The Godfather

 “The Godfather” By Mario Puzo
 
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shrewdies, trying to get their foot in the movie door by taking office jobs; and most of 
them would work in these offices for the rest of their lives or until they accepted defeat 
and returned to their home towns. 
Jack Woltz was a tall, powerfully built man with a heavy paunch almost concealed by his 
perfectly tailored suit. Hagen knew his history. At ten years of age Woltz had hustled 
empty beer kegs and pushcarts on the East Side. At twenty he helped his father sweat 
garment workers. At thirty he had left New York and moved West, invested in the 
nickelodeon and pioneered motion pictures. At forty-eight he had been the most 
powerful movie magnate in Hollywood, still rough-spoken, rapaciously amorous, a 
raging wolf ravaging helpless flocks of young starlets. At fifty he transformed himself. He 
took speech lessons, learned how to dress from an English valet and how to behave 
socially from an English butler. When his first wife died he married a world-famous and 
beautiful actress who didn’t like acting. Now at the age of sixty he collected old master 
paintings, was a member of the President’s Advisory Committee, and had set up a 
multimillion-dollar foundation in his name to promote art in motion pictures. His daughter 
had married an English lord, his son an Italian princess. 
His latest passion, as reported dutifully by every movie columnist in America, was his 
own racing stables on which he had spent ten million dollars in the past year. He had 
made headlines by purchasing the famed English racing horse Khartoum for the 
incredible price of six hundred thousand dollars and then announcing that the 
undefeated racer would be retired and put to stud exclusively for the Woltz stables. 
He received Hagen courteously, his beautifully, evenly tanned, meticulously barbered 
face contorted with a grimace meant to be a smile. Despite all the money spent, despite 
the ministrations of the most knowledgeable technicians, his age showed; the flesh of 
his face looked as if it had been seamed together. But there was an enormous vitality in 
his movements and he had what Don Corleone had, the air of a man who commanded 
absolutely the world in which he lived. 
Hagen came directly to the point. That he was an emissary from a friend of Johnny 
Fontane. That this friend was a very powerful man who would pledge his gratitude and 
undying friendship to Mr. Woltz if Mr. Woltz would grant a small favor. The small favor 
would be the casting of Johnny Fontane in the new war movie the studio planned to 
start next week. 
The seamed face was impassive, polite. “What favors can your friend do me?” Woltz 

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