ELMO KEEP

Well, here’s a thing.

I interviewed Gianni Russo in October last year for the Brag, and it’s taken me all this time to find a home for the long version. Issue One of Stop Drop and Roll is out shortly (and can be pre-ordered here) and there you will find it very prettily laid out, but in the meantime you can read the PDFs.

Coincidentally, in the March issue of Vanity Fair Mark Seal writes extensively about the Godfather’s fraught creation. In this version, it was producer Al Ruddy who brokered the peace with Mafia Don and Italian-American Anti-Defamation League head, Joe Colombo at the behest of Robert Evans (familiar from The Kid Stays In The Picture), and so allowing for filming on the set to resume.

Who knows, perhaps the one who set up the meeting was Gianni Russo, as he related to me. In our chat, he glossed over the reportedly ferocious wife-beating scene for which he auditioned and ultimately won the role of Carlo. Perhaps he didn’t want to offend me. Perhaps he thought everyone knew that already.

Either way, I’ve never met so thoroughly charming a murderer.