The Best Picture winner for 1972 has several underworld inspirations. Don Vito A. Corleone is based on real mob boss Frank Costello. Don Corleone was born in the same year as Costello, and like Costello earned vast illegal incomes from gambling and bootlegging, and enjoyed unrivalled political clout through friends in the power. Carlo Gambino’s life also inspired Don Corleone’s character. Both were low-key gangsters, and quite different from their contemporaries. Gambino was careful enough never to be imprisoned, and died in his own home. Like Gambino, Don Corleone had three sons and a daughter. Also like Don Corleone, Gambino’s activities came under heavy FBI scrutiny with wiretaps, bugs and lip-readers being employed to gather evidence, but Gambino knew how to conduct his business “in silence” and escaped without any jail time.