Kay Adams-Corleone

Katherine Corleone
File:Dkeatongodfather.jpg Diane Keaton as Kay Adams in The Godfather
First appearance	The Godfather
Last appearance	The Godfather's Revenge
Created by	Mario Puzo
Portrayed by	Diane Keaton
In-universe information
Gender	Female
Family	Corleone family
Spouse	Michael Corleone (1951-59, divorced) 2nd husband Douglas
Children	Mary Corleone, Anthony Corleone

For similar names, see Kaye Adams (disambiguation)

Katherine Corleone (née Adams) is a fictional character in Mario Puzo's The Godfather. She was portrayed by Diane Keaton in Francis Ford Coppola's trilogy of films based on the novel.

Fictional biography

Novel and first film

Kay is a native of Hanover, New Hampshire, and the daughter of a Baptist minister. She is the long-term girlfriend and eventual wife of Michael Corleone (Al Pacino), the son of Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando), and the future don of the Corleone crime family.

Kay and Michael meet as students in Dartmouth College, and become lovers. As a non-Italian, she is somewhat of an outsider from the beginning and symbolizes Michael's initial desire to live a more Americanized life. Indeed, when she and Michael attend his sister Connie's (Talia Shire) wedding, they sit at a table separate from the rest of the family. She is a fan of the singer Johnny Fontane (Al Martino), although taken aback by Michael telling her the story of how his father "helped Johnny in his career" by threatening to kill his manager unless he released Fontane from his contract.

In 1945, after Michael kills Virgil Sollozzo (Al Lettieri) and police Captain McCluskey (Sterling Hayden), who tried to assassinate his father, he and Kay are separated while he takes refuge in Sicily. There, he falls in love with and briefly marries a local young woman, Apollonia (Simonetta Stefanelli). Meanwhile, Kay takes a job as a teacher in her hometown — Corleone family consigliere Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall) refuses to accept a letter from Kay to Michael lest it be used in court proceedings to prove that the family had "knowledge of his whereabouts".

Apollonia is killed by a car bomb intended for Michael, who returns to the United States a year later. He and Kay reunite and marry after he promises to take the family completely legitimate within five years. Michael becomes the new Don in 1955 after his father's death. They have two children, Anthony and Mary.

When an hysterical Connie accuses Michael of orchestrating a wave of murders — including that of her husband, Carlo Rizzi (Giovanni Russo) — Kay asks Michael if his sister is telling the truth. Michael denies it, but immediately afterward, Kay sees Michael receiving his caporegimes, and sees Peter Clemenza (Richard Castellano) greet him as "Don Michael" ("Don Corleone" in the film). In the novel, she flees back to New Hampshire with their children, but Hagen persuades her to return. At the end of the novel, Kay converts to Catholicism, going to Mass every day to pray for her husband's soul (just as Mama Corleone had done for Vito).

Godfather Part II

At the beginning of The Godfather, Part II (set in 1958-59), Kay, who is pregnant with the couple's third child, implores Michael to fulfill his promise of legitimizing the family business. Michael makes a sincere effort to break the family's criminal ties, but his escalating war with rival Hyman Roth (Lee Strasberg) and his personal obsession with revenge keeps him trapped in the criminal underworld. On the night after Anthony's First Communion, assassins machine-gun Michael and Kay's bedroom while the family take refuge in the sitting room.

During Michael's trip to Cuba, Kay secretly has an abortion. After a Senate investigation against Michael collapses, she finally decides to leave him and take their children with her. During the ensuing argument, she tells him that she did not miscarry, but had actually had an abortion to avoid bringing another son into Michael's criminal family. Enraged, Michael punches Kay in the face and banishes her from the family; the two are soon divorced.

Michael initially keeps his children. When Kay comes to Michael's house to visit her children, Michael coldly closes the front door in her face.

Godfather Part III

By the time of The Godfather, Part III (set in 1979-80), Kay has remarried, and Michael has granted her custody of Anthony and Mary. Her new husband is a prosecutor named Douglas. She and Michael have not been in contact for several years. Michael has extracted himself from criminal enterprises and has even sold the casinos, and he has been given a knighthood by the Pope, in recognition of his charitable work. They have an uneasy reunion that turns into an argument, in which Kay tells him that both she and their son Anthony (Franc D'Ambrosio) know that Michael ordered the murder of his brother Fredo (John Cazale), and that she dreads seeing him.

However, the two eventually reconcile their differences and begin to rekindle their relationship after Michael retires and appoints his nephew Vincent (Andy García) the new Don. In one scene, Michael visits the home of Don Tommasino (Vittorio Duse) and has lunch with Kay, during which he asks her forgiveness for everything he's done. Michael truthfully tells Kay that he had a very different destiny planned for them, and that he is sorrowful that he has lost her. Kay admits that she always loved him, and that she always will. They plan to see Anthony's operatic debut, Cavalleria Rusticana, in Palermo. Just as they begin a new life together, however, their daughter Mary (Sofia Coppola) is killed in an assassination attempt on Michael. Mary's death breaks Michael's spirit, and he withdraws from Kay and from life itself until his death in 1997.