Mario Puzo

**Mario Francis Puzo** was an American author and screenwriter. He wrote crime novels about the Italian-American Mafia and Sicilian Mafia, most notably *The Godfather* (1969), which he later co-adapted into a film trilogy directed by Francis Ford Coppola. He received the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for the first film in 1972 and for its sequel *Part II* in 1974. Puzo also wrote the original screenplay for *Superman* (1978) and its 1980 sequel. His final novel, *The Family*, was released posthumously in 2001.