TALIA SHIRE: A SINGLE MOM LOOKS BACK ON HER ROCKY MARRIAGE TO THE MOB

People  ::  3/24/97

The Godfather is about more than the Mafia," Mario Puzo, author of the 1969 bestselling book, once said. "It's about the very nature of power." Puzo saw tragedy in power, because it is so often abused; Francis Ford Coppola, then only 32, saw potential in The Godfather and, in 1972, transformed the bloody saga of Don Vito Corleone's criminal clan into a triumphant epic that earned the Best Picture Oscar. The Godfather, which celebrates its 25th anniversary March 21 with a national re-release, made stars of Al Pacino, James Caan, Diane Keaton, Talia Shire and Robert Duvall while reviving the foundering career of Marlon Brando, who also won an Oscar. As for Coppola, 57, the five-time Oscar winner went on to direct 15 films, including 1979's Apocalypse Now and Bram Stoker's Dracula in 1992. The filmaker, whose next project, John Grisham's thriller The Rainmaker, is due out this fall, also began to branch out. He founded the Niebaum-Coppola winery in California's Napa Valley, opened a hotel in Belize and, this January, launched a literary magazine, Zoetrope Short Stories. But what of The Godfather's other children?  Here, we highlight Connie Corleone . . .

For a tale of family loyalties, being the director's kid sister would seem a sure in. "But he was trying to make some interesting casting decisions which weren't considered coercial by the studios," Talia Shire, 51, says of her brother Francis Ford Coppola. "The last thing you need is, 'Can I give my sister a job?'"

Only at Mario Puzo's request did Shire, whose only professional acting experience was in a few Roger Corman productions such as 1970's Gas-s-s-s, get a chance to audition for the part of Connie, the Don's daughter. She landed the role and turned in one of the film's most powerful performances as the battered wife of Carlo Rizzi (Gianni Russo), a small-time hood. For the scene in which a pregnant Connie goes on a rampage as Carlo savagely beats her with a belt, Shire was nervous. She had lost a shoe and had to step on the broken crockery she had smashed during her struggle with Carlo. "I remember being really scared," Shire recalls. "There was broken crockery all over the floor, but I didn't want them to have to set it up again. So I kept going. I kept thinking, 'Feet, don't fail me now.'"

Shire went on to star in The Godfather, Part II (for which she received an Oscar nomination) and as Adrian in 1976's Rocky (a second nomination) and all four of its sequels. These days Shire is focused on directing (her debut was the erotic thriller One Night Stand in 1995) and motherhood. She lives in Bel Air with two teenage sons (her second husband, producer Jack Schwartzman, died of pancreatic cancer in 1994), carpools and takes her boys to an occasional movie. "When my kids went to see Rocky, they had a new respect for me," she says. "Maybe they'll listen to me when I say, 'Make your bed.'"