The Godfather Video Game Wiki
Register
Advertisement

Santino "Sonny" Corleone was the Underboss and acting Don of the Corleone crime family from 1945 to 1949. The hot-tempered son of Don Vito Corleone, the Godfather, Santino started out helping Genco Abbandando in the olive oil business and rose to Underboss after threatening a crew of maintenance men coming to fix the Corleone Compound in 1939. Corleone's hot temper triggered his downfall and death in 1951.

Biography[]

Early Life[]

Santino Corleone was born and raised in Hell's Kitchen to Vito Corleone and his wife Carmela, brought up in a rough neighborhood. In 1920, at the age of four, he witnessed his father killing Don Massimo Fanucci of the Black Hand terrorists, following him over the rooftops as his father shot Fanucci, and managed to slip away without Don Corleone noticing him. Santino attempted to follow in his foosteps by making small robberies where everyone in his crew would recieve $20, and when his father caught him, Sonny told him that he wanted to join the family business. Corleone told him that he would work with Consigliere Genco Abbandando in Genco Pure Olive Oil Co., but after working with oil for a while, Corleone was taught how to use a garrote and a gun by Peter Clemenza. He showed little interest in the Italian rope and favored the Anglo-Saxon weapon, the firearm, and it was him who was Don Vito's bodyguard.

Marriage[]

In 1935, Santino married Sandra Colombo, the granddaughter of a woman whom Vito Corleone had helped out a long time ago, and they had four children: Francesca, Kathryn, Frank, and Santino Jr., but although he was a good father, he was unfaithful, frequently having sex with Lucy Mancini, his comare who was related to family associates Tommy and Ray Mancini. He even got her pregnant at the time of his death, his son Vincent Corleone becoming boss of the family in 1979.

From Capo to Underboss[]

Santino made his bones when he became a Caporegime in the 1930s in the Pacification of New York, where he was the gunman who killed all of his father's assassins, who had gunned him down in a market in 1933. While his father recuperated, Sonny showed a genius for city warfare and eliminated the Irish Mob, while Luca Brasi hunted down the last of them. He became Underboss after threatening some maintenance men who visited the Corleone Compound, who threatened Corleone, saying that they would leave the furnace as it was if they were not paid. Corleone held them at gunpoint and told them to stay out of Long Beach forever, in the year 1939.

During World War II, Corleone was dismayed, or rather angry, when his younger brother Michael enlisted in the US Marine Corps, thinking that they were "saps" and that just because you were of a country did not mean that you were of your blood. Surprisingly, a few members of the Tessio and Clemenza crews also joined the military, including outsider Aldo Trapani, taken in by Luca Brasi

Sollozzo Business[]

In 1945, during the Sollozzo Intrigue, Corleone showed interest in Virgil Sollozzo's proposed deal where Corleone would get $10,000,000 in the first year if he invested in the drug deal, but what Sonny did not think about was: would politicians or police stand by Vito if he invested in harmful vices? Since Sollozzo knew that Sonny was hot for the deal, he sent Tattaglia Capo Donnie Marinelli and Soldato Mikey Saleri to eliminate the Godfather outside of his office on Mott Street in Little Italy. Corleone took over as acting boss following Corleone's injuries sustained in the attack and ordered a hit on Sollozzo and his NYPD bodyguard Mark McCluskey. Both were shot while eating at the Louis Restaurant in Midtown Manhattan on June 1, 1946, starting the Five Families War.

Five Families War[]

Sonny took charge of the family in their time of warfare with the Tattaglias, Barzinis, Cuneos, and Straccis, ordering the capture of Brooklyn. In 1950, Aldo Trapani blew up the Tattaglia Compound, eliminating the Tattaglia Family, and killed their Capo Piero Abruzzi. At his funeral, Trapani struck out at Bruno Tattaglia, family Underboss, and threw him into the cremation oven. The last straw was the murder of Cuneo Capo Dino de Martini and racket boss Dario Cicco, and the defection of Cuneo Capo Artie Manzanero, and the Cuneos arranged a hit on Corleone alongside the Barzinis, Tattaglias, and Straccis.

Death[]

Sonny Corleone dead

Death of Sonny Corleone

On October 7, 1951, Corleone planned to drive to his sister Connie's house to drive her home with some bodyguards because her husband Carlo Rizzi was beating her, taking the Jones Beach Causeway, because it was usually deserted at nighttime and he could speed recklessly until he reached the parkway. It was badly lit, without a single car, and saw the cone of a manned tollbooth. He stopped his Buick and fingered out a bill for the tollbooth attendant Liam Broderick, but the attendant dropped the change, ducking to pick it back up. Corleone waited for him to get back up, but saw a car pull up in front of him a few feet away, parking the car to block his Buick from moving. There was another man in the tollbooth to his right, but he had no time to think before Fausto Cuneo and Alberto Cuneo exit the car in front of him and opened fire. He made a reflex for life, crashing open the Buick door and bursting the lock, but Mario Stracci fired on Sonny's head and neck. He sprawled on the asphault, his legs still partly inside the car, and Mario Stracci and Anthony Stracci each fired shots into Sonny's body, then Anthony Stracci kicked him in the face to disfigure his features even more.

Seconds later, the three assasins and the bogus toll collector sped to the Meadowbrook Parkway, and the car with Sonny's bodyguards arrived at the scene shortly afterwards. The driver, Aldo Trapani, sped after the assassins to Holden Holdings, killing all of them before finding out the location of the fleeing Tattaglias from Broderick. He chased them down to The Tunnel Club, where he found out that the hit was ordered by the Barzinis from Underboss Giovanni Bacci. Tom Hagen, Sonny's adoptive brother, informed the Don shortly after.

Advertisement