Michael - the Godfather

Michael is the youngest son of Don Vito Corleone. He is the youngest brother of Sonny and Fredo, and the older brother of Connie.

The Godfather: Part I

Michael Corleone's ascension to the head of the Corleone crime family is portrayed in Puzo's novel and the first film.

Michael initially wants nothing to do with the "family business", and is enrolled at Dartmouth College in search of a more Americanized life. After the United States' entry into World War II, he enlists in the Marines against his father's wishes and fights in the Pacific Theatre. For his bravery, Michael is featured in Life magazine in 1944, having been awarded the Navy Cross. Michael is discharged as a Captain to recover from wounds in 1945. He later re-enters Dartmouth, where he meets his future wife, Kay Adams (Diane Keaton).

When his father is nearly assassinated in 1945, he volunteers to murder the man responsible, Virgil "The Turk" Sollozzo (Al Lettieri). He also proposes to kill Captain McCluskey (Sterling Hayden), a police captain who removed his father's bodyguards from the hospital, presumably to set up his father to be killed. Although it is normally a hard-and-fast rule in the Mafia that law enforcement officials are not to be harmed, Michael successfully convinces his older brother Sonny (James Caan) that since McCluskey is serving as Sollozzo's bodyguard, he has crossed into their world and is fair game.

After committing the murders, Michael flees to Sicily under the protection of Don Tommasino, a longtime friend of his father's, and stays in exile for two years. While in Sicily, he marries a young woman named Apollonia (Simonetta Stefanelli), but she is killed by a car bomb intended for Michael. Fabrizio, one of his bodyguards, was paid by a rival family to plant the bomb.

While in Sicily, he learns that Sonny had been murdered, and he returns to New York in 1950. There, he reluctantly becomes involved in his family's criminal enterprises, taking over for his deceased brother as operating head of the family under Vito's supervision. The family's consigliere, Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall), and one of the caporegimes, Peter Clemenza (Richard S. Castellano), are somewhat skeptical of his ability, but the other capo, Sal Tessio (Abe Vigoda), thinks somewhat more of him. He marries Kay a year later, promising to make the family legitimate within five years.

Michael tries to buy a casino from Moe Greene (Alex Rocco) the casino is partly owned "off the record" by the Corleone family. He intends to move his family to Nevada. After his father's death in 1955, he becomes official Don of the Corleone crime family. Before his death, Vito had warned Michael that after he was gone, the head of the