A few days later Puzo seemed no more demonstrative. "I'm not sure any writer deserves that much money," he said of his windfall, which topped the $1.9 million paid for paperback rights to Colleen McCullough's The Thorn Birds. Puzo's agent, Candida Donadio, disagrees—more than 10 percent. "Mario is a hardworking author who has earned his success," she insists. "He is one of the most honorable and classy people I know."
The new novel, which will be published in hardcover October 9, is about a writer in Hollywood, Las Vegas and New York and seems at least mildly autobiographical. Puzo shrugs. He was one of seven children raised in Manhattan's Neapolitan ghetto. His father deserted the family when Mario was 12. "I decided to escape by becoming an artist," he says. After two novels, The Dark Arena and The Fortunate Pilgrim, received warm critical praise but little cold cash, Puzo set out to write a best-seller. The book was The Godfather, and it has sold 15 million copies. In 1969 the paperback rights to Godfather went for a then record $410,000.
Puzo's friends are hard pressed to explain how wealth has changed him. "He rides in limos instead of taxis," offers Bill Targ, his editor at Putnam's. "His clothes cost more," adds Donadio. Author Bruce Jay Friedman recalls, "He would fight for a check when he was only making $18 a week." One vice that Puzo acknowledges is gambling. "I'm sort of a chump," he says. "I take the long shot."
Whatever, success has not spoiled his appetite for work. After finishing the screenplay for Superman, he plunged into a film treatment for Godfather III and is writing a fifth novel, this one about Sicily. "I have to go there—but I'm afraid I'll get kidnapped."
At 57, Puzo says his one wish is to be 6'3" and weigh 130. Right now he's 5'6" and 200 pounds. "That's my next project."
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
