Gianni Russo


Gianni Vito Russo is an American actor and singer. He is best known for his role as Carlo Rizzi in the 1972 film The Godfather.

Life and career

Russo was born in Manhattan, raised in Little Italy. After reprising the Rizzi character in a brief flashback scene at the end of The Godfather Part II, Russo went on to act in more than 46 movies, including Goodnight, My Love, Lepke, Laserblast, Chances Are, The Freshman, Side Out, Another You, Super Mario Bros., Any Given Sunday and Seabiscuit.
Russo claims that he started a fledgling career in organized crime working as an errand boy and mob associate for Frank Costello as an adolescent but later abandoned the dangerous and volatile lifestyle of organized crime.
Over the years since the beginning of his career, Russo owned a Las Vegas restaurant called Gianni Russo's State Street at 2570 State Street on the Las Vegas Strip, and defeated 23 federal criminal indictments on a variety of charges stemming from alleged organized crime associations.
In 1988, Russo killed a man inside the Las Vegas club and casino he owned. When he tried to intervene to stop a member of the Medellín drug cartel from harassing a female patron, the man stabbed him with a broken champagne bottle. Russo, a legal carry owner, pulled his gun and shot him twice in the head. Russo was not charged with the killing because it was ruled a justifiable homicide. However, when Pablo Escobar heard about the death, he ordered a contract on Russo's life. The Colombian drug lord supposedly only canceled it when he found out Russo had starred in one of his favorite films The Godfather.
Russo is also a singer. In 2004, he released a CD called Reflections that pays homage to Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra.
Russo owns a wine brand, Gianni Russo Wines, which debuted in 2009.
In 2019, he published his memoir, Hollywood Godfather: My Life in the Movies and the Mob. According to his memoir, he was a friend and lover of Marilyn Monroe. Russo claims in the memoir that Monroe took his virginity when he was only 16 years old and she was 33.

Filmography