Al Lettieri

An Italian-American from New York City, Lettieri was fluent in Sicilian and Italian. His brother-in-law was Pasquale Eboli, brother of Genovese crime family boss Thomas Eboli.^[2]

Lettieri—credited as "Anthony Lettier"—had a role in the 1958 Perry Mason episode "The Case of the Fugitive Nurse" as Arthur Strome.^[3] At the age of 36, he had a role in the television film The Hanged Man (1964).^[4]

Before his notable film roles materialized, Lettieri offered his services as a dialogue coach on five productions, including the 1968 wartime classic Where Eagles Dare. He was credited variously as "Alfredo Lettieri" and "Al Lettier" during this phase of his career.^[5]

Lettieri is best known for his role as Sicilian heroin trafficker Virgil Sollozzo in the 1972 American crime film The Godfather. In his 2024 autobiography, Al Pacino describes how Lettieri took him to visit a suburban New York family that resembled the Corleones after telling him, “You should meet this guy. It's good for what you're doing”. Pacino concluded, "Little Al knew some guys. Some real guys. And now he was introducing me to one of them."^[6] This was the second film in which Lettieri and Marlon Brando worked together, the first being The Night of the Following Day (1969).^{[citation needed]}

He wrote the film adaptation that became the screenplay for the 1971 gangster movie Villain, which starred Richard Burton and Ian McShane.^[7][8] Lettieri played the brutal, libidinous henchman Rudy Butler in Steve McQueen's 1972 action film The Getaway,^[9] and the menacing hit man Frank Renda in the 1974 Charles Bronson film Mr. Majestyk.^[10][11]

In 1975, he went to Italy to co-star in the Bud Spencer comedy Piedone a Hong Kong. He subsequently appeared in two more Italian films, Go Gorilla Go (1976) with Fabio Testi,^[12] and top-billed in the Pupi Avati-directed House of Pleasure for Women (1976). He was originally cast in the lead of Mario Bava's crime thriller Rabid Dogs, but was let go three days into principal photography, reportedly after showing up on the set intoxicated.^[13]

At age 47, Lettieri died of a heart attack in New York City in October 1975.