It’s a powerful symbolic image, but the actual gathering of mob bosses from around the United States at the Hotel Nacional in Havana in 1946 was even more grandiose. They bring a cake out depicting the island of Cuba and cut it into pieces. The rooftop scene shows Roth’s birthday party. The movie is fictionalized but uses a lot of accurate historical detail. In one of the most famous scenes in The Godfather, Part II, the mob meets on a rooftop in Havana under the aegis of Hyman Roth, played by Lee Strasberg, who is supposed to represent mobster Meyer Lansky.
Havana Nocturne: How the Mob Owned Cuba and Then Lost It to the Revolution
