for fifteen years.”
It is a widely-held belief that the Johnny Fontaine character was based directly on Frank Sinatra--so much that ‘The Chairman’ issued a profanity-laden demand to have Puzo removed when the author attempted to introduce himself in a restaurant. “Sure, Sinatra was connected,” says Scaglione. “Both times I met him, Sam Giancanna was there. Giancanna went by the name of ‘Dr. Smith’--that was cute. Before he met those guys, Sinatra was singing in this little bar called The Camelot. But do you want to say that Sinatra sold out, or that this was the only way he could do it?”
Listening to him recount the story, one immediately understands how Al Scaglione knew “The Godfather” long before it recognized him. Even the way he introduces his tale reminds the listener of the world from which this film was born. “You want names? I’ll give you names,” he begins. “I was doing a play in the Village and this woman comes in by the name of Glena Moore, who was dating Nick Sean at Paramount. I was already happily married at this point. So we chatted, had a hamburger together and I dropped her off. But three days later I get a call and she tells me that while at dinner with (producers) Gray Fredrickson and Al Ruddy and they start talking about they were having trouble with Al Pacino.”
Coppola and Pacino now nostalgically recall how Paramount executives tried to rid themselves of the fledgling actor until the famous scene where Michael kills the man who shot his father, along with the policeman protecting him. But by all accounts, Pacino’s link to the role that would make him a star was barely a thread. “When while this woman is in the middle of her dinner with Fredrickson and Ruddy, they spot someone going to the bathroom,” Scaglione continues. “And they say ‘now that’s a Michael.’ So Glena tells them how she just saw me in this play and she thinks I’m an excellent actor. In addition, she mentions that I have much more of the Ivy League appearance that the book gives Michael. So she sets up an appointment for me with Gray Frederickson and Al Ruddy.”
“So when they meet me, they agree that I look like the Michael they were looking for and ask me if I have any film clips to use for a screen test. I mention that I was in this small Chekov film and they ask to see it. So I rush over the studio where they’re just cutting the film and bring it to them. Even though Ruddy laughs that he meant for me to get it to him in a couple of days, he loved it. It was that good.”
While watching the excerpt in question, I instantly realize that this is not simply the boasts of an actor lamenting that “he coulda been somebody.” Scaglione fills the screen with an assertiveness and conviction that assure that he could have indeed played Vito Corleone’s youngest son quite convincingly. And yes, he does look like a Michael. “They liked my look,” he recalls. “But the problem was is that they were set to buy Pacino’s contract out for ‘The Gang Who Couldn’t Shoot Straight.’ They had already used twenty five grand to buy him out from ‘Panic In Needle Park,’ which was shot by the guy who did the Chekov film. So they tell me that I would be a perfect Mike and they want to use me if they don’t buy Pacino out.”
“So my obvious question,” says Scaglione, “is what happens if they do buy out Pacino’s contract? I tell Ruddy that they could just be holding me as their ace in the hole. ‘I guarantee you that will not happen,’ he said. And three weeks later I read in the papers that they’re going with Pacino.”
Still not resigned to give up, Scaglione still believed that he might snare one the film’s lesser roles, which had not yet been cast. “So I called Ruddy’s office,” he says. “I told the girl on the phone who I was and she goes to talk to him. She comes back and says ‘Mr. Ruddy says everything is taken care of and not to worry.’ Of course, another two weeks go by after that and I call again to the same response. And when I read that principal photography had begun in Sicily, I was just irate.”
He stayed clear of the specter of ‘The Godfather’ until another chance encounter a few months later. “My friend, Joe Childs, owned a disco,” he continues. “And one night he introduces me to this blond woman who immediately tells me that she works for Lou DiGiamo and Sandy Garrison, who were casting the smaller roles on ‘The Godfather’ and that I’d be perfect for it. She offers to introduce me to them and I instantly tell her I’m not interested. But a few weeks later, my friend Arite Benoit sets me straight. ‘Cut the bullshit,’ he says. ‘This movie’s going to be huge and if the girl can get you a part in it, you should swallow your pride and do it.’ So I went up to meet Sandy Garrison.’”
When he finally discovered why he had been doomed from the start, he wished he was still in the dark. “When I meet Sandy, the first thing she says is ‘So you’re the famous Al Steffans.’ I have no idea what she’s talking about, but tell her that I know Fredrickson and Ruddy. She just bursts out laughing. ‘Are you balling Andrea Eastman?’ she asks.”
“I knew Andrea Eastman was the head casting director on the picture, but I’m absolute shock. I ask where in the world she got this idea and she tells me that a month before Ruddy had given my name to Andrea. Sandy didn’t like Andrea and since he she didn’t know me, she assumed I was some boy toy. So Sandy said she couldn’t find me. And when Ruddy called again two weeks later, Sandy told him I was out of town.”
“When I heard this story, I wanted to throw her thorough a fucking window,” Scaglione confesses. “But she was very apologetic and showed me the small list of bit parts they had left. And that’s how I got the role of Barzini’s bodyguard.”
This is why Scaglione is only seen with the hated Don Barzini in the infamous “baptism” murder scene. He recreated his famous fall down the courthouse steps at Foley Square that he has a bruised toe to this day. “Me and Sully Boyer, who played the limo driver, kept falling down,” he recalls. “And the stunt double for Richard Conte (Barzini) tells us that we’re essentially doing stunt work, for which he’s getting paid $1,300 a day. He tells us we should at least demand some pads.”
It was at this point that Scaglione first crossed paths with Francis Ford Coppola. “He explained to us that the film was way behind schedule,” Scaglione says. “So tells us that if we do the scene, that he’ll give us a $500 bonus apiece. Sully’s wife had cancer at the time and I could use the money as well, so we agreed. And of course when we get the checks in the mail, the bonus isn’t there. So we call Paramount and they tell us to cash the checks and that the bonus will follow. After a few more weeks, we go to the Union, who calls Ruddy. He says that he doesn’t know about the bonus and since we cashed the checks, we must have been alright with the money. Apply that $500 by 25 years of interest--well, you can imagine.”
“I was real depressed when the movie first came out,” he says. But I still used to go with my wife all the time to this theater up on Sutton Place. The usher used to let us in near the end because he knew I was in that scene. I must have seen it about thirty times. It was very painful.”
He can still view “The Godfather” as a masterpiece--just not Coppola’s masterpiece. “It’s no secret that he’s not a very nice man,” he says. “He’d do his coke, rumble on to the set and rattle off the kind of clichés a high school acting coach would use. Right before the film was release he even wrote an article for New York magazine where he said not to blame him if the film flopped since he had nothing to do with it--and he didn’t.”
The genius of the film, Scaglione contends, is in the casting of the “common hoods,” many of which were in reality just that. Morganna King, who played Mama Corleone, was a first-rate opera singer. “Sure, the experience took the wind out of my sails,” he admits. “But hey man, it was nice being part of a classic.”
Scaglione still went on to a very successful career, appearing in television series ranging from “Vega$” to “Baywatch.” He has also acted in numerous smaller films. But “The Godfather” will always remain bittersweet. “Pacino, DeNiro, Keitel--I was in that group of hot New York actors in the early 70s,” he reminisces. “But it was still the thrill of my life to be on those steps that day. You very rarely get to perform on stage in front of 5,000 people.” Nonetheless, the stage could have been so much grander.
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