Erik Visits an American Grave, Part 1,712

This is the grave of Lenny Montana, who is listed on the bottom of this stone, if rather covered in lichens or whatever that is.

Born in Brooklyn in 1926, Leonardo Passafaro grew up in the Italian immigrant world of New York. He was a huge kid, about 6’6″ and went into professional wrestling. He spent the 50s as a wrestler, becoming a title holder, whatever that meant in a fixed world, but if people find it entertaining, then it’s entertainment, whatever. I’ve been to a couple of lucha matches in Mexico and it’s fun enough. When he needed extra money, he made an intimidating bouncer. He also discovered another guy who became a big time pro wrestler named Eddie Shankey. Montana broke his leg in 1961 and that forced him out for awhile. He moved to Florida, kept wrestling, and just used his size to make a living. But that doesn’t generally last forever.

So Montana found a new line of work–an enforcer for the Colombo crime family. He was a huge guy and could easily beat up or intimidate most men, but he had other specialities. One of them was arson. He was jailed at Rikers for awhile and later became a bodyguard for various members of the family. In short, he was a thug.

Now, when Francis Ford Coppola wanted to make The Godfather, Italian-Americans flipped out about this, including Frank Sinatra, notoriously portrayed with the very loose cover of a different name. They didn’t want it made. Discrimination of Italians and of course we all know the mafia doesn’t exist, wink wink. So the way they got it made was allowing the mobsters some vetoes on set. So in 1971, during filming, Montana was hanging out on set, guarding one of the the Colombo pieces of shit. Now, the guy the film’s creators had hired to play Luca Brasi had died of a heart attack (shocking, I know). So Coppola asked Montana if he wanted to play the role. Montana had in fact expressed some interest in acting. But despite the acting side of professional wrestling, which is real enough except you don’t have to deliver a lot of lines, Montana had never really done it before. And his first scene was with Marlon Brando. Montana was freaked out–I mean, it was Marlon Brando! He was practicing his limited lines over and over again and so Coppola worked this into the film, as you see Brasi practice his lines before stumbling over them in front of Don Corleone.

Despite sleeping with the fishes in The Godfather, Montana became a go-to guy in the movies for giant thugs. Now he could mostly play on in the movies instead of being one in real life, though I am sure he still did some work for the Colombo family when needed. He ended up being in quite a few movies over the next fifteen years, most of which are completely forgettable, but he did have a role in The Jerk. He also had some TV work, including on Magnum P.I, Kojak, and Strike Force, which is mostly memorable for starring a very young Richard Gere, even before Days of Heaven made him something of a film star. Montana actually wrote a script for himself called Blood Song, which came out in 1982 and is described as “It follows a crippled young woman in a coastal Oregon town who is stalked by a hatchet-wielding psychopath from whom she once received a blood transfusion.” Quality material there. But hey, he got it made!

This was Monana’s last film. He died of a heart attack in 1992, at the age of 66.

Lenny Montana is buried in Saint Charles Cemetery, East Farmingdale, New York.

If you would like this series to visit other stars of The Godfather, you can donate to cover the required expenses here. James Caan is in Mission Hills, California and Abe Vigoda is in Elmont, New York. Previous posts in this series are archived here and here.