A Deal Robert Evans Couldn’t Refuse

When I first heard about The Godfather, no one wanted to make it. Mario Puzo brought the manuscript to me: It was called Mafia, and I never thought it would happen. So I paid him $12,000 for it as a favor to a friend. But six months later, Mario says, “Can I change the title to The Godfather?” He said he would turn the manuscript in to the publisher anyway.

So the book comes out, and it does well, but no one wanted to make the film, including my boss, Charlie Bluhdorn [chief executive officer of Paramount’s former parent, Gulf + Western]. Mafia films just didn’t work back then. Two years earlier we had made The Brotherhood, which starred Kirk Douglas—and no one went to see it. Burt Lancaster was attached to The Godfather, and he offered my bosses $1 million for the property. Paramount wasn’t doing very well, and Bluhdorn wanted the million dollars.