Gianni Russo made his acting debut in “The Godfather,” one of the most beloved movies ever made, playing a prominent role that he only got at the insistence of the mobsters who threatened to sabotage production unless certain changes were made to the script.

That story probably wouldn’t make the top five of the most interesting tales Russo could share when he speaks March 27 at Ford Family Recital Hall for “Gianni Russo: The Godfather Experience.”

Russo, 81, has lived a life that, if they made a fictional movie about it, folks would say it’s too unbelievable to accept.

At age 6 he was diagnosed with polio and spent five-and-a-half years in a polio ward set up at Bellevue Hospital, better known as a mental institution. For much of that time he wasn’t allowed any visitors, not even his family, and what helped him survive during that period was listening to Frank Sinatra sing on a transistor radio.

As a teenager, he was working as a messenger for powerful New York mobster Frank Costello, a job that gave him the opportunity to meet Sinatra, the start of a 49-year friendship between the two.

Russo’s stories are filled with immediately recognizable names from the worlds of entertainment, organized crime and politics. During a telephone interview on Monday, Russo said, “I had a brief friendship, only five years, with Marilyn (Monroe), and I was with her the last weekend before Bobby Kennedy killed her,” as casually as someone else might say, “So, I was having lunch with my brother …”

He never was “a made man” but he saw and did plenty during his years working for Costello, delivering messages and money around the world. He shot and killed a man, an associate of Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar, who stabbed him when Russo tried to stop him from harassing a woman in his Las Vegas club (it was ruled a justified homicide in self-defense).

“Everything that fortunately happened to me — and I say ‘fortunately,’ not ‘unfortunately,'” Russo said. “Having polio for five-and-a-half years, it just led me to my association with Frank Sinatra for a 49-year friendship, to Donald Trump, a 30-years friendship. These names would never be a part of my life, and it’s all because of Frank Costello, who became a father figure to me at 12 and a half.”

Costello also is responsible for launching Russo’s acting career, which includes “The Freshman,” “Rush Hour 2,” “Any Given Sunday,” “Striptease” and dozens of other films and television series.

If Mario Puzo’s “The Godfather” was going to be made into a movie, there were certain changes Costello wanted made. If not they could cause problems through the different unions working on the movie and disrupt production. Russo had read the book and knew that world and wanted to be in the movie, playing Michael Corleone (the role played by Al Pacino), Sonny Corleone (James Caan) or Carlo, who marries the daughter (Talia Shire) of Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando). His casting became one of the conditions of that agreement, Russo said.

Director Francis Ford Coppola didn’t have a choice and didn’t protest it, at least not to Russo. However, after the first script read through with the cast, Brando found out that Russo had no prior acting experience and told Coppola to rethink his choice.

“He called Coppola over,” Russo said. “He says, ‘You should think this over, because this guy’s got to be a great actor.’ And now I’m hearing my responsibilities — (Brando said) ‘He marries my daughter, he undermines my family, he gets my younger son involved, which I didn’t want. Plus he gets Sonny killed. I think you should think about this.’ Now I’m saying to myself, ‘This guy’s trying to get me fired.'”

Everyone had been told before Brando arrived at that first reading not to approach him or even make eye contact. After hearing that conversation, Russo dismissed Coppola — something that shocked everyone else in the room — he then put his arm around Brando — another shocker — and walked him out of earshot of everyone else.

“I was nose to nose with him. ‘Listen to me. You get me fired here today, and I will suck on your heart. You will die right here. You’ll bleed out.’ He took a step back and said, ‘That was brave.’ He thought I was acting.”

From that point on, Russo and Brando got along fine. During the three hours Brando would spend in the makeup chair every day getting transformed into the elderly don, Russo would sit there with him and they would run lines. Russo called him “the only acting teacher I ever had,” and decades later he helped Brando secure the biggest payday of his career for the 1990 film “The Freshman.”

Russo said Sinatra taught him everything he learned about singing, and Trump was the one who made him a nightclub headliner, hiring him to sing at his New Jersey casino. He anxiously is waiting for Trump to release the Warren Report into the assassination of John F. Kennedy to confirm the stories he tells in his book “Hollywood Godfather: My Life in the Movies and the Mob.” Russo said he delivered the cash to the unions that swayed their support to help get Kennedy elected in 1960, and Kennedy infuriated those in organized crime who helped get him elected when he reneged on his promise to invade Cuba and allow those figures to regain their casinos there. He may have delivered the order in New Orleans to go forward with the assassination, and he bumped into a man in New Orleans while delivering that message who he believes was Lee Harvey Oswald.

Russo will have that transistor radio that helped him recover from polio, and he’ll have some stories about the current White House occupant that he recently added to the program. The event will benefit the Ray Mancini Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting at-risk youth, families in need, and other critical community initiatives.

Considering everything he’s been involved with in his life, when asked what his greatest talent is, Russo answered, “My greatest talent? Honesty. I’ve been honest with everybody, and that’s what kept me alive.”

If you go …

WHAT: “Gianni Russo: The Godfather Experience”

WHEN: 7:30 p.m. March 27

WHERE: Ford Family Recital Hall, DeYor Performing Arts Center, 260 W. Federal St., Youngstown

HOW MUCH: Tickets range from $35 to $100 and are available at the DeYor box office, online at experienceyourarts.org and by calling 330-259-9651.