Director - Francis Ford Coppola

Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) is more than the cold-hearted head of a powerful Italian mob family. That trait shows when he sentences a man to be beaten as retaliation for the beating of another man's daughter - all while gently stroking a cat.
Thing is, the cat was never part of the original script. Some reports say that Coppola plopped the feline into Brando's lap just before filming began. Other reports say Brando found "il gatto" roaming around the set, picked him and gave him an offer he couldn't refuse (heh).