An Actor From "The Godfather" Says He Watched JFK Blow Coke Off A Girl's Stomach, Was Tortured By Pablo Escobar, And Punched Siegfried and Roy's Tiger In The Face
NORTH JERSEY.COM – Gianni Russo had a supporting role in “The Godfather.”
He also had a supporting role in just about everything else — if his entertaining new book, “Hollywood Godfather: My Life in the Movies and the Mob,” is to be believed.
The J.F.K. assassination? He had a walk-on role.
The death of Marilyn Monroe? He was a bit player there, too.
The 1979 Iranian revolution? He had a meaty subplot.
He also says he had a food fight with Liza Minnelli, saw Elvis Presley and his “Memphis Mafia” shoot up a hotel room, socked one of Siegfried & Roy’s tigers, told Frank Sinatra he’d rip his arm off, watched then-Sen. John F. Kennedy snort cocaine from a starlet’s stomach, laundered money for the Vatican, was tortured by Pablo Escobar, and personally advised Marlon Brando on how his son could beat his 1990 murder rap. Oh, yes, he also killed two guys.
“I vouch this is 100 percent of my life,” Russo says. “I lived it, and I stand by what I say.”
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Important disclaimer:
Also, to be clear: None of his claims has been vetted — and most are not vettable — by The Record and NorthJersey.com’s fact-checking department.
A cynic would read that and say, well it’s not vettable, so he’s obviously lying.
But I would say – it’s not vettable, so who’s proving him wrong?
Why do we just dismiss people because their claims are “crazy”? Just because they’re “desperately trying to sell a book because they’re probably super broke?”
Believe in something man!
I could see if he went with just one story, like seeing JFK blow lines off a starlet’s stomach or having inside info on Marilyn Monroe’s hit or something. A clear exaggeration or embellishment to make himself seem cool – we all do it. I’m sure he was like, AT a party that JFK was at, and I’m sure one time a guy he kind of knew told him some conspiracy theory about Marilyn and he ran with it as truth.
But ALL of them? At the same time? The Iranian Revolution? The Kennedys? Punching Siegfried and Roy’s tigers in the face? The Vatican?
Killing a guy and getting tortured by Pablo Escobar himself for it but escaping with his life by reenacting the Michael and Carlo scene because Pablo was a huge Godfather fan?
…It happened in 1988, when Russo was running a Las Vegas nightclub, Gianni Russo’s State Street. He tried, he says, to get between an abusive customer and his date. The thug went after Russo with a broken champagne bottle. Russo shot him.
What Russo didn’t know is that the guy he killed was an operative in the Escobar crime empire. And Escobar was likely to come after him and his family, unless he took drastic action. Russo went down to Colombia to explain to Escobar personally.
In Bogota, Escobar’s men tortured Russo for a while. Until, that is, Escobar discovered that Russo was Carlo Rizzi from “The Godfather.”
Escobar, it turned out, was a huge “Godfather” fan. So much so that he made Russo reenact his climactic scene from the movie: the one in which Michael (Al Pacino) sweats Carlo about his role in the killing of Sonny (James Caan), leads him to believe that he’s off the hook, and then has him strangled as soon as he gets into the car.
…”When they said they wanted to do that scene, and then they took me down to the car, I said, oh, [expletive], I’m dead. They’re gonna take me to the jungle and I’m done. Then they all started laughing.
“When I got to the airport, I was so relieved I couldn’t believe it,” Russo says. “I just wanted to get out of there.”
It’s so crazy you can’t NOT believe him.
(via North Jersey.com)