Is the Godfather trilogy based on real life people or events?

I know they're based on the books, but were the books based on any specific mafia family? any of the events in the book based on real events?


Any of the characters based on real people? if so who?





Also, Does anyone know where Mario Puzo got his information on the Mafia... or was it purely fiction?





Thanks, i appreciate your time.Is the Godfather trilogy based on real life people or events?
There's only one book on which the films are based. The other two are screenplays written by Francis Ford Coppola and Mario Puzo together. After Puzo died, his daughter commissioned author Mark Winegardner to write two sequels, but they have not been made into films.





http://markwinegardner.com/godfather/





The Corleones are based on a couple of the real-life ';Five Families'; of the New York mob, but mainly on the Genovese family. When the book came out, most people thought that Johnny Fontaine was Frank Sinatra, but Vic Damone's name also came up, and in the book, Vito asks Johnny, ';Whatever happened to you and that kid who was so funny in the movies?'; That would imply Dean Martin.





I highly recommend the novel ';The Godfather'; by Mario Puzo.Is the Godfather trilogy based on real life people or events?
My understanding, based on Puzo interviews I read when the book came out and was a hit, was that the main characters were entirely fictional, something of an amalgam of real 'famiglia' people Puzo had known or known of. Several of the lesser characters were based on real people, but fictionalized enough that they could not sue for defamation. Johnny Fontaine (? on the last name) was based on Frank Sinatra, for instance.