"Sinatra was convinced that Johnny Fontane, a mob-associated singer in Mario Puzo's novel The Godfather (1969), was based on his life. Puzo wrote in 1972 that when the author and singer met in Chasen's, Sinatra "started to shout abuse", calling Puzo a "pimp" and threatening physical violence. This was recreated in the miniseries The Offer with Sinatra portrayed by Frank John Hughes. Francis Ford Coppola, director of the film adaptation, said in the audio commentary that "Obviously Johnny Fontane was inspired by a kind of Frank Sinatra character".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Sinatra

Yeah, but wasn't he? So it's not just "convinced", but "correctly understood"?

Did Puzo happen to bitch slap him and tell him to get his shit together?

What a perfectly Sicilian response to a perceived slight. Way to prove him wrong, Frankie.

"You can act like a man!"

Sinatra had a point. Everyone assumed Johnny Fontaine was based on him, because Sinatra was well known to associate with mobsters throughout his career, especially in the 60's when the novel was written.

Sinatra's bigger problem with being associated with the character (outside of the mob association) was that in the book, Johnny Fontaine was a spineless and degenerate loser. It was a good thing that Puzo and Coppola downplayed the character in the film to appease Sinatra and the mob, because Fontaine was so dislikable in the book.

This makes so much more sense.. I'm not mad because you made a book about me, I'm mad cause you made me a spineless degenerate. How dare you!

Don Rickles used to say that Frank Sinatra saved his life once. Two thugs were beating up Rickles in a parking lot and Sinatra said, "Okay, boys, that's enough."

“And if ya ever drag my name through the doit again I’ll have someone break ya fuckin’ kneecaps!”

Don Rickles is tied for top two comedians in my book. The effortless way that he could absolutely rain fiery insults on people in a good natured way that made everyone laugh is a taken that is almost impossible to replicate.

Holy run-on sentence, Batman

As portrayed in The Offer https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13111040/

Never seen the italian-american accent shown so well through the spelling of the word, "dirt"

> Everyone assumed Johnny Fontaine was based on him, because Sinatra was well known to associate with mobsters throughout his career, especially in the 60's when the novel was written.

There's also a story that a mobster held a gun to Tommy Dorsey's head and threatened to blow his brains out if he didn't let Sinatra out of his contract. In the first film, when Michael and Kay are talking about Fontane during the wedding, Michael explains something about a contract and what "making an offer he can't refuse" is really about. The Sinatra story is doubtful, but it definitely informed that scene.

Jack Woltz (the studio head who owns Johnny’s contract) also alludes to that in the dinner scene with Tom Hagen - "And if that goombah tries any rough stuff, you tell him i ain’t no bandleader. Yeah, I heard that story."

I've never had much interest in The Godfather but that series was amazing!

Puzo should've written the character having a small dick

That was not Don Rickles. It was Shecky Greene

Sintatra is rumoured to have had a huge dick

Few people know this, but it had it's own casket when Ol Blue Eyes passed.

Nothing says "I'm not anything like a cowardly and degenerate gangster" like screaming abuse and threats at someone in a restaurant who you think implied you were.

>Sintatra is rumoured to have had been a huge dick

FTFY

But it doesn't say that at all. A coward would be too cowardly to make the confrontation, and an actual gangster probably wouldn't care about being called a gangster as much as an innocent person.

Frank Sinatra, Godfather of the Streisand Effect.

Meta

That's not really how Johnny Fontaine's character in the book goes at all except right at the very beginning of the book when his life is at it's lowest, indeed the book points out multiple times that Johnny has many of the same "Donnish" qualities that Michael Corleone has and that's why Vito holds him so dearly even beyond being Johnny's godfather

Which is also brought up in the book, mind you the book version of Woltz is also an outright pedophile

So he did admit he had mob connections then?

Because if you printed that ...