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Kay Adams-Corleone
The Godfather character
Diane Keaton as Kay Adams in The Godfather Part II
First appearance	The Godfather
Last appearance	The Godfather's Revenge
Created by	Mario Puzo
Portrayed by	Diane Keaton
In-universe information
Gender	Female
Occupation	Teacher
Affiliation	Corleone family
Family	Vito Corleone (father-in-law) Carmela Corleone (mother-in-law) Santino "Sonny" Corleone (brother-in-law) Frederico "Fredo" Corleone (brother-in-law) Constanzia "Connie" Corleone (sister-in-law) Tom Hagen (adopted brother-in-law)
Spouse	Michael Corleone (1951-59; divorced)
Children	Anthony Corleone Mary Corleone

Katherine "Kay" Corleone (née Adams) is a fictional character in The Godfather series, created by author Mario Puzo. She is portrayed by Diane Keaton in The Godfather (1972), The Godfather Part II (1974), and The Godfather Part III (1990), all directed by Francis Ford Coppola.

Before their divorce, she is the second wife of Michael Corleone. She is also the mother of Anthony and Mary Corleone. She has an abortion while pregnant with the couple's prospective second son. In contrast to most of the characters in the novel and films, Kay Adams is from a well-to-do White Anglo-Saxon Protestant family.

Significance

Kay and Connie Corleone are the only female characters who are well-represented in The Godfather media. In the opening wedding scene of The Godfather, Kay is the only female character who "speaks more than a few lines, and she only then asks questions", which serve as a means to provide exposition about the male members of the family who dominate the story. Kay is described as "the ultimate outsider in the Corleone household", and it has been noted that "Coppola needs to present her as clueless about her husband's Mafia activities and ask questions that no Mafia wife would ask—because she would know the answers". Nevertheless, she marries Michael, even after he disappears for over a year during his family's gang war with other mafia families.

Kay's character arc across films has been described as "plausible", portraying her initial concern, and then increasing estrangement from Michael Corleone, as she confronts the moral and emotional toll of his criminal empire. In The Godfather Part II, her alienation intensifies as she challenges Michael's loyalty to the family's Sicilian traditions and ultimately separates from him after revealing her abortion of their child. By The Godfather Part III, Kay is remarried, and more aggressively confronts Michael over his hypocrisy while seeking to shield their children from his influence. Their fleeting attempt at reconciliation is permanently shattered by the violence inherent in Michael's life. The conclusion of her character arc in the first Godfather film differs from that of the novel, in which she converts to Roman Catholicism and begins to partake in the same rituals of seeking absolution for her husband's sins as Michael's mother seeks for Vito Corleone. An early draft of the film's script similarly ended with Kay's lighting candles for Michael.

Fictional biography

Kay is a native of Hanover, New Hampshire, and the only child of a Baptist minister and his wife. She is also the longtime girlfriend and eventual second wife of Michael Corleone (Al Pacino), the youngest son of Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando), the head of the Corleone crime family.

In 1945, Kay meets and falls in love with Michael, who is then a student at Dartmouth College. As a non-Italian, she is an outsider to the Corleones' world, and embodies Michael's initial desire to live a life separate from his family's.

The Godfather (1972)

In 1945, the New York City Corleone family don, Vito Corleone, listens to requests during his daughter Connie's wedding to Carlo Rizzi. At the reception, Vito's youngest son Michael, a Marine who has thus far stayed out of the family business, introduces Kay to his family as his girlfriend. At the wedding, Kay and Michael sit at a table away from the family. In the novel, the other guests notice how Kay's manner is freer than what is expected from an unmarried woman in Italian traditionalist culture. Kay is initially unaware that the Corleones are a powerful Mafia family. When the famous singer Johnny Fontane (Al Martino) arrives at Connie's wedding reception, Kay, a fan, is surprised that Michael knows him, then frightened when he relates how his father "helped" his godson's early career by threatening to kill his manager unless he released Fontane from his contract.

After a failed assassination attempt on his father, Michael murders the culprit, drug lord Virgil Sollozzo (Al Lettieri), and Captain Mark McCluskey (Sterling Hayden), a corrupt NYPD officer on Sollozzo's payroll. Michael flees to Sicily, where he falls in love with and marries a young local woman, Apollonia Vitelli (Simonetta Stefanelli). Kay has no knowledge of Michael's whereabouts or his marriage, and eventually returns to her hometown to work as a teacher. She asks the Corleone family's consigliere Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall) to deliver a letter to Michael, but Hagen refuses lest it be used in court proceedings as proof the family had "knowledge of his whereabouts". During this time, Kay develops a friendship with Michael's mother, Carmela (Morgana King).

Apollonia is killed in a car bombing meant for Michael. After recovering from his injuries, Michael returns to the United States. More than a year following his return, Michael seeks out Kay, wanting to reconcile with her, although she is upset that he now works for his father. They marry after he promises her that the Corleone family will be completely legitimate within five years. In the film, Kay and Michael have two children, Anthony and Mary (in the novel, they have two boys). They are born within two years of each other, leading Michael to joke that Kay is "more Italian than Yankee". Kay retorts that Michael is "more Yankee than Italian", because he always takes his work home with him. Michael becomes head of the Corleone family. Kay later joins Michael at Vito Corleone's funeral, and at the baptism of Connie's baby. Shortly after, Carlo Rizzi, who had betrayed the family, is murdered on Michael's orders, and Connie later confronts Michael about his involvement in Carlo's death while Kay is in the room. Kay asks Michael if he ordered Carlo's death and is relieved when he denies responsibility. As she leaves, she sees capos enter the office and pay reverence to Michael as "Don Corleone".

The Godfather Part II (1974)

At the beginning of The Godfather Part II (set in 1958–60), Kay lives with Michael at his Lake Tahoe compound, and is pregnant with the couple's third child. She implores Michael to fulfill his promise to legitimize the family business. Michael makes a genuine effort to eliminate the family's criminal ties, but his escalating war with rival Hyman Roth (Lee Strasberg), as well as his growing obsession with revenge, keeps him trapped in the criminal underworld. On the night of Anthony's First Communion, assassins machine gun Michael and Kay's bedroom; the couple barely escape unharmed. Michael goes into hiding for a time. After Michael uncovers the source of the threat, he returns home, where Hagen tells Michael that his Kay has suffered an apparent miscarriage.

Kay grows increasingly disgusted with Michael's criminal life; in particular, she is appalled that Michael's button men are Anthony's closest companions. Kay becomes convinced that Michael will always live in a world of crime and violence. During the U.S. Senate hearing on organized crime that is being held in Washington D.C., Kay sits behind Michael, supporting him while he testifies falsely about his business activities. Shortly thereafter, Kay tells Michael she is leaving him and taking the children. During the ensuing argument, she reveals that her "miscarriage" was actually an abortion and that she had the procedure to avoid bringing another of Michael's sons into the world. Enraged, Michael strikes Kay and takes custody of their children, banishing her from the family; the two separate soon afterward.

Michael initially prevents Kay from seeing their children. She secretly visits them (with Connie's help), and Connie tries to hurry her out before Michael returns home, but Michael sees her standing at the back door trying to get Anthony to give her one last kiss before she leaves. Michael coldly closes the door in her face.

The Godfather Part III (1990)

In 1979, Michael and Kay are divorced; their children Anthony and Mary live with Kay. At a reception in Michael's honor at St. Patrick's Old Cathedral that follows a papal order induction ceremony, Anthony tells his father that he is leaving law school to become an opera singer. Kay supports Anthony's decision, while Michael eventually agrees to let him go his own way. Kay reveals to Michael that she and Anthony know the truth about Michael's involvement in the death of Michael's brother Fredo.

After Michael survives another attempt on his life, the family, including Kay, goes to Sicily for Anthony's operatic debut in Palermo at the Teatro Massimo. While Michael and Kay tour Sicily, Michael asks for Kay's forgiveness, and they admit that they still love each other. The family sees Anthony's performance in Cavalleria rusticana in Palermo. After the show, on the opera house steps as they leave, an assassin shoots at Michael, wounding him; but a second bullet hits Mary, killing her. A distraught Kay watches as Michael cradles Mary's body and screams in agony.

Casting

Coppola cast Diane Keaton for the role of Kay Adams owing to her reputation for being eccentric. Keaton read with both James Caan and Martin Sheen before Al Pacino was finally confirmed for the role of Michael. One report noted that "Keaton said she always felt like an outsider in the movie—a similarity she shared with Kay, who is literally left with a door closing in her face at the end of the first film".

References

1. ^ Raymond Angelo Belliotti, The Godfather and Sicily: Power, Honor, Family, and Evil (2021), p. 204-5.
2. Paul Loukides, Linda K. Fuller, Beyond the Stars: Plot conventions in American popular film (1991), p. 13.
3. Joel R. Campbell, Politics Go to the Movies: International Relations and Politics in Genre Films and Television (2022), p. 100.
4. Puzo, Mario; Coppola, Francis Ford (March 29, 1971). "Scripts: THE GODFATHER". The Internet Movie Script Database.
5. The Godfather DVD Collection documentary A Look Inside, .
6. ^ "Diane Keaton Dismissed 'The Godfather Part III.' Then She Saw the New Version". Vanity Fair. December 1, 2020. Archived from the original on May 29, 2023. Retrieved January 4, 2024.

External links

• Diane Keaton: Kay Adams on IMDb

• The Godfather characters
• Characters in American novels of the 20th century
• Characters in American novels of the 21st century
• Literary characters introduced in 1969
• Female characters in literature
• Female characters in film
• Cultural depictions of the Mafia
• Fictional victims of domestic abuse
• Fictional characters from the 20th century
• Film characters introduced in 1972