[Warning: This story contains spoilers for episode one of The Offer.]
It may be hard to believe, but yes, Frank Sinatra really did let Mario Puzo have it for his perceived likeness in The Godfather, as featured in the first episode of The Offer.
The Paramount+ miniseries about The Godfather’s long and tumultuous journey to the big screen premiered its first three episodes Thursday. Going forward, one new episode will drop each week.
In the series, the late Puzo is played by Patrick Gallo, who by the end of the first episode, titled “A Seat at the Table,” is in Los Angeles adapting his best-selling Mafia novel to the screen for Paramount and producer Albert S. Ruddy, played by Miles Teller.
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Before the author and legendary singer-actor square off, it is mentioned a few times in the episode that Sinatra has taken great offense to the book, as he feels it makes Italian Americans look like animals. It is clearly much more personal when the two meet.
Gallo’s Puzo sees Sinatra (Frank John Hughes) in Chasen’s and tries to meet him. It ends with the two men being pulled apart, Sinatra livid at Puzo, who tries to stab the singer with a fork in self-defense.
While in reality the two men never got into a physical altercation, by Puzo’s own account, the author really did get into it with Sinatra one night in Chasen’s — then a celebrity hot spot near Beverly Hills, which closed in 1995 — over the Godfather novel.
According to an August 1972 New York magazine piece penned by Puzo, he was invited by an unnamed “famous millionaire” friend to a dinner party at the restaurant, where the friend wanted to introduce the author to another pal: Francis Albert. However, when Puzo was brought over to Sinatra’s table and introduced, Sinatra, according to Puzo, replied without looking up from his plate, “I don’t think so. I don’t want to meet him. Who told you to put that in the book? Your publisher?” Sinatra then began to “shout abuse” at the author, Puzo recalled.
It had long been rumored the actual Sinatra had connections to organized crime, which allowed to him make certain career moves, including allegedly breaking a contract with bandleader Tommy Dorsey through the threat of violence. In Puzo’s novel, a singer-actor called Johnny Fontane has his career helped immensely thanks to the Mafia, namely his actual godfather, Don Vito Corleone.
Although it is not explored in the film, Fontane in the novel is, for a time, a washed-up loser, which Sinatra also likely did not appreciate. The late Al Martino played Fontane in the first and third Godfather films.
The Offer scene is fairly accurate, but Puzo specifically noted in his New York magazine feature that Sinatra, shockingly, did not use foul language, and the confrontation was only verbal. Puzo quietly left the restaurant, with Sinatra yelling after him, “Choke! Go ahead and choke!”
New episodes of The Offer stream Thursdays on Paramount+.
