Celebrity Biographies
Morgan King
Almost all moviegoers have in mind the ‘mamma’ of the Corleone family, despite the fact that she did not have a line of dialogue. The renowned jazz singer Morgana King died on March 22, 2018, at the age of 87, in Palm Springs, as a result of lymphatic cancer, although the news was not known until a friend of hers announced it six months later. . She made her film debut with “The Godfather.”
Born in Pleasantville, New York, on June 4, 1930, Maria Grazia Morgana Messina came from a family of Sicilian emigrants, with much in common with that of the popular mobsters (except that they had no ties to the underworld). Since she was little, she took advantage of her privileged voice to sing the songs that she had heard in her neighborhood. At the age of 16, she began her journey in nightclubs, but her parents – who did not like the idea very much – forbade her to use her real name, so she began to call herself Morgana King . She was one of the first jazz singers to succumb to the allure of bossa nova, and she swept it all in 1964 with the ballad “A Taste of Honey.”
When she read Mario Puzo ‘s book on which The Godfather is based , she felt very identified with the characters. She herself asked to meet with the director, Francis Ford Coppola , and with Al Ruddy, producer, who, as soon as they saw her, realized that she was the ideal person to play the matriarch of the protagonists. The wedding of his fictional daughter, Connie ( Talia Shire ), stood out at the beginning, when it started with the traditional Italian song ‘Luna Mezz’o Mare’, to the delight of the guests, who successively passed to the dark office of Don Vito ( Marlon Brando )), to honor him and ask him for all kinds of favors. Due to his origins, the director –also Italian-American– did not hesitate to ask him about details, such as whether the Corleone house was a hit as a Sicilian. “There is a statuette of Saint Anthony missing from the wall,” he replied.
He repeated in the second installment, where his character died. But being very superstitious, she expressed a reluctance to get into a coffin. Coppola did not think twice, and decided to include her own mother. She was so satisfied with her acting experience that she repeated it in some television productions, and the feature films Nunzio , A Time to Remember and The Spirit of Brooklyn .
Married at the age of 17 to trumpeter Tony Fruscella, a great friend of myths like Charlie Parker, he ended up having serious alcoholism problems, which forced her to work hard to support the family, until exhausted, she filed for divorce. She later joined another musician, trombonist Willie Dennis, who died in a car accident in 1965.