Test2

## Don Michael Corleone

**Michael Corleone** was the Don of the Corleone family after his father Vito Corleone stepped down.

## Biography

"Michael, your father loves you very much."
——Vito Corleone  File:Vito and family.jpg
Born in 1920, to Vito and Carmela Corleone, Michael was deeply loved by his father, even prompting Vito to murder blackmailer Don Fanucci so he could support Michael and the rest of his family. He became a bright and handsome young man and of all of Vito Corleone's children, Michael was said to be most like him in terms of intelligence, personality, and cunning.

During childhood, Michael harbored interests in politics and wondered if there would be an Italian president someday; these musings were soon shot down by his brother, Fredo.

### The Prodigal Son

"That's my family Kay, not me."
——Michael Corleone  File:Michael and Kay.jpg
Michael initially wanted nothing to do with the Corleone "family business", and enrolled at Dartmouth College in order to escape any potential involvement in crime. In truth, his father never wanted Michael to be involved in the family's criminal enterprise, and actually hoped he'd go into politics. After the United States' entry into World War II in 1941, he enlisted in the Marines (training under Sergeant Bradshaw) and fought in the Pacific, even though his father had expended great effort to wrangle a deferment for him. For his bravery in battle, Michael was awarded the Navy Cross, and was also featured in *Life* magazine in 1944. Michael was discharged as a Captain to recover from wounds- along with friend Hank Vogelsong in 1945. However, unbeknownst to Michael, the doctor treating him had been bribed by his father to exaggerate his injury in order to send him home.

Returning to Dartmouth, he met a young teaching student, Kay Adams; where the two eventually fell in love. Kay went with Michael as he returned to New York to attend his sister Connie's wedding. He assured Kay on numerous occasions that he wanted a more normal life, and wanted nothing at all to do with the Mafia.

However, when his father was nearly assassinated in 1945, he became more involved in the "family business". After saving his father from another assassination attempt at the hospital, Michael's jaw was broken a corrupt policeman, Captain Mark McCluskey. After this, Michael volunteered to murder the men responsible, Virgil Sollozzo and McCluskey, who was now acting as Sollozzo's bodyguard.

Michael's older brother, Sonny Corleone, was shocked at this suggestion, since it had long been a hard and fast rule in the American Mafia that policemen were not to be harmed. However, Michael showed his cunning when he argued that McCluskey was fair game since he was corrupt and serving as Sollozzo's bodyguard. He also suggested that the family use their contacts in the newspaper to play up McCluskey's connection to Sollozzo and being "involved in the rackets" of organized crime, thereby relieving some of the flack that the Corleones would receive afterward. After committing the murders, Michael was sent to Sicily to lie low until the heat died down.

### Sicily

 File:Michael in Sicily.png
Under the protection of his father's old friend Don Tommasino, Michael remained in hiding for two years, living in Dr. Taza's old villa and receiving warm hospitality from the mayor of Bagheria, Bendino.

Michael's time in Sicily has a profound effect on him. While there, he learned of the Mafia's roots and there he also fell in love with, and soon married, a beautiful young woman named Apollonia, but she was killed by a car bomb intended for Michael after he was betrayed by his bodyguard Fabrizio.

#### The Sicilian

After Apollonia's death, Michael was visited by caporegime Peter Clemenza, who told him that his father wanted him to escort Salvatore Giuliano safely back to America with him.
As he learns more about Guiliano's reputation and exploits, Michael becomes extremely interested in meeting him, but Giuliano is betrayed and killed by his best friend, cousin, and second in command Gaspare Pisciotta. Upon returning from Sicily, Michael speaks with his father, who proceeds to explain what happened with the plan to escort Giuliano from Sicily and how it all went wrong, that ultimately Michael was used as a pawn to ensure his own safe return to America in a deal Vito made with Don Croce Malo to obtain evidence collected by Giuliano to use against Don Croce and the Christian Democratic Party; without the evidence in his possession, Giuliano's days were numbered and his fate was sealed after he made a final but failed attempt on Don Croce.

Michael is disappointed and disillusioned by this, but Vito tells him, "That is Sicily."

### The New Don

"Today, I will settle all family business."
——Michael Corleone  File:Michael henchmen.jpg
While in Sicily, he learns that his older brother Sonny was murdered and returns to New York. There, he becomes involved in his family's criminal enterprises, taking over for his deceased brother as underboss of the family under Vito's supervision and subtly attacking the other families' businesses through the use of his secret caporegime, Rocco Lampone. At the same time, he persuades his father that it is time to begin to remove the family from organized crime. He reunites with Kay and marries her a year later, promising to make the Corleone family legitimate within five years. They have two children, Anthony and Mary. They are born within two years of each other, leading Michael to joke that Kay is "more Italian than Yankee".

Vito goes into semiretirement in 1954, and Michael becomes operating head of the family. At first, longtime capos Peter Clemenza and Salvatore Tessio, as well as *consigliere* Tom Hagen, aren't sure that Michael is strong enough to keep the family going, especially as the Barzini and Tattaglia families move in on the Corleones' territory. Clemenza and Tessio are even more convinced of this when Michael refuses to allow them to retaliate. In truth, Michael and his father began planning to wipe out Barzini and Tattaglia soon after Michael returned to America. Soon after taking over day-to-day control of the family, Michael tries to buy out casino owner Moe Greene's stake in his Las Vegas casino, intending to move his family to Nevada. Greene angrily refuses Michael's offer.

Vito dies in 1955, and Michael officially becomes Don. Shortly before his death, Vito warned Michael that after he was gone, the Barzini family would make an attempt on his life under the pretense of organizing a meeting to make peace between the two families, using a traitor within the Family, who would offer to arrange the meeting and guarantee Michael's safety. At the funeral, Tessio inadvertently reveals himself to be the traitor by making that offer. Shortly after the funeral, Michael puts his plan into action. He orders the simultaneous murders of the leaders of the New York Mafia's other Dons during the baptism of Connie's newest child. Barzini, Philip Tattaglia, Carmine Cuneo, and Victor Stracci, as well as Tessio and (in the film) Moe Greene (who had been murdered in a separate incident earlier in the novel) are all killed in different locations at the same time.

He also orders the murder of Carlo Rizzi, his brother-in-law, who beat his sister Connie and set Sonny up to be killed. Carlo was led to believe that he would be Michael's second-in-command when they moved to Nevada. However, this was merely a ploy to make Carlo vulnerable, per Vito's advice to "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer." At Michael's house, Michael confronts his brother-in-law, telling him that he knew about Carol's betrayal in setting up Sonny for his assassination. Michael asks Carlo who he conspired with; Carlo tells him it was Barzini. Michael tells Carlo that he's out of the family and that he'll be taken to Las Vegas. When Carlo gets into the car, he's garotted to death by Clemenza as they drive away.

When Connie finds out that Michael had Carlo killed while he stood godfather to their baby, she flies into a rage. Michael dismisses it as hysteria, and when pressed by Kay, denies any involvement in the murder to placate her. Just moments later, however, he meets with his capos. Clemenza greets him as "Don Corleone" and kisses Michael's hand. Unbeknownst to Michael, Kay is watching this meeting, and realizes that Connie was telling the truth after all — and that her husband has become a powerful Don, even more ruthless than his father.

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 *The Sicilian*