Richard S. Castellano(1933-1988)

In the DVD commentary of Il padrino (1972), Francis Ford Coppola says that Castellano was not in Il padrino - Parte II (1974) because he wanted to have someone else (of his choosing) write his dialogue. According to Castellano's widow, Ardell Sheridan, Castellano was dropped by Coppola because he refused to regain the weight to play Clemenza due to health reasons.

[on why he was not in Il padrino - Parte II (1974)] I saw Clemenza as a teacher. He teaches how to make spaghetti, how to use the gun. [Coppola] can't tell me that Clemenza, after years of loyalty to the old man, would go in and testify against organized crime. Not unless you proved to me... that he had become a fearful man, that he had become a betrayer. The demands on me were impossible. I had settled on a price and everybody else's was settled upon mine. [Coppola] had me losing weight to play Clemenza as a young man. I was down to 194 pounds. When I received the script five minutes later, it had me rolling in at 300 pounds... The next thing, I saw Coppola quoted as saying that I asked for more money than anyone else, that I asked to rewrite the script. Once the lie gets out, the lie is told, and it takes.