As far as moving-picture show scenes go , it ’s a pretty lurid one , right up there with the shower bath aspect in " psychotic . " In " The Godfather,“movie producerJack Woltz refuses a request from the Corleone family to throw Johnny Fontane ( Don Corleone ’s godson ) in his new film and makes a bunch of anti - Italian slurs in the outgrowth . When Woltz wake up up the next dawn , he finds the sever mind of his trophy purebred in his bed . It ’s crashing , grisly and utterly unexpected ( well , at least it was in 1972 ) . But is it based on a lawful story , or did writer Mario Puzo make it up ?
There ’s no grounds that a real - life horse - head incident inspired Puzo to indite the scene . In fact , Puzo had always claimed that he had never even satisfy anymafiososuntil after he finished the " Godfather " novel , which became a worldwide best - seller in 1969 . Everything in the book , he said , came from his imagination or through researching documented consequence , and there were no prescribed report card of cut off knight heads at that item ( although there have been several copycat incidents since then ) .
It was a tangible Equus caballus head , though . The design was to use a fake , but director Francis Ford Coppola was n’t satisfied with that facial expression , so crew members line up a gymnastic horse that was schedule to die at a dog - solid food manufacturer . The shot was film when the horse ’s head arrived , packed in teetotal ice .
It ’s also widely take over Puzo did have real - life inspiration for the characters ask in this grisly patch twist – specifically , that he based the character of Johnny Fontane on Frank Sinatra . Fontane is a fight vocalist and actor who , after the knight carnage , receive the part in Woltz ’s film and goes on to win anOscar . Sinatra allegedly used his Mafia ties to didder down Hollywood producers for parts . One of his targets was say to have been Harry Cohn , manufacturer of the 1953 picture " From Here to Eternity . " Cohn did n’t want to hire him , but after some friendly view , Sinatra won the part and then an Oscar , which revived his flag life history . Again , there ’s no indication that any horses were decapitated in the by-line of this finish , but Sinatra was apparently so incensed by the rumors that he threatened and verbally abuse Puzo in a Hollywood restaurant in 1970 . He also successfully sued the BBC in 1972 for evoke that he had been the inhalation for Fontane .
In the decades since " The Godfather " became a classic , the severed horse question has conduct on a life of its own , for deficiency of a better phrase . It ’s now a coarse cultural reference , a punch line in sitcoms and shorthand for " you ’re dead . " you’re able to even cuddle in seam with your own ( non - crashing ) horse - forefront pillow . It ’s a view Mario Puzo could n’t have descend up with even in his wildest imagination .
