Lenny Montana (born Leonardo Passafaro; March 13, 1926 – May 12, 1992) was an American actor who played the role of the feared hitman Luca Brasi in The Godfather.
Montana's final success of the 1950s was in 1956, winning the NWA Texas Tag Team Championship with Gene Kiniski, defeating Herb Freeman and Ray Gunkel on September 18 in Dallas under the alias Len Crosby.
Later that year, Montana won the NWA Texas World Tag Team titles with Joe Christie, under the Len Crosby name.
Then with Hard Boiled Haggerty, he won the AWA World Tag Team Championship on October 4, 1960, defeating Stan Kowalski and Tiny Mills (wrestling as Murder Inc.) in Minneapolis.
[8] The Zebra Kid had a notable feud with Eddie Graham; their battles sold out Fort Homer Hesterly Armory on many Tuesday nights in 1961.
Things came to a head when Montana defeated Eddie Graham in a NWA Southern Heavyweight Championship (Georgia version) title match on May 1, 1962.
[9] On November 23, 1962, he won the NWA (Georgia) Southern Tag Team titles with his partner Gypsy Joe, defeating "Grizzly" Jake Smith and Luke Brown.
[citation needed] The filming of The Godfather faced strong opposition from the Italian-American Civil Rights League, with disputes headed by Joe Colombo and Frank Sinatra threatening its whole production.
In 1971, when Montana was acting as a bodyguard for a senior Colombo family member,[14] he met Francis Ford Coppola and Al Ruddy.
Director Coppola incorporated this real-life tension into several scenes, showing Brasi repeatedly practicing (and later fumbling) his congratulations to Corleone.
[16] Montana had little screen time in the film (although his final scene is one of its most suspenseful), but his notable height and physique caught the eye of producers, and he appeared in several movies and television programs after The Godfather.
He also acted on television, appearing in Search (1973), Strike Force (1975), which starred a young Richard Gere;[19] Contract on Cherry Street (1977),[20] which featured Frank Sinatra; Kojak (1978) and Magnum, P.I.