Hyman Roth

Hyman Roth is a fictional character, and the primary antagonist in The Godfather Part II, played by the actor and acting teacher Lee Strasberg, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the role (which he lost to his co-star, Robert De Niro, for the same film). Hyman Roth is based on mobster Meyer Lansky. Roth is depicted as boss of the Jewish mob who has long been an associate of the Corleone family, though he is not mentioned in the first film or in the book on which it is based. Much like Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando), Roth is a cunning, methodical and ruthless criminal, but masks it behind a soft-spoken persona. Roth, whose birth name is Hyman Suchowsky, first meets Vito when the latter hires him to fix a...