Arts & Culture

An Offer Not Refused; Buyer Pays $625,000 for Mario Puzo Archive

From the Mario Puzo auction (RR Auction House)

An archive of the late Mario Puzo’s writings sold this week for $625,000 at RR Auction in Boston’s North End. Puzo wrote many novels of which his book, The Godfather, became a film classic. The auction house said the winning bidder was from the U.S. and “wishes to remain anonymous.”

“No writer has made as indelible an impact on the world of organized crime as Mario Puzo,” said Robert Livingstone, executive vice president of the auction house in a statement. “Just as the release of his fourth novel, The Godfather, brought the author into the public spotlight, the subsequent film adaptation ushered the mafia from out of the shadows into the public eye.”

The archive is composed of 45 banker’s boxes with a 744-page draft of The Godfather novel, personal correspondence, early manuscript drafts and a progression of nine screenplays and ten novels from 1955’s The Dark Arena through to 2000’s Omerta. Puzo’s 1965 Olympia typewriter used to write the Godfather was included along with large storyboards and Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather ‘Bible’, a binder covering virtually every aspect of filming. Screenplays from Earthquake (1974) and Superman (1978) rounded out the offering.

Puzo, who died in 1999, earned two Oscars, a Golden Globe and several other nominations and awards from The Godfather series. More photos from the Puzo archive are shown below.