Talk:Sonny Corleone

The correct date of birth (according to the novel) is probably 1910. This can be safely assumed because Tom Hagen and Sonny are the same age (maybe give or take a year) and in the beginning of the novel, it is stated that Tom is 35 years old in 1945 meaning he was born in 1910.

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REPLY: Yeah, you're correct on taking the facts from the opening chapters of the novel and doing the math. Problem is, Puzo got careless and the novel contradicts itself. In Chapter 14 (Vito's rise to power), it says that these events happened in this order:

(a) The death of Vito Corleone's nemesis, Salvatore Maranzano, on Dec. 31, 1933. This was followed by some interval during which the Maranzano organization was incorporated into the Corleone Family.

(b) An armed robbery committed by sixteen-year-old Sonny. When Vito furiously confronted him about it, Sonny responded that he saw Vito kill Fanucci. Vito, believing that "every man has but one destiny" -- and that Sonny's destiny was set when he witnessed that murder -- put Sonny to work as his bodyguard/driver, where Sonny could watch him close up and learn how to be a Don.

(c) Sonny's assumption of command of a "regime" in 1935 after Vito was incapacitated in an attempted assassination. Sonny showed a genius for city warfare, "made his bones," and earned a reputation for ruthlessness.

The novel doesn't explicitly state, but does strongly imply, that the interval between (a) and (b) was fairly short, whereas the interval between (b) and (c) was considerably longer, so the robbery was probably in 1934. Still, no matter how you cut it, the robbery by sixteen-year-old Sonny had to have been in either '34 or '35, which means Sonny's year of birth had to have been 1917, 1918, or 1919.

But as you said, the early part of the novel establishes just as "definitively" that Tom is 35 in 1945, and that Tom and Sonny are the same age +/- a year. And to make things even more confusing, the family tree given in the extras section of The Godfather DVD set gives Sonny's dates as 1916 - 1948 and Tom's as 1910 - "197?" (And to add yet another layer of confusion, Mark Winegardner's novels, _The Godfather Returns_ and _The Godfather's Revenge_ -- which were authorized by the Puzo estate and so must be at least given respectful consideration by "canon-fanatics" -- put Tom's death in the early 1960s.)