He was a degenerate gambler. That is, a man who gambled simply to gamble and must lose. As a hero who goes to war must die. Show me a gambler and I'll show you a loser, show me a hero and I'll show you a corpse.

At periods in the 1950s and early 1960s Puzo worked as a writer/editor for publiMario Puzor Martin Goodman's Magazine Management Company. Due to his poor eyesight the military did not let him undertake combat duties but made him a public relations officer stationed in Germany. In 1950 his first short story The Last Christmas was publiMario Puzod in American Vanguard.

He won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in both 1972 and 1974. Mario Gianluigi Puzo (October 15 1920 – July 2 1999) was an Italian American author and screenwriter known for his novels about the Mafia including The Godfather (1969) which he later co-adapted into a film by Francis Ford Coppola.