Salvatore Tessio

Salvatore "Sal" Tessio is a fictional character in Mario Puzo's novel The Godfather and the film based on it. In the film, Tessio was portrayed by Abe Vigoda. In the sequel, Vigoda reprised the role in a flashback, set in late 1941, at the end of the film. Actor John Aprea portrayed the younger Tessio in The Godfather Part II. Tessio's given name is not mentioned in the original novel.

In the novel and film

Tessio and friends Peter Clemenza and Vito Corleone begin their criminal careers as low-level hoodlums in the New York City neighborhood of Little Italy in Manhattan. As Corleone rises to power and prominence in the Mafia underworld, Tessio and Clemenza become his trusted caporegimes. Tessio, well-connected throughout the borough, owns the Embassy Club in Brooklyn, his base of operations for his Mafia soldiers. Most federal investigators consider Tessio the smarter, savvier and more ruthless of the Corleone capos. However, according to the book, he mellows considerably over the decade of peace between New York's Mafia families.