Mafia life: Michael Franzese tells what it was like

WORLD Magazine’s current issue includes an interview with Michael Franzese. Fortune in 1986 called Franzese one of the top Mafia bosses in the country, but over the last two decades he has professed a strong faith in Christ. Here a portion of the interview we didn’t have room for in the print edition of the magazine. (Also see “How Michael Franzese corrupted athletes—until God intervened” and “Michael Franzese’s Mafia romance.”)

In 1972 The Godfather came out. Did you see it at that time? Oh, absolutely. Loved it. Still love it. It affected even the guys on the street. They started dressing differently. It made that life very glamorous.

You’re Michael planning to be a doctor and you’re watching a movie with Michael Corleone, initially a straight arrow. Did you identify with him? I didn’t. People say to me, “You’re like Michael Corleone.” I say, “No. He’s like me. I’m the real thing; he’s fiction.” I was determined to help my dad. That was my mission in life at that time.

When you’re in the Cosa Nostra, did that seem like the right way to live? We thought it was an honorable thing. We’re men taking an oath and agreeing not to violate that oath. … What were some of the violations? One, you don’t ever, ever violate another member’s wife, sister, mother. You ever abuse a woman, you’re dead. That’s it. … My best friend was murdered because he was having an affair with my sister while he was married. Murdered. I couldn’t save him. It broke me, it really did.

Drug use? You couldn’t fool with drugs. If we dealt with drugs, we died. That was it. Personally, I hate anything to do with drugs. My sister, after this guy was murdered, a short time later she overdosed on heroin. Twenty-seven years old. Dead. My kid brother right now, in his 50s, drug addict 25 years—got himself in trouble in 2009, made a deal with the feds, went undercover as an informant, cooperated against my father, and he’s the reason my father’s back in prison. I haven’t seen him for five years, six years.

Murder? I want you to understand something—murder in that life was taken very seriously. Very, very seriously. It wasn’t a random thing. We weren’t killing people on the outside. The only person that could approve a murder was the boss, and it took a lot of discussion. You do the right thing, you stay alive. You do the wrong thing, you’re going to pay for it with your life.

So, looking back, what do you think of that life? It’s evil. The enemy’s got jurisdiction over that life. I’m not calling the guys evil, because I’m one of them. I’m just blessed. Many of them would want to be in the position I’m in. But the life is evil, because I don’t know one family of any member of that life, including my own—my brother, sister, mother—that hasn’t been devastated. My own mother, 33 years without a husband, she died of cancer. My sister died of an overdose. My brother, overdose, and then the witness protection program. My younger sister, 42 years old, died of cancer, had a horrible life. My father, 35 years in prison, you wouldn’t want his life in the last 50 years.