Who wrote "The Godfather"?

The most authentic Mafia novel ever written came from a guy who never met a gangster and based Don Corleone on his mom. Mario Puzo was a 45-year-old pulp magazine writer $20,000 deep in gambling debt when an editor suggested he expand on a minor mob character from his previous novel, "The Fortunate Pilgrim." He did his research in libraries and Las Vegas casinos, and the finished book sold 21 million copies worldwide and spent 67 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Puzo went on to co-write all three screenplays with Francis Ford Coppola and won Oscars for the first two. The third sleeps with the fishes.