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No, no, no! No more! Not this time, consigliere. No more meetin's, no more discussions, no more Sollozzo tricks. You give 'em one message: I want Sollozzo. If not, it's all-out war; we go to the mattresses!
~ Santino "Sonny" Corleone

Santino "Sonny" Corleone is the tritagonist in Mario Puzo's 1969 novel The Godfather and its 1972 film adaptation. He also appears as a minor character in The Godfather Part II.

In the novel and film, he is the oldest son of New York City Mafia Don Vito Corleone and Carmela Corleone. He has two brothers, Fredo and Michael, an adoptive brother, Tom Hagen, and a younger sister, Connie.

In the film and a flashback sequence in The Godfather Part II, he was portrayed by the late James Caan, who also portrayed Frank Colton in Bulletproof and Robert Deguerin in Eraser. Director Francis Ford Coppola's son Roman Coppola played Sonny as a boy in flashback scenes in Part II. Caan also voiced Sonny in the video game adaptation of The Godfather.

Biography[]

Born in 1916, Sonny is depicted in both the novel and the movies as the most impulsive and violent of Vito's children and the most involved in his father's criminal operations. The novel provides additional backstory for Sonny: when he was 16, he committed a robbery. His father learns about it from his caporegime Peter Clemenza, who stood as godfather to Sonny. When Vito asks Sonny why he did it, Sonny tells him that he saw his father kill the blackhander Don Fanucci years earlier. He then tells his father, "I want to learn how to sell olive oil." Vito realizes what Sonny really means, and, seeing no other option, sends him to Clemenza for training to join the "family business".

Sonny "makes his bones" when he is 19, and soon afterward becomes a caporegime in his father's family. By the end of World War II, he is his father's underboss and heir apparent, respected and feared as a ruthless killer with an explosive temper. He is not without a softer side, however; at the age of 11, he convinces his father to take in a homeless boy, Tom Hagen, who thereafter lives with the family and later becomes Vito's consigliere. As the oldest child, he serves as a protector to his younger siblings and is shown to have a very close relationship with his sister, Connie; when Connie's husband Carlo Rizzi hits her, Sonny flies into a rage and publicly beats Rizzi to a pulp, and threatens to kill him if he ever hurts Connie again. The book also reveals that Sonny has a moral code that forbids harming women, children, or anyone who cannot defend themselves.

Although Sonny has a wife, Sandra, the mother of his four children, he frequently cheats on her with other women, including Lucy Mancini, who served as a bridesmaid in Connie's wedding.

The normal course of events in Sonny’s life is upturned when Virgil "The Turk" Sollozzo comes to Don Corleone with an offer of entering the narcotics trade, backed by the Tattaglia Family. During the meeting, Sonny speaks out of turn and expresses interest in the plan. Vito refuses the offer, however, so Sollozzo tries to assassinate him in hopes that Sonny, as his father's successor, will go into business with him.

The assassination attempt fails but leaves Vito near death, although he eventually recovers. Sonny takes over as acting boss. When Sonny finds out that the Tattaglias also killed longtime Corleone enforcer Luca Brasi, he orders the death of Bruno Tattaglia, son and underboss of Tattaglia Don Philip Tattaglia. He then issues an ultimatum to the Tattaglias: Turn over Sollozzo or face war. This sets off the first real conflict in the New York Mafia in a decade.

Michael, who had previously wanted nothing to do with the family's criminal enterprise, volunteers to kill Sollozzo and his bodyguard, police Captain McCluskey. Sonny is impressed by Michael's loyalty, but doubts that his "college boy" brother has it in him to commit murder. Additionally, Sonny is leery of killing a police officer, as it has long been a hard and fast rule in the Mafia that police and other law enforcement officials are not to be harmed. However, Sonny ultimately gives Michael the clearance to carry out the hit after Michael convinces him that, since McCluskey is serving as Sollozzo's bodyguard, he has crossed into their world and is fair game. Sollozzo and McCluskey set a meeting with him in a small Italian restaurant in the Bronx. Michael kills them both, and Sonny immediately sends him to Sicily to wait out the inevitable crackdown on the Five Families.

In retaliation, Don Emilio Barzini, the power behind Sollozzo and the mastermind of the war on the Corleones, enlists Rizzi's help in setting a trap for Sonny. To draw Sonny out into the open, Rizzi inflicts a particularly vicious beating on a pregnant Connie, who calls Sonny, begging for help. In a fit of rage, Sonny speeds out of the family compound unaccompanied, and heads for Connie's apartment in Hell's Kitchen to confront Rizzi. As Sonny approaches the Long Beach Causeway toll plaza, Barzini's men emerge and gun him down before he can flee.

Sonny's death does not go unavenged, however. Vito realizes, during a Commission meeting with the heads of the other crime families, that Barzini was responsible. In order to bring Michael back to the U.S., he agrees to peace with the other Dons. After Vito's death a few years later, Michael becomes the Don of the Coreleone family and orders the deaths of the other mafia heads, including Barzini, to cement his position as the most powerful mafia head in New York. Michael also has Clemenza kill Rizzi after getting him to confess to Sonny's murder by falsely promising him exile instead of death.

Role in Godfather sequels[]

Sonny appears in the original Godfather film and in its sequel, The Godfather Part II. In the latter film, he briefly appears in some flashbacks as a young child. A later scene portrays the family dinner in which Michael announces he has dropped out of college and enlisted in the U.S. Army to fight in World War II. Sonny is angered by Michael's decision, and he berates his brother for risking his life "for a bunch of strangers". The flashback reveals that Sonny introduced Rizzi to Connie and the rest of the family and is indirectly responsible for their marriage.

In The Godfather Part III, Vincent Mancini is introduced as the illegitimate son of Sonny and Lucy Mancini. Vincent succeeds Michael as head of the Corleone family at the end of the film. Vincent has Sonny's fiery temper, which causes Michael to fear that he will meet an early death like Sonny. Michael tells his nephew that he and Sonny did not always get along, but that he never doubted that Sonny loved him.

Vincent's existence in the film contradicts the literary universe, as Puzo's original novel stated that Lucy never bore a child with Sonny.

Relationships[]

Family[]

Victims[]

  • Paulie Gatto: Sonny ordered Clemenza to kill Paulie because he betrayed Vito. (1945)
  • Bruno Tattaglia: Sonny ordered Salvatore Tessio to kill Bruno because he plotted Vito's attempted assassination with Sollozzo. (1945)
  • Virgil Sollozzo: Sonny ordered Sollozzo killed because he plotted Vito's attempted assassination with Bruno Tattaglia. (1947)
  • Captain Mark McCluskey: Sonny ordered Captain McCluskey killed because he was assisting the Tattaglia Family. (1947)

Trivia[]

  • Coppola staged Sonny's death scene in The Godfather to be reminiscent of the final death scene of Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker in Bonnie and Clyde.
  • Coppola had the car radio play the broadcast of the baseball playoff game won by Bobby Thomson hitting the "Shot Heard 'Round the World". This would place Sonny's death on October 3, 1951, contradicting the novel by several years.
  • Among the actors auditioning for the role of Michael during casting for The Godfather, one unknown off-Broadway actor named Robert De Niro also read for Sonny's part, as well as Michael's and Carlo's, without success. Raw footage of him in the scene where Paulie Gatto offers to kill Rizzi can be seen on the DVD. Eventually, Coppola cast Caan in the role and gave De Niro the part of Paulie, but he "traded" him to the film The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight for Al Pacino, who soon got the part of Michael. The late Anthony Perkins not only auditioned for Sonny, but also for Tom Hagen.
  • Originally Caan was to be cast as the main character Michael Corleone (Sonny's youngest brother), while the late Carmine Caridi was signed as Sonny. However, Coppola demanded that the role of Michael be played by Al Pacino instead. The studio agreed to Pacino but insisted on having Caan be cast as Sonny, so he remained in the production.
  • Caan was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the film, competing with co-stars Pacino and Robert Duvall, giving the movie three entries in that category.
  • Sonny's death scene has been parodied several times on The Simpsons, including in the final scene of "All's Fair in Oven War," an episode in which Caan lent his voice. In that episode, the tollbooth death scene is re-enacted as part of Cletus Spuckler's revenge on Caan for "stealing" his wife Brandine's heart. The scene where Sonny beats up Carlo Rizzi has also been parodied, in the episode "Strong Arms of the Ma". In the episode "Mr. Plow", Bart is pelted with snowballs in a similar fashion to that of Sonny's final moments.
  • The tollbooth scene was parodied along with the execution montage in the final scene of the Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law episode "Dabba Don". In this scene the Ant Hill Mob from Wacky Races gun down Judge Mightor from their car.
  • Bill Simmons, a columnist for ESPN.com, frequently compares the "Sonny Corleone move" to the "Michael Corleone move" when referring to hasty, rash decisions that end badly when a patient, reasoned approach would have been far more successful. Often, this analogy applies to free agent signings and trades in the NBA.

External links[]

Navigation[]

           The Godfather Logo Villains

The Commission
Emilio Barzini | Michael Corleone | Vito Corleone | Carmine Cuneo | Vincent Forlenza | Victor Stracci | Philip Tattaglia | Joseph Zaluchi

Corleone Family
Vito Corleone | Sonny Corleone | Fredo Corleone | Michael Corleone | Connie Corleone | Vincent Corleone | Luca Brasi | Peter Clemenza | Salvatore Tessio | Tom Hagen | Al Neri | Rocco Lampone | Paulie Gatto | Marty Malone | Willie Cicci | Frank Pentangeli | Joey Zasa | Aldo Trapani | Dominic Trapani

Tattaglia Family
Philip Tattaglia | Bruno Tattaglia | Virgil Sollozzo | Mark McCluskey | Don Altobello

Barzini Family
Emilio Barzini | Emilio Barzini Jr. | Fabrizio

Others
Anthony Squigliaro | Carlo Rizzi | Moe Greene | Nick Geraci | Hyman Roth | Francesco Ciccio | Don Fanucci | Jack Woltz | Joe Galtosino | Johnny Ola | Licio Lucchesi | Louie Russo | Archbishop Gilday | Frederick Keinszig | Mosca of Montelepre | Strollo | Spara | Rosato Brothers | Patrick Geary | Jerry Wagner | Kevin Moonan | Giuseppe Mariposa | Questadt

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