Marlon Brando turns down "The Godfather"

Suppose Marlon Brando wasn't interested in being head of a crime family or mafia, so he turns downs the role which goes instead to....who was it Danny Thomas?
 
I know FFC says he wanted Lawrence Olivier, but that's very much a retrospective opinion, I think.

My favourite alt-Don Corleone is Sinatra. I like the fact that probably leads to Harvey Keitel playing the young Vito in GF2.
 
My favourite alt-Don Corleone is Sinatra. I like the fact that probably leads to Harvey Keitel playing the young Vito in GF2.

Would Sinatra agree to appear in a film with a character based on him? While Johnny Fontane isn't as big a character in the film, Sinatra had taken against Mario Puzo because of the book. Maybe Paramount get their way and cast Ernest Borgnine or Danny Thomas.
 
Would Sinatra agree to appear in a film with a character based on him? While Johnny Fontane isn't as big a character in the film, Sinatra had taken against Mario Puzo because of the book. Maybe Paramount get their way and cast Ernest Borgnine or Danny Thomas.

You're probably right about the studio (really Robert Evans) going for a more conventional choice, but I recall reading in the official history of the trilogy that Sinatra liked Coppola as much as he hated Puzo*, and at one point he drunkenly offered to appear in the movie when he met FFC at a restaurant. Of course he also physically threatened Mario Puzo at another long lunch in Beverly Hills.

Here's one thing to consider about Frank's revulsion about the mobbed up singer in Godfather, and how he supposedly thought it defamed him. In 'From Here To Eternity' Sinatra played a soldier who becomes a disciplinary case and escapes from the military stackade--and that role was only a decade after Sinatra was publicly considered to be a wartime draft dodger. I think he was perfectly capable of playing off his own notoriety if he thought it would help it career.

Maybe Frank trying to revive his acting career in the same way he was to revive his singing career at the time of 'Old Blue Eyes' is all that's needed for him to accept the role.

*Out of respect for Carmine Coppola?
 
Here's one thing to consider about Frank's revulsion about the mobbed up singer in Godfather, and how he supposedly thought it defamed him. In 'From Here To Eternity' Sinatra played a soldier who becomes a disciplinary case and escapes from the military stackade--and that role was only a decade after Sinatra was publicly considered to be a wartime draft dodger.

I always thought that he, like Mickey Mantle, was 4F?:confused:

Honestly, if you were a recruiter for the army, would you want Sinatra, even if he was physically capable? Some people, like Malcolm X, were judged psychologically unfit for military service. I could see Sinatra with that tag.
 
Sinatra was no more psychologically unfit than any other kid from the streets of Hoboken.

However, I think that the clashing egos of Coppola, Evans, and Sinatra would have caused serious delays that could have led to Paramount pulling the plug on what they were already considering to be an overpriced monstrosity.
 
Sinatra was no more psychologically unfit than any other kid from the streets of Hoboken.

However, I think that the clashing egos of Coppola, Evans, and Sinatra would have caused serious delays that could have led to Paramount pulling the plug on what they were already considering to be an overpriced monstrosity.

Well, Brando was supposed to be a pretty bad person to work with at this point (and he was totally out of his mind by the time he and Coppola worked together again), but the reason he was on his best behaviour for the role of Don Vito in 1970 is he really needed a hit. Badly.

Maybe if Sinatra hadn't had a sixties that went as well as it did, with no huge post-Rat Pack musical successes like 'That's Life' or 'Strangers in the Night', then he might have accepted the role as the godfather in order to revive his brand. And AFAIK he worked responsibly for a kid director on 'Manchurian Candidate' just seven years before.

I think a GF that didn't have Marlon's much-lampooned performance in it is a movie without a huge burden, yet it needn't suffer any loss of quality. Brando alone doesn't make the movie what it is.
 
I always thought that he, like Mickey Mantle, was 4F?:confused:

Honestly, if you were a recruiter for the army, would you want Sinatra, even if he was physically capable? Some people, like Malcolm X, were judged psychologically unfit for military service. I could see Sinatra with that tag.

Early forties Sinatra wasn't seen as being a wrong'un or a hood--if anything I think the US military would dearly have wanted to induct a high profile Italian America like him for the PR purposes alone.
 
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