Mario Puzo

American author, screenwriter, and journalist

Source-basedStable

Lived 1920–1999, aged 79United States

United States WritersWriter / Author

Fame27.7
Momentum0.0
Writers rank#210
Wikipedia30.7K

Wikipedia
73 languages
Cross-language footprint
Era
1920–1999
Aged 79

Summary

Updated 2026-05-29

Wrote The Godfather, then watched it become the template for every crime story that followed. Also gave Superman his screenplay in the '70s. Two Oscars for adapting his own novel into cinema gold.

Biography

About

Mario Francis Puzo was an American author and screenwriter. He wrote crime novels about the Italian-American Mafia and Sicilian Mafia, most notably The Godfather (1969), which he later co-adapted into a film trilogy directed by Francis Ford Coppola. He received the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for the first film in 1972 and for Part II in 1974. Puzo also wrote the original screenplay for the 1978 Superman film and its 1980 sequel. His final novel, The Family, was released posthumously in 2001.

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