Consigliere - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

In the movies The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, the consigliere to Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando), and later Don Michael Corleone (Al Pacino), is Tom Hagen (played by Robert Duvall). (In the novel, Tom's predecessor, Genco Abbandando, is briefly featured, dying in a hospital room on the day of Connie's wedding. This scene was filmed for the first movie, and has been included in some television showings.) Hagen is the adopted son of Don Vito Corleone, and doubles as the family's lawyer. At the end of The Godfather, Don Vito's successor and son, Michael, temporarily demotes Hagen within the organization, saying that things could get rough during the family's move to Las Vegas, and he needs a "wartime consigliere." (In an earlier scene, Sonny Corleone, Michael's older brother and acting Don after Vito Corleone's attempted assassination, similarly criticizes Hagen.) Vito Corleone, Michael's father, replaces Hagen at Michael's side as de facto consigliere until his death. Tom is reinstated after Vito's death.

In the television series The Sopranos, Silvio Dante is the consigliere to Tony Soprano.

In The Simpsons episode "Donnie Fatso" Homer explains to an FBI agent that he was at one time Fat Tony's consigliere (see "The Mook, the Chef, the Wife and Her Homer"), but has trouble pronouncing the word and just says "his Robert Duvall"; a reference to Duvall's character in The Godfather series.

In "Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story", White Goodman's employee, Me'Shell, is introduced as his consigliere.