Correction: An earlier version of this post misattributed Ernest Borgnine to the cast of Gilligan’s Island, an error that should earn the author of this article a one-way trip to a deserted island. As he drifted on a raft into the horizon, he could be heard yelling, “My bad, I got it confused with McHale’s Navy.”
This year marks the 50th anniversary of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather, a Very Good movie anchored by a Very Good cast. We’re also getting The Offer next month, a miniseries focused on all the behind-the-scenes drama that went into making said Very Good movie anchored by said Very Good cast. All of this, of course, can only mean one thing: It’s time to start digging into all the weird bits of trivia floating around about The Godfather, even if the trivia is a bit of old news for some.
Case in point: Paramount Pictures really didn’t want Marlon Brando as Don Vito Corleone, and instead went to bat pretty hard for Ernest damn Borgnine of all people. “They wanted anybody but Brando,” Mark Seal, author of last year’s tell-all, Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli: The Epic Story of the Making of The Godfather, told NPR yesterday. “They wanted Ernest Borgnine or Carlo Ponti, the husband of Sophia Loren. Danny Thomas wanted to buy the project from Paramount and star in it himself.”
Now, we absolutely believe that Mr. Borgnine was a very talented actor with a long and venerated Hollywood career. Also, he voiced Mermaid Man in SpongeBob SquarePants for quite some time, which was damn delightful. And, sure, perhaps he could have pulled off the quiet intensity required for the role of Vito Corleone... but its still pretty hard to escape your past associations, isn’t it?
Other studio exec recommendations included Charles Bronson, Burt Lancaster, and perhaps least surprising of all, Orson Welles, for the role. Paramount also wasn’t particularly jazzed about up-and-comer, Al Pacino, and pushed instead for the likes of era-appropriate stars such as Jack Nicholson, Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman, and Warren Beatty.
In the end, however, Coppola got exactly what Coppola wanted in his cast (as is often the case, we assume). Still, there is a timeline out there that includes Borgnine scratching at his chin, his cheeks stuffed with cotton swabs, grousing about “offers” and his “daughter’s wedding day,” and even perhaps slapping the shit out of Frank Sinatra Johnny Fontane.
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