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July 24, 2022 - The Unexplained - Howard Hughes
51:09
Edition 652 - "Hollywood Godfather"
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Across the UK, across continental North America, and around the world on the internet, by webcast and by podcast, my name is Howard Hughes, and this is The Unexplained.
Well, this is the second of my special editions for this middle of July, 2022.
Still recording these words in the back end of a heat wave.
And, you know, I'm looking forward to temperatures that say they're going to be in the 20s.
Even if it's the high 20s, I don't mind.
As long as I don't see 40 degrees Celsius for a long time, hopefully.
I mean, who knows what the rest of the summer's going to do.
But that's enough weather talk here.
I mean, if you live in or near Death Valley, then you're going to be laughing at me.
But let me tell you, it is no joke in London.
Right.
I said that I would put out a couple of podcasts containing material that I haven't previously released as podcasts that you've been asking for.
This is, for my money, one of my favourite interviews.
You know, there are some interviews that you come out of feeling, my God, that was revealing.
Oh, my God, that guest is amazing.
And I got both of those feelings with the guest that you're about to hear.
Hollywood Godfather is the book that he wrote.
Gianni Russo is the man.
He was in The Godfather.
He was a mafia associate.
The list of names that he reels out, including John F. Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe, who he knew intimately, and others, I mean, you name a name, Sinatra, he was very close friends for a long period with Sinatra.
And the happenings in this man's life are astonishing.
The fact that he very nearly got killed by a drug cartel at one point.
But to be honest with you, I've never heard a story like this, and it is better heard told by the man himself, who has a remarkable voice.
Now, this is the interview that I did several years ago.
It's been broadcast, I think, twice now, but it's never appeared on the podcast, and I thought I would put it here now for all time.
It's quite a listen.
On the night when I recorded this, I think it was 2017 or 2018, the producer had a problem and wasn't able to, for reasons we later discovered the answer to, wasn't able to connect digitally to Gianni Russo in the studio that he had in New York.
But we were able to get a phone connection, and to be honest with you, although I was peeved at only being able to do it by phone through problems at the London end, I soon forgot it when I started listening to the man's story.
I wonder if you're going to feel the same about this.
If you like this kind of stuff, and this is, don't forget this is not a movie.
Gianni Russo is talking about.
This is his life.
I'd love to speak with him again.
And I don't know what you're going to think about this.
You will have your views, and you can let me know if you want to.
Go to my website, theunexplained.tv.
Follow the link, and you can send me an email message from there.
The website designed by Adam.
But your thoughts will be your thoughts, and you can let me have them.
But this I've been meaning to put out, and I've had a couple of requests for it recently.
So this is as good a time as any to do it.
Let's hear now on this edition of The Unexplained, Gianni Russo, Hollywood Godfather.
You dart and dive all over segments of your life, and by the time I got to the end of it, I totally understand why.
But the thing that you described yourself as early on in the book was a mafia associate.
Is that a term that you are, it must be, because you used it, but is it a term that you are generally comfortable with?
Oh, definitely, no.
I mean, I would rather be an associate than a main guy.
Could you ever have been a main guy in that life of yours?
Oh, my God.
Yeah, they've invited me so many times, but it's just not what I wanted to do, and I knew how they operated.
It's just too dangerous.
I'd rather stay on the periphery.
Okay.
Well, I think we want to dive into talking about you and the life that you led and the association with the mafia.
But I have to ask you some questions first, which are, I guess, going to be more useful for a British audience than perhaps for an audience in the U.S. that will know many of these things already.
Number one, why did you write this book?
I wrote this book now because I'm 76 years of age.
I really want the world to know the story in the right manner, especially my children.
And I thought, you know, this is the timely part of it, and I could release it.
I needed to wait for so many people to die, so I didn't have a problem.
Well, I mean, look, the kind of problem that we are alluding to here is the kind of problem that could have had you wearing concrete shoes.
Let's not put too fine a point on it.
Oh, no, that's, I mean, that's definite.
And it was ironic because God has been so good to me in my life.
I was worried about one other gentleman who was still alive, and he's doing 139 years.
I should correct myself.
He was doing it.
And the book was released March 12th.
The gentleman I'm talking about was Carmine Jr.
Persico.
And in the book, there's a big confrontation with James Cohn Jr. and myself, where I almost got killed.
And he's still alive, but he has a long reach out of prison.
As luck would have it, he passed this March 7th, five days before my book came out.
Well, I guess that's fortuitous for you because the account of this man in your book kind of talked of a guy with the mob who had a bit of a hair trigger mentality, and anything that hinted at disrespect could instantly find you, you know, out of this world and perhaps into the next.
Oh, yeah, I mean, he's been credited for more than 20 murders.
And you did.
One more wouldn't mean a thing.
Well, I mean, you did get on the wrong side of him in the book.
As did James Kahn, Jim Kahn, you call him, who set you up and put you in a position, we're kind of giving away some of the book here, but put you in a position where you disrespected this man.
And, you know, you were about to be either very severely injured or possibly exited from this world, but fortunately, as happened a number of times in your life, you survived.
Okay, well, that kind of does away with the next question, but I'm going to ask it anyway.
This book has been out now for a fortnight, it's made headlines all over the world.
I've looked at stories today.
In fact, I'm holding one from the New York Post.
Stories over in this country, all of our tabloid newspapers and other newspapers have covered this.
You've had a lot of coverage.
There is no going back.
Have you upset anybody now?
Is there anybody still living who is not that happy about this?
Well, you know, my thought is this.
I know most of the people out there, and if I upset them, come see me, and that will be my next book.
That's very, very good.
I mean, you have an amazing memory for the things that you've recalled.
For our British listeners, what is the mafia?
Well, the mafia at one time was a great reason to create a club in Sicily because the land serks were taking advantage of the common Sicilian who was working their land and was not being treated well.
And then it started happening even in America where they were taking advantage of the Italian immigrant and they needed to organize to get some respect.
But like most clubs, once money gets involved and power and egos, it got destroyed.
So the mafia, the original intent was to protect its own people.
And then it got into other businesses and shylocking.
And as money and greed would always do, it ruins a lot of situations.
And what it is today, I call it disorganized crime.
Does it still exist in anything like the form that it existed before?
Not like the form, but it's still definitely very much a part of it.
In fact, I have certain associates, some of my friends that come to my house for dinner.
I know who they are, and they'll always be my friends because that's who I am.
But it's definitely operating and working well.
I don't like their new business.
Most of it's drugs.
But, you know, that's the time and the era we live in.
Because I was under the impression, and clearly I'm wrong, that a lot of mafia operations in the U.S. have gone legit because the sons of sons of sons don't want to do it that way.
It's just like the godfather, you know, the pressure is always there to turn away from that life, to not live like your father did or your grandfather did.
And I thought that was how it had gone, and you're telling me, no, it hasn't.
Well, it has gone that way, and you're right.
I mean, like, for instance, the Gambino family does not have 200 soldiers on the street.
I mean, 2,000 soldiers on the street anymore.
They have a couple of hundred, but they're still very much in existence.
The thing I do not like about the new breed, they have no respect.
The older people had respect for their peers, even people who are not associated.
And it was more of a secret organization than it is today.
They're exploiting it in a way that it's almost cartoonish.
You go back a lot in the book to a man who was the most important person in your life.
He was a mafia boss.
In fact, I think at one point, depends on who you read, he was deemed to be the greatest crime lord in the United States, a man called Frank Costello.
You paint a picture of him as a very warm man, and he was certainly very warm towards you because he took you under his wing.
But he gave a definition, I think it was him in the book, of what the mafia was about.
Now, people listening to this over here, they've only seen movies.
That's all they know.
And that goes for me, too.
It's only what I've read and what I've seen on TV and in The Godfather.
But I think it was Frank Costello who said to you that the mafia is mainly about quality and respect, much more than money and violence.
That's true.
And that's what he professed.
And that's the way they lived for many, many years.
Even Carlo Gambino and Carlos Marcellus, these people did their business, mind their own business.
But if you interfered with it, then there's the problem.
But they were very discreet.
And, I mean, as you pointed out, Frank Costello, I think once he and Maya Lansky created the syndicate, which was above the mafia and organized all the families in the United States and abroad, they were the most powerful men in the world.
To use a line from Godfather II, when Maya Lansky, who was the character in the movie was Hyman Roth, said, we will be bigger than U.S. Steel.
And they were.
I mean, when these people made a pledge and they said they were going to do something, as we will see later in this conversation, nothing stood in their way.
What sets these people apart?
And here's a ballpark question that probably some of my listeners here in the UK are asking now.
From hoodlums and gangsters, why are they different?
You've partly answered this question, but why in your heart and soul do you think they are?
Well, a hoodlum to me is probably the right word to describe the lower excellent that really don't respect and they're in it for the money and the greed and their own positions.
The gentlemen that I knew, and I call them gentlemen, they operated their businesses.
They knew how to run it.
And anybody who interfered with it was spoken to first, but only one time.
And if you kept your nonsense up, they would eradicate you.
But it was only people in their business.
They never went outside that.
They didn't harm anybody that was not a part of it.
They never harmed anybody that, you know, didn't beg to get into it.
You know, it is a club.
Once you're in, the only way out is death.
So, I mean, that's a big statement.
The only way out of this thing is death.
But in so many cases, it's absolutely true.
So these were beasts of prey, but they tended only to prey on their own unless somebody outside started interfering in a way that they didn't want.
Exactly.
Exactly.
I mean, it was really well organized for So many, many years.
I mean, we're talking back to the 18th century here.
Do you feel, Johnny?
And reading through the book, I wondered if you do.
Do you feel in any way conflicted?
I'm talking about today in 2019 about these people because, I mean, the description of Frank Costello, I liked him from your description.
And then I had to remind myself about what he was involved in.
And maybe I had to try to like him a bit less.
But I, you know, I liked him.
You sold him to me.
But do you feel conflicted in yourself that you, for so many years of your life, associated with such people?
Does it give you a problem?
Not at all, because I understood what I was getting into.
And that's probably why I survived.
But understand this.
I mean, to your audience that's listening, my problems went well beyond the mafia.
I mean, I had dealings with Saddam Hussein.
I had dealings with Pablo Escobar.
You did.
These other world leaders that I survived.
You did.
I mean, look, you talk about carrying a little statue, plastic statue of St. Anthony around.
After I've listened to your audiobook version of this, tomorrow I'm going out to buy a statue of St. Anthony because you have had luck over and above.
They come in metal now.
Do they?
They come in metal.
They're easier to carry.
Okay, well, I'm from Liverpool.
I'm from Liverpool, which is a lot like New York.
It's even laid out like New York.
And I had relatives in the park.
Liverpool's an incredible place, but I had relatives who escaped the poverty in Liverpool, went to live as illegals in New York.
Some of them got found out and informed on and ejected from the U.S. through Ellis Island.
So I kind of understand an awful lot of these things.
And, you know, I am partly Catholic, partly Protestant, because that's how Liverpool is.
And the whole St. Anthony thing and the whole Catholic Church thing, I completely get.
Now, early in the book, and as I read the book, or listened to the audio book, I understand why you did this.
But you shocked at the beginning of the book by describing the guy who you shot and killed.
And there was a reason for this.
This guy was in your club.
He had done a terrible thing.
He'd slashed with a broken champagne bottle a woman there in one of the little cubicles there.
And, you know, he was clearly off his head on drugs.
You were the only one who had the bravery.
So many times in the book, this story comes out that you were the one who stepped up to the plate.
You went and tried to deal with this and him.
She was pouring with blood.
He came at you and slashed you across the face, leaving you with a very serious wound around your chin and lower face area.
And he was going to do it again.
You shot him.
And you shot him a second time and killed him.
Now, that was a shocking start to the book.
Do you want to talk to me about that?
Well, my whole reaction to that, basically, I needed to get that lady to a hospital.
I saw the way she was bleeding.
I didn't know who he was.
I gave him the opportunity to walk out.
I warned him that those sirens he is hearing is coming to get him.
They're not going to a fire.
Get out of here.
I don't want no problems with you.
Leave.
I need to get this lady to the hospital.
Then he acted like an idiot, so I had to take him out, which, you know, I've done more than once and so many times that I don't want to throw them all in the book.
But to me, you know, I have this strange feeling, and I'm very religious, that I was put on earth to take care of the bad people.
Well, he was, as you later came to learn, this man was indeed a bad person in a lot of ways.
And, you know, the law decided, lest my listener has any questions to ask about this, the law decided this was a lawful killing because of the circumstances you've talked about.
But the difficulty you had with this is that this man worked for Pablo Escobar, the drug lord, biggest drug lord in the world.
And if you hurt one of his people, then they came to hurt you, and they did.
Well, not only do they come to you, though, you know, they're Santaria, they're Marielitos, and they believe in you suffering as long as you can.
So they start taking out even your pets, your children, anybody around you, and let you suffer the way they're suffering.
See, they believe that soul that I took away from them would not lay to rest until they avenge it.
So that's their mindset.
As I'm a Catholic, they are Mariolithos.
They believe in that.
So the only thing I could see for me to do is to protect the people that I love and care for was to go confront it.
So I went to see Pablo Escalo.
I went through the Bogota.
That's like flying into hell, knowing you may get burnt.
You did.
I mean, you must have done a certain amount of involvement in gambling in your life.
You must have worked out the odds of you not coming out of that one alive.
Well, in fact, John Gotti bet against me, and that's why he made the arrangements.
I was saying, why is he being so kind?
And then I'm on the plane reflecting because I know, I mean, I had so many things you can imagine going through my head where I basically realized I may not be returning.
And then I realized that's why John did this.
He figured this is the night.
He'll get rid of me forever.
Finally, I got rid of this pain in the neck.
And it wasn't the first time.
When they came back.
Right?
When they came back, you couldn't believe it.
And, you know, it wasn't the first time that John Gotti, massive, massive, mafia baron in himself tried to exit you.
But you did a calculation, didn't you?
The calculation was, I stay here and I'm going to have continued attacks on myself, those I love, my home, everything around me until they get me.
Or I have to go and risk my life and try and talk with Escobar.
Just tell me briefly what happened then when you get face to face with Escobar, you go out there and you try and reason with the man.
What happened?
Well, I did my research knowing he had children.
And all I asked for, I mean, I was being tortured.
I was in a chamber.
I don't even know how many hours I was there already.
And basically, I thought that was it.
I mean, there were body bags laying around me.
Extinction death was totally evident.
And all of a sudden, There's a guy standing in front of me, well-dressed, not in fatigues.
I couldn't raise my head above my shoulders.
I just saw up to his knees and his hand holding a book called The Making of the Godfather.
And the next thing I hear is Pablo Escobar's voice saying, why don't you tell me you were Carlo?
Which I couldn't believe.
It was like a miracle.
And that was amazing because that book and the fact that you were Carlo Rizzi in The Godfather saved your life.
You were out of that place where you were being attacked and tortured and ultimately would probably have died.
They put you into a hotel room, gave you clean clothes, and again you lived.
Not even a hotel room.
This was in his compound yet.
This was the prison he built for himself.
And he wanted to have dinner with me.
And fortunately, he was very, I couldn't believe that I had the nerve enough to fly over there.
He wanted to know why and how I did that.
And I told him, I said, I know you have children.
And like I do, I had to preserve their lives.
You as a father, you would have did the same thing.
I had nothing to do with this.
This man came into my club.
He stabbed a woman.
I tried to rescue her to get her medical help.
And he stabbed me.
And I showed him my scar.
I had 182 stitches around my chin.
And he never heard that story, which I knew Gotti or anyone else never told him.
And he was even, I mean, he hugged me.
And I'm saying to myself, this is nuts.
First, I'm getting beat to death downstairs.
Now the guy's hugging me.
But again, I knew, and I didn't know until I got out of there if I was ever going to get out.
You know, these people have such mood changes and he's so powerful.
I didn't want him to think that maybe letting me go would show a sign of weakness.
Well, you have to be constantly prepared to meet your maker one way or another.
We're going to have to take a break for commercials here.
Believe me, I don't want to on this occasion because the man we're talking with is not only one of the luckiest people alive, but also has, for my money, and I've met a few people in my time, the most interesting life story that I've ever heard.
And maybe you have too.
More from him in just a moment.
Here on The Unexplained.
Stay here.
Howard Hughes here, The Unexplained across the UK, round the world.
If you're listening in the United States, maybe some parts of this man's story you will know already.
I'm guessing to my European audience, most of this, apart from the appearance in The Godfather, is going to be new.
Gianni Russo is here.
His book is out Hollywood Godfather.
He was a mafia associate and knew all the big names.
You name a name.
And he had some dealings with them over time.
And we were talking, weren't we, Gianni, about your encounter with Pablo Escobar, the drug baron who almost had you killed, thanks to the good interventions of John Gotti, the mafia boss who didn't really have a lot of time for you and wouldn't have been at all disappointed if you hadn't come back or you'd come back in a body bag.
You knew, and I just, before we get to a discussion of Marilyn Monroe, who I want to talk about, you've known over the years an awful lot of massively famous people.
Frank Sinatra in the book comes across as a perfectionist who wanted to be in charge of everything, and if you failed him in any way, then he would blacklist you.
That was probably it.
But again, you were lucky because you've got yourself into that position, but he took you off the blacklist.
You remained his friend.
And Marlon Brando in The Godfather, you were very close with him, but not before a difficult start.
Really?
Really?
Well, Brando, the story about Brando on the set of The Godfather, there you are, new to acting, but you've got a background in this.
In fact, there were some mafia people involved in the filming of The Godfather, the wedding scene in the book.
You talk of how some of the people, the guests there, were genuine, you know, mafia characters, wise guys, as they call them.
And when we use the term wise guys, we have to use that advisory because that has a specific meaning.
You know, there were genuine wise guys there in the audience at the wedding.
So very much a part of this.
But you got on set with Brando, and Brando said to you, have you done any acting before?
And you said, no, Mr. Brando, I've had no acting experience.
But you had a lot of courage, and, you know, you had the looks and the voice and everything else.
So Brando wanted you taken off the film.
And you, shall we say, accompanied him to a corner of the set, whispered a few choice words into his ears, suggesting that there may be a price to be paid that you would exact upon him if he didn't allow you to be in this film, which was a big opportunity.
Brando thought you were acting, didn't he?
Yeah, what happened there was I was so embarrassed because, first of all, I was never on a set before, and I was so happy to be in this movie.
I had a big party and celebrated.
Eight of my friends said, how are you going to be in this movie?
They had great actors.
And they didn't believe me.
And now Brando, after him approaching me in the rehearsal, called Francis Ford Copper over because he questioned me and he said, you're a great TV actor.
I said, no.
He said, you have a big motion picture coming out.
I said, no.
He said, well, you're not on Broadway.
I know everybody on Broadway.
I said, you're right again.
He said, who'd you study with?
I said, study what?
And then he calls the director over, Francis Mort Coppola, and he said, Francis, he's playing Carl.
He's got to be a tremendous, believable actor.
I think you should rethink this.
And I'm saying to myself, wait a minute, this guy's trying to get me fired.
So I didn't want to embarrass him, and I don't know protocol on a set because I've never been on a set.
So I dismissed the director, which you can't do.
I said, Francis Coppola, go over there a minute.
I want to talk to him privately.
And then I did another sacrilege.
I put my arm around him.
Which nobody did.
Nobody could even talk to the guy, not alone me touching him.
And I walked him outside of earshot of all the other actors who were present because I didn't want to embarrass them.
So I got as close as I could right in his space to Mr. Brando, with all due respect, you screw this up for me.
Listen to me.
I'm going to suck on your heart.
You'll die right here.
Do not do this to me.
And he looked at me and he said, That was brilliant.
You could do this part.
He thought I was acting.
Did you ever tell him, as you got to know him over the years, that actually, when I said that to you, Mr. Brando, I meant it?
Oh, he got to know that when he was hanging out with me.
Jeez.
And also, I know we're kind of diving all around the book here, but I love the account of how, as you got to know him, Marlon Brando, and who isn't, but I'm a huge fan of Brando.
What an actor.
He wanted to meet a real Mafia boss.
It wasn't just enough for him to play one in the movie.
He wanted to meet a real Mafia boss.
So you were able to arrange a meeting with John Gotti, a man you don't mess with, and the two of them got on like a house on fire so much that Brando was delayed by hours and hours and hours to go to the filming that he was supposed to be doing that day.
But, you know, you kind of set up a friendship between them, didn't you?
Well, it was a funny thing because my very close friend, who's still my friend, he's doing a lot of time right now, was Joe Watts.
And Joe Watts was an enforcer for John Gotti.
And everybody knows him.
You look up anybody in the mob, you know Joe Watts.
So Joe came to me and he says, you've got to do me a favor.
John wants to meet Marlon Brando.
He knows you're shooting in the neighborhood.
We were shooting a movie called A Freshman with Matthew Broderick and Bruno Kirby.
It was a fabulous movie, actually.
And I said, let me see what I can do.
He didn't know that Marlon Brando said the same thing to me.
So I figured, let me leverage this.
Now I'll have, they'll both be indebted to me for doing them favors.
But it actually so I went to the producer.
I told him they want to meet.
He's okay, but he has to be on set by 8 o'clock.
I said, well, let me, all I'm going to do is take him to the Ravenite.
So we went to the Ravenite, which was right down the block from where we were shooting.
And this was around 7 o'clock.
And they start talking.
And, you know, and then, which I thought was unique, I wish I had a camera.
Marlon Brander was doing magic tricks for John Guy.
And he did more magic tricks than you thought he knew.
I know.
It was so bizarre.
Here's the real godfather and the fictitious one from the movie entertaining each other.
And did they stay friends?
Well, they stood as much friends as they could because then, you know, John started having all his problems and indictments and all of that.
And then Brando went back to Hollywood.
But I wouldn't say they struck up a friendship after that, though.
This is a difficult question to ask, right?
And I can understand why you may not be able to answer this, or it may just be irrelevant, okay?
It wouldn't be the first time I'd asked one of those.
In this day and age in 2019, although you're not involved with such people, in fact, most of those people are no longer around.
They're either dead or a very few in prison.
If you had a problem, would you know who to call these days or would you sort it yourself?
I just solve it myself.
No, I, you know, that's the one thing they all respect me from, I mean, from here to Sicily, they know I can handle myself, and I have in the past.
And I never called anybody.
I just discreetly take care of it myself.
It's my business.
And that's probably why I'm not doing fine.
Because I don't call anybody and nobody can rat on me as the, you know, people have made a history of like Henry Hill and Joe Valachi.
They all saved their own skin by giving everybody else up.
And I made a decision early on.
Anything I needed to do, I could do it myself.
I proved that early on in the hospital.
And I had no problem with taking out bad people.
You talked about the hospital as a child.
You had polio.
It left you with a problem with your arm.
Not only that, you had not an easy childhood.
You had a dad who, you know, for want of a better way of describing it, who was wayward.
And a mum who did her very best for you.
You ended up selling ballpoint pens on a street corner in Middown Manhattan.
And one day, and we have to get into the story of you and Frank Costello, a man appeared and gave you a $5 bill.
And that continued every day.
Yep, never took a pen.
And then eventually, eventually he gave you $200, I think it was, and said, you're coming to work for me.
And that was you becoming a messenger, an errand person for one of the most powerful crime people in the U.S. Yeah.
Well, it was interesting how that happened because as you mentioned, he repeatedly come by every day and give me the money, never take a pen, but always touched my left shoulder, which was my bad shoulder.
And one day coming out of Mass down in Little Italy, Precious Blood, I saw a new Lagorn, the horn that the people wear around their necks, the superstitious.
I saw one with a hunchback on it.
So I went into the store.
It's amazing.
The store still exists.
It's right next to Ferrari's Petri Shop on Mott Street.
It's still there.
So I went into the store and I said, what's with this Lagorna with the hunchback?
They said, that's very Sicilian.
Sicilians feel if they touch an afflicted person, it gives them luck.
And I was really upset because I thought Mr. Costello, and I didn't know his name yet, really liked me.
So the next day, when he comes to approach me, on my way uptown in that morning, I bought a rabbit's foot, which was a lucky charm.
It probably is in Europe also at one time, where you carry your rabbit's foot to luck.
So I bought one.
I bought an obnoxious one, like a turquoise or a bright pink.
And I put it in my pocket.
And as he came to approach me to touch my shoulder, I moved my shoulder away.
He said, What are you doing?
I said, Nothing.
Touch me again.
I moved it away.
I said, if you're touching me for luck, I've got something for you.
And I gave him this rabbit's foot.
Well, he could never believe that I would have the nerve to insult him like this.
And the gentleman that was with him every day, I thought it was his close friend.
It happened to be his bodyguard.
And it wasn't until you asked a doorman at a nearby building, who is that guy?
And then he told you.
And then when I said to him, I said, he said, Blackie, take that cigar box.
And I said, you're not taking, because the cigar box had my money and the ballpoint pens.
So I pulled it closer to me.
I said, you're not taking this.
And as you pointed out, he gave me a couple of hundred dollar bills.
And I never saw that much money in my life.
He says, from now on, you don't do this.
Because he was amazed of the kind of out-mouth balls that I would talk to him that way.
I was 12 or 13 years of age.
I mean, that came out of ignorance.
You just didn't know.
But I have a feeling with you, you've got a certain amount of courage about you.
Even if you had known who he was, I don't think you'd have taken the disrespect.
It wasn't ignorance.
It was respect.
I didn't like the idea that he was using me as a good luck charm.
Yeah, self-respect.
We have a lot to get through, so I'm not going to say very much apart from Janny Russo.
So we're continuing your story now.
Frank Costello, very important man in your life.
He was a man who effectively, we were college today, he mentored you.
You were running errands messages for him, and you were doing very well at it.
He liked you very clearly, but it was discovered that you had to get some schooling in.
You were 14, so you had to go to school.
And the way that he got you around that was to enroll you in a school, I think, for hairdressers.
And then you ended up working at a hairdressing salon in New York where they shampooed some of the best connected heads in the United States, including the Kennedy women and Marilyn Monroe.
Which is how you came to meet Marilyn, isn't it?
I mean, here I am in this unbelievable.
Lily Dashe was a known haberdasher throughout the world.
And she had this salon on 56th and Park Avenue.
And the fourth had a hair as I approached the shampoo booth, because they were all private booths.
And when the ladies came in, they took off their expensive clothes and they put on this wonderful little robe.
And we all know the configuration of a shampoo bowl.
And I walk in and there's Marilyn Monroe with her head back in the sink, looking at the ceiling.
And I couldn't believe this is Marilyn Monroe.
But you apparently, you didn't know who it was, did you?
You were shampooing her hair, and she loved the way that you were massaging so much that she was actually moaning.
And you thought, oh, I'm obviously doing this very well.
Then you discovered it was Marilyn, right?
Yeah, not only that, as that was happening and she was moaning, I get this giant erection.
You know, I'm 15 years old.
And then she started requesting me.
But you ended up having an affair with Marilyn, and it was nothing, it's a beautiful description in the book.
You know, she invited you back to her hotel room, and that started something.
But it wasn't in any way sordid from the account that you give.
No, it wasn't at all because, you know, we had such parallels.
And I never had room service.
I was never in a hotel room.
I never had champagne.
She offered me champagne.
And as we were talking, we realized she was in an orphanage at the same time I was in the hospital in New York.
I mean, she was, you know, 15, 16 years older than me, but she was in an orphanage and she used to look at the water tower of the Warner Brothers film studio and said, one day I'm going to be in that studio.
And like myself, I finally got the window bed in the hospital, and I was always kept downtown in Little Italy.
And I'm on 30th Street now looking at the Empire State Building from my window.
And I said, someday I'm going to be uptown.
So we had all these parallels.
And out of it, you know, out of us both needing a hug, which we both did need, it turned into this wonderful friendship that, you know, obviously turned into her teaching me how to become a man, which was amazing.
But it only lasted four years, unfortunately, because since she was killed.
Yep, and that is what's made you headlines around the world.
I mentioned that I had the New York Post version of the story, which is based on your book here.
And their headline was, Godfather actor, that's you, claims he knows who killed Marilyn Monroe.
So, you know, a lot of people, and, you know, those people include me, find it very hard to believe that Marilyn Monroe actually committed suicide.
You know, I've never really accepted that, and I'm by no means alone.
How did she die?
My understanding is this.
She was there to be used by the mob to blackmail the Kennedy brothers.
They used to go to Cal Neva all the time.
In fact, I've seen Senator John Kennedy in Cal Neva and at the Sands Hotel years before he became president while they were grooming him.
But his brother, Robert Kennedy, was the attorney general attacking all his father's friends and associates because he was the righteous one.
So they thought if they can get the two Kennedy boys together one more time with Marilyn Monroe, take photographs, blackmail these Catholic boys, that they would lay off the mob.
And Marilyn just wouldn't go along with it.
I heard her voice from the cabin Where she was, because it's associated groups of cabins in the woods up in the mountains of Nevada, borderline of California.
And she's screaming that she was going public.
Now, the process of elimination, the people that were there was Joe Kennedy, who was already in a stroke in a wheelchair, Robert, who had the conversation with Marilyn that provoked her to say she was going to go public with them, and their careers would be ruined.
There's no one else in that company I was with, even with Sam Gene, Connor, and heads of other families that would ever kill Marilyn.
They love Marilyn, and she was a friend of theirs.
So the process of elimination, she leaves, Bobby Kennedy leaves, and I know the doctor.
They used to call him the doctor.
They've used him numerous times.
He had no allegiance to the mafia, the CIA.
He was a man for work for hire.
And I met him through different circumstances because I wanted to learn different techniques if I needed them.
And he taught me.
And basically, Robert Kennedy needed her killed, and he did the work.
What he did basically threw her pubic hairs, so they were undetected, with a large syringe in her foreropian organ, which we all have in our groin, male or female, pumped air into that organ and that main vein, which created an embolism.
So she died of an embolism which would have been undetectable.
Untraceable.
Now, there was an inquest.
The inquest at the time, you know, the general consensus view was that it was a suicide.
They reopened the case.
I think it was 1982, wasn't it?
And the person who conducted the inquiry the second time did not disagree with the findings of the first coroner.
Well, the reason why, her blood count, not like any normal person, had that much drugs in it all the time as a daily habit.
So there was drugs present.
And, you know, don't forget Lyndon Bain Johnson, there were still a lot of people that were alive that were involved with this.
Most people don't know that after those assassinations, 73 more people were killed that had anything to do with all of those killings, including the CIA and including some of the state troopers from Texas.
If there was a reinvestigation now into Marilyn's case, and you mentioned JFK, into the JFK case, would you be willing to give evidence about Marilyn, say?
Well, I don't have any evidence.
See, mine is all hearsay, and I wouldn't put myself in that position because it could be disputed.
My reason for what I'm saying is a process of elimination, and I knew the damage she was about to do on that, you know, with the news.
And knowing them as they were, they were controllers.
I mean, that's that mine is just because I was in that world, I knew the people, all the players.
There was no one else to benefit by her dying than Robert F. Kennedy.
The full story is in your book, Hollywood Godfire, though.
We have to say it is your view, but it isn't a view that I have not heard before.
And, you know, I'm sure it'll be continually discussed.
JFK, what I read and what I heard in the audio book of the JFK case and your part in it to some extent surprised me and indeed shocked me.
I was a messenger, and as I was, it's funny because as I reflect on it, even in the book, I did these same routes of messages and envelopes to get him to become president.
I went to every crime family in every state in New York, I mean, state of the United States, with Marcellos, with Kofi Savela, the Nafios, every major crime family that had a body of votes, like the Teamsters, the culinary unions, the international longshoremen.
They needed all these votes.
And even during the primary, they realized he may not win.
That's when they made the deal with Linda Bain Johnson.
Linda Bain Johnson hated the Kennedys and anything they represented.
But he went along with it because the mob guaranteed him that the next eight years after John F. Kennedy, he would do the next eight years.
Well, obviously, they didn't go to eight years because then they had the assassination because nobody cooperated, but Linda Bain Johnson brought Kennedy to the target and had the cooperation of the state troopers.
So they knew what was going on that day.
And basically, Linda Bain Johnson did eight years in the White House.
That is astonishing.
And as we say, it is in the book.
But your part of this was that you were doing what you do, and that was ferrying messages.
And if I read this right, if I heard this right, one of the messages that you had to convey was the message, very simply, it's on.
Is that right?
Yeah, what happened was that was for Marcelos.
Carlos Marcelos and Antoni Anastasia controlled all the international longshoremen.
That's all the ports from San Francisco to New York City.
Their brotherhood alone was a big body of vote.
And what happened, Joe Kennedy made a pledge to the mafia that if their son became president, they would invade Cuba and get their casinos back.
And it was a win-win for the United States government because all the mob would go back to Cuba, get into their gaming business there, and the brother would become president.
Well, that never happened because when he appointed Robert F. Kennedy to be the attorney general, as I just mentioned, he went against everybody.
So like I went down to bring envelopes to spread around the membership to get him president, I went down unbeknownst to me of who And what the target was going to be, and if there was going to be an assassination, I just went down, brought a message from Mr. Costello and an envelope.
And when I landed, I had to go to the bathroom.
And I was heading to the bathroom, and Marcelo said, There's someone in there.
Wait a minute.
A man comes out.
He bunks into me.
I didn't pay any attention.
I go to the bathroom.
I go see Marcelos.
I give him the envelope.
And I said, what's the message Mr. C wants to know?
He says, it's on.
And you didn't know what it was.
I don't know what it was.
And I was going to sit down and have something to eat.
He said, no, no, no, there's no time for that.
Get back to the city.
So I go back to New York.
And I give Costello that message.
It's on.
And then it was a couple of days later, he had me leave the country.
And I'd go anywhere, he told me.
And he put you on a boat, on a long boat trip to Barcelona, Spain.
And then you discovered while you were on the boat, because they still had television reception, that JFK had been killed.
And then you saw on television a picture of the man who was the prime suspect, Lee Harvey Oswald, and you realized you'd seen him before.
Well, you're almost correct.
As we were leaving ports of Verrazano, they still had television, and they said he was shot, not dead.
Now we're out to sea, and they had a telex newspaper the next morning, and it was Lee Harvey Oswald, the guy that bumped into me.
My God.
And I found out later, 22 months I was gone.
I found out later that each three mafia families wanted their own shooters.
The government had their own shooter.
And Lyndon Mayne Johnson had his state troopers as backup.
And that's how it came down.
And you say in the book, and the way you put it is very powerful, that you still feel bad about this because you had a part in what you call in the book, the crime of the century, which arguably it was.
Yeah, and I got, as I said, mentioned earlier, I used to drink with this guy, Senator John F. Kennedy, the nicest guy in the world.
I thought he was a little bizarre because, you know, we look and we reveal these presidents and who they should be and their images.
But I watched this guy snorting Coke off of Julia Prouse's nude stomach.
I mean, this is going to be the president of the United States.
I'm saying, wow, this guy is a party man.
It's unbelievable.
Well, you know, in the world of entertainment or the world of politics, that's the kind of thing that goes on.
But do you not consider yourself even now in some way an accessory to the murder?
Not at all, because, you know, I had 23 fellow indictments and I've honestly said what I thought.
It was only hearsay.
It's my opinion.
And I did not know.
Fast forwarding to today, it must be something that preys on your mind a lot, I would have thought.
Or is it?
Well, I mean, that target.
I mean, John F. Kennedy, what would the world be if he was able to do his eight years?
I mean, this guy had such great vision.
I mean, just socialized medicine, something you over there have.
We don't have it here yet.
You know, it's crazy what we pay for medicine over here.
And again, him being the visionary that he was, what I dwell on is if, what if he lived?
What would it be?
I mean, I already had my position.
I was doing well.
I mean, I did extremely well.
Listen.
I allude to the posture.
I moved over $800 million for these people.
Gianni, I've loved this.
I wish you well with the book.
One very final thing to ask.
Looking back on 50 years, do you have any regrets?
Not one.
Great answer.
It's Hollywood Godfather.
The book is Hollywood Godfather.
Personally, I would prefer it if you heard the audiobook, because to hear this man's voice read this in a way that only he can because it's his life is one of your life's experiences.
Johnny Russo, thank you.
Thank you.
Well, I think for my money, that is probably one of, if not the, most astonishing life story that I've ever heard.
And many aspects of it are truly unexplained.
I really do enjoy talking to people who've got a story behind them.
In many ways, everybody has a story.
You don't have to be a well-known celebrity or a headline maker to have a story.
My belief is that everybody has a story.
They've just got to think about it.
The number of times, it only happened to me in a taxi a few days ago in London.
And I was talking about the show that I do, and we mentioned paranormality.
And the guy I was speaking to, the driver, really didn't have a lot of time for it.
And then he did what so many people did.
He said, mind you.
And then he reeled off his own experience.
So, I think that means that everybody has a story, not only paranormally, but also in their lives to tell.
Everybody has equal value.
It's just that some people get the spotlight shone upon them and others don't.
I hope you enjoy Gianni Russo.
More great gets in the pipeline as the summer rolls on here in the United Kingdom.
My name is Howard Hughes.
This has been The Unexplained Online, and please, whatever you do, stay safe, stay calm, and above all, please stay in touch.
Thank you very much.
Take care.
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