# Mogul who got horse's head in "Godfather" - Did this reference a real life event? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 17, 2002, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mogul-who-got-horses-head-in-godfather-did-this-reference-a-real-life-event/119475 "2002-07-17T20:57:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2002, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mogul-who-got-horses-head-in-godfather-did-this-reference-a-real-life-event/119475/1 "2002-07-17T20:57:56Z")
Well did it? Was there a real life player this happened to, who liked little girls and refused to release a mob connected singer from his contract? ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2002, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mogul-who-got-horses-head-in-godfather-did-this-reference-a-real-life-event/119475/2 "2002-07-17T22:07:30Z")
Short answer: No, it’s not a true story, but it’s based on long-standing rumors about real life celebrities. I’ll give you some facts first, just as background: In the early 1950s, Frank Sinatra’s career was fading fast. He hadn’t had a hit record in several years, the Big Band era was coming to a close, the dance halls where he’d always performed were starting to close down, and the old Hollywood studio system was beginning to break down… which meant there were going to be fewer and fewer big-budget musicals of the type he’d been appearing in. Now, around this time, Sinatra had read the best selling novel, “From Here to Eternity,” and he identified strongly with the character Maggio. When he heard that Warner Brothers was going to make a movie of that book, he was determined to get the role of Maggio. He was convinced that if he could get that role, he could show Hollywood he had the talent to be a serious actor, and might revitalize his career. He begged Jack Warner for the role… but ultimately, the role was given to Eli Wallach. However… not long before filming began, Eli Wallach dropped out of the film, and Sinatra was hired to replace him. As it turned out Sinatra was very good in the role, and he won an Oscar. Just as he’d hoped, the role revitalized his career, and made hi ma big star again. Now, it’s well known that Sinatra had close ties to the Mafia. And a lot of people were suspicious when Eli Wallach dropped out, and Sinatra got the part. Thus, rumors abounded in the show biz community that the Mafia had beaten up or threatened Jack Warner, to get the role for Frank SInatra. - THAT’S what we know for certain. Now, Mario Puzo, who wrote “The Godfather,” had heard those rumors, and decided to use them in his book. He created a character named Johnny Fontaine, who was based on Frank Sinatra. As you recall, in the movie, Fontaine begs Don Corleone to get him a role in a movie. Corleone sends Tom Hagen to lean on a studio head to give Fontaine the part. When the studio boss refuses, Corleone’s goons kill his horse and leave its head in the studio boss’ bed. - Now, DID the Mob get the role for Sinatra? The evidence says no. Eli Wallach is still alive, and he insists that it was HIS idea to leave the cast of “From Here to Eternity,” because he’d been offered the lead role in a new Tennessee Williams play on Broadway. According to Wallach, he asked Jack Warner’s permission to leave the movie, and Warner essentially shrugged and said, “Okay. Frank Sinatra auditioned well for the part, so if you want to do the play, go ahead. Sinatra can play Maggio.” Assuming Wallach is telling the truth (and even Kitty Kelly thinks he is!), Wallach gave up the role of his own free will, and Frank Sinatra just got a lucky break. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2002, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mogul-who-got-horses-head-in-godfather-did-this-reference-a-real-life-event/119475/3 "2002-07-17T22:45:31Z")
Just a nitpick, astorian, but I believe that FHTE was made at Columbia, which would make the mogul Harry Cohn, not Jack Warner. Cohn would have fit the image better - he notoriously demanded sexual favors from his starlets, and kept a chair in his waiting room rigged to electrically shock his victims, until it was destroyed by Frank Capra. According to one story, Ava Gardner went to Cohn to beg that he put Sinatra in FHTE and restore his flagging career - but nobody believes that she had to trade sex for the deal. ---
**Author:** ![Ross](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e274bd/32.png) [@Ross](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ross)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2002, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mogul-who-got-horses-head-in-godfather-did-this-reference-a-real-life-event/119475/4 "2002-07-17T22:45:48Z")
It’s actually taken from a scene in _The Young ones_ when Rik discovers a large severed moose head in Neil’s bed. It turns out that Neil owes Mike £1.50, and hasn’t paid. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![RTA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b4bc9f/32.png) [@RTA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTA)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2002, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mogul-who-got-horses-head-in-godfather-did-this-reference-a-real-life-event/119475/5 "2002-07-17T23:38:52Z")
That reminds me of a story: [http://www.xemu.demon.co.uk/clam/faq/woofglug.html](http://www.xemu.demon.co.uk/clam/faq/woofglug.html) ---
**Author:** ![middleman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9a140/32.png) [@middleman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/middleman)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2002, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mogul-who-got-horses-head-in-godfather-did-this-reference-a-real-life-event/119475/6 "2002-07-18T01:48:18Z")
“I put a horse-a head in his-a bed. He ate it and-a give it-a bad review!” ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2002, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mogul-who-got-horses-head-in-godfather-did-this-reference-a-real-life-event/119475/7 "2002-07-18T01:58:23Z")
As an aside, I’ve heard that the horse that first appears in the film was euthanised and decapitated, and **it’s actual severed head** was used in the later scene. Not sure if its true or not, but eww! :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Umbriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/9de053/32.png) [@Umbriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Umbriel)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2002, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mogul-who-got-horses-head-in-godfather-did-this-reference-a-real-life-event/119475/8 "2002-07-18T02:36:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Hail Ants \* > \*\*As an aside, I’ve heard that the horse that first appears in the film was euthanised and decapitated, and **it’s actual severed head** was used in the later scene. > > Not sure if its true or not, but eww! :eek: \*\* The version I heard (back around the time the movie was released) was that it was indeed a real horse head in the scene, but that of a horse that had been put down due to a terminal illness. The live horse used in the earlier scenes was simply a look-alike. Anyone with a “Citation”?[rimshot];)[/rimshot] ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2002, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mogul-who-got-horses-head-in-godfather-did-this-reference-a-real-life-event/119475/9 "2002-07-18T03:41:05Z")
\*What I heard \* ,YMMV, was that in that infamous scene, that the actor was never told what exactly it was going to be put in his bed and to act naturally. I don’t buy it, but it makes for good fodder. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2002, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mogul-who-got-horses-head-in-godfather-did-this-reference-a-real-life-event/119475/10 "2002-07-18T03:53:02Z")
[This site says the story may well be based on a real person per Slithy Tove’s note](http://www.angelfire.com/biz4/theratpack/tuohyarticles/kingcohn.html) Part of article below > [@](#): > > If it is, the film producer in question may have been Harry “King” Cohn, a nickname he had given himself, who rose out of the slums of New York, to become the head of a major American film studio. But, the streets never left him and Cohn was as rude, crude and vulgar. He regaled in his own ignorance and his ability to offend. > > As a producer, many people in the business considered Cohn to be the meanest, most vindictive and hard-nosed man in Hollywood, with a sadistic power fixation. Once, after visiting Italy in 1933 and befriending Mussolini, he would keep a signed photo of the dictator on his desk until the war started, when Cohn returned to Hollywood and had his office remodeled after Il Duce’s, with the desk risen on a dais from which he could look down at the writers and directors who worked under him; men like the talented Ben Hecht who despised Cohn and his famous temper tantrums, and gave him his nickname “White Fang.” > > Starlets who worked for Cohn had to endure at least one “hell week” of sleeping with Cohn if they intended to make it at Columbia, and, in 1948, it was Marilyn Monroe’s turn. Cohn had always said that he considered Monroe “a second string no talent with tits” and that the only reason he hired her was that Tony Accardo, then boss of the Chicago mob, owned Monroe’s career and had told Johnny Roselli to force Cohninto signing Monroe on with Columbia Studios. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2002, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mogul-who-got-horses-head-in-godfather-did-this-reference-a-real-life-event/119475/11 "2002-07-18T05:17:28Z")
Slithy Tove writes: \> Just a nitpick, astorian, but I believe that FHTE was made at \> Columbia, which would make the mogul Harry Cohn, not Jack \> Warner. True, but the character in the book and movie (whose name is Jack Woltz) also has some resemblances to Jack Warner. I suspect that Mario Puzo meant to have all the events in his book be composites of Mafia stories he had heard, but in this one case he came closer to the story of Sinatra and _From Here to Eternity_ than he really intended. The trivia page on _The Godfather_ has some information about that scene: [http://us.imdb.com/Trivia?0068646](http://us.imdb.com/Trivia?0068646) ---
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2002, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mogul-who-got-horses-head-in-godfather-did-this-reference-a-real-life-event/119475/12 "2002-07-18T05:31:11Z")
I recently watched a friend’s DVD of “The Godfather Trilogy”. On the added materials disc (which is a lot of stuff), Coppola and his other crew members say that the horse’s head was real. It had to have its nose painted so it would resemble the horse used in the earlier shots. The actor, John Marley, rehearsed the scene with a phony horse’s head that the studio wanted to use. Coppola insisted on a real one (primarily because the fake ones looked … fake) and had a rendering plant send over a fresh head. I’m pretty sure that John Marley did that scene knowing there was a real horse’s head in the bed. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2002, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mogul-who-got-horses-head-in-godfather-did-this-reference-a-real-life-event/119475/13 "2002-07-18T05:34:39Z")
The idea may also owe a debt to rumours of how some of Sinatra’s friends “convinced” Tommy Dorsey to free Sinatra from a contract. ---
**Author:** ![Ross](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e274bd/32.png) [@Ross](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ross)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2002, 9:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mogul-who-got-horses-head-in-godfather-did-this-reference-a-real-life-event/119475/14 "2002-07-18T09:37:08Z")
I can believe it’s a real head from a horse that died some other way, but frankly it’s a bit much to believe they went around looking for some animal with a terminal illness when there are hundreds of horses being chopped up for dogfood every day. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2002, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mogul-who-got-horses-head-in-godfather-did-this-reference-a-real-life-event/119475/15 "2002-07-18T13:44:45Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ross \* > \*\*I can believe it’s a real head from a horse that died some other way, but frankly it’s a bit much to believe they went around looking for some animal with a terminal illness when there are hundreds of horses being chopped up for dogfood every day. \*\* According to several of the the sites I visited the horse’s head was obtained from a [slaughter house](http://www.voy.com/48534/9/306.html). > [@](#): > > Acclaimed director Francis Ford Coppola used a real horse head in a shocking scene in movie The Godfather. The memorable movie scene shows a Hollywood tycoon waking up to find the severed animal part beside him in his bed. Movie fans assumed the bloody head was a fake but animal-rights activists believed it was the real thing and bombarded Coppola with letters alleging a horse had been slaughtered merely to give the film added realism. Now, in the recently-released Godfather DVD Collection, Coppola admits he used a real head. “It came from a slaughterhouse where horses were being destroyed for dog food,” he says. ---
**Author:** ![Labdad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/439d5e/32.png) [@Labdad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labdad)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2002, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mogul-who-got-horses-head-in-godfather-did-this-reference-a-real-life-event/119475/16 "2002-07-18T18:39:56Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Bryan Ekers \* > \*\*The idea may also owe a debt to rumours of how some of Sinatra’s friends “convinced” Tommy Dorsey to free Sinatra from a contract. \*\* [hijack] Jay Leno once said the funniest joke he’d ever heard was told by veteran Vegas comic Shecky Greene: Shecky: "You know, a lot of people talk about what a bastard Frank Sinatra is. It’s not true. Frank Sinatra’s a prince. In fact, one time he saved my life. A couple of thugs were beating the hell out of me one night in a casino parking lot and Frank said, ‘Okay fellas. He’s had enough!’ " [/hijack] ---
**Author:** ![Wartime\_Consigliori](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/9d8465/32.png) [@Wartime\_Consigliori](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wartime_Consigliori)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2002, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mogul-who-got-horses-head-in-godfather-did-this-reference-a-real-life-event/119475/17 "2002-07-18T20:30:03Z")
The following site is a treasure trove of info on the Godfather movies. Enjoy! [http://www.jgeoff.com/godfather/](http://www.jgeoff.com/godfather/) Sincerely Yours, Your Friendly Neighborhood Family Advisor 😃