Mario Gianluigi Puzo (October 15, 1920 – July 2, 1999) was a two time Academy Award-winning Italian American author and screenwriter, known for his novels about the Mafia, especially The Godfather (1969), which he later co-adapted into a film with Francis Ford Coppola.

Puzo was born in a poor family of Neapolitan immigrants living in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of New York City. Many of his books draw heavily on this heritage. After graduating from the City College of New York, he joined the United States Army Air Forces in World War II. Due to his poor eyesight, the military did not let him undertake combat duties but made him a public relations officer stationed in Germany. In 1950, his first short story "The Last Christmas" was published in American Vanguard. After the war, he wrote his first book, The Dark Arena, which was published in 1955.

At periods in the 1950s and early 1960s, Puzo worked as a writer/editor for publisher Martin Goodman's Magazine Management Company. Puzo, along with other writers like Bruce Jay Friedman, worked for the company line of men's magazines, pulp titles like Male, True Action, and Swank. Under the pseudonym Mario Cleri, Puzo wrote World War II adventure features for True Action.