Mario Puzo modeled the character of Don Vito Corleone in his book "The Godfather" on New York mob bosses
Frank Costello (January 21, 1891 - February
18, 1973), who was nicknamed the "Prime Minister of the Mob" for his
deft handling of La Cosa Nostra, and
Vito Genovese (November 27, 1897 -
February 14, 1969), a brutal man who almost achieved his dream of
making himself "capo di tutti capi" ("Boss of Bosses"). Much of the
action of the book is based on actual events that occurred in
the lives of Costello, Genovese and his accomplices. Costello would
become one of the most powerful and influential mob bosses in history,
and his appearance before the 1951 Kefauver Commission hearings into
the mob, which were televised (but which only showed Costello's hands
as he refused to have his face photographed), made him the most famous
mobster of the 1950s.