Father of man who inspired Super Mario was also named Luigi, researcher finds | Super Mario
The Washington state businessman who inspired Nintendo to name its mustachioed superhero plumber Mario did not have a brother named Luigi, like the famous fictional video game star.
But it has just been determined that Nintendo may have unwittingly named the brother of its mascot after one of the real-life Mario’s close relatives: his father Luigi, whose biography evokes millions of US immigrants from Italy in the 20th century.
Senior researcher Elisabeth Zetland of the genealogy service MyHeritage made the discovery while recently researching the ancestral history of the late Mario Arnold Segale. And despite being one of the greatest in the history of the video game industry, he said in an interview with the Guardian that, as far as he could tell, “it’s just a coincidence”.
As gaming enthusiasts have known for years, Segale was home of Nintendo of America in Tukwila, Washington, in the 1980s. And company based on Super Mario’s nickname for Segale – along with some aspects of the businessman’s appearance, reportedly — before a series of video games tied to the Italian-American character sold hundreds of millions of copies across various platforms.
But decidedly less is known about the inspiration for Luigi, Super Mario’s timid but loyal sidekick and brother. Shigeru Miyamoto, the Japanese creator of the Super Mario series, said that the original game of the series needed two relatively similar characters, and Nintendo chose Luigi as the sidekick because the popular Italian name rhymes with the Japanese word “similar”.
There are others theorized It may have been named after a pizza parlor near Nintendo’s Washington office that was then called Mario & Luigi’s.
Nintendo did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether Segale realized his father’s name was Luigi. Whatever the case, it was in the midst of such uncertainty that Zetland stepped in. He had decided to use the opportunity of the Super Mario Galaxy Movie, which has been dominating the box office since its release in early April, to compile Segale’s family history.
French-born Zetland, himself of Italian descent, said it quickly became clear that a father named Luigi was a hugely prominent figure in the real Mario’s life, citing birth, marriage, census, immigration and other historical records he consulted.
Luigi Maria Segale was born in 1886 in the Favale di Malvaro community near Genoa, Italy, to a family whose patriarch was a mason. Zetland learned that in 1909, Luigi and his brother Giuseppe sailed to Ellis Island, New York, on the steamship Prinzess Irene and traveled to the Pacific Northwest, settling around Tukwila, Washington, south of Seattle.
Zetland found U.S. military records showing that Luigi, who adopted the anglicized name Louis, served in his new country’s armed forces during World War I, beginning in 1918. He was honorably discharged a year later and subsequently made a living as an independent farmer; It was a journey reminiscent of that of the 4 million Italians who immigrated to the United States over a 35-year period, beginning in 1880, grappling with economic hardship and political turmoil.
By 1940, Luigi and his wife, Rina, had a six-year-old son named Mario, and census records show that his family had achieved financial stability through their farm, where they grew produce such as tomatoes, lettuce, and onions, which they then trucked to Seattle’s urban markets to sell.
Other documents Zetland encountered and cited in a 13-page report on his findings gave glimpses into the upbringing of the man who would one day inspire Super Mario.
According to a social column in the local La Gazzetta Italiana, Mario’s parents welcomed him on his 12th birthday in 1946 with a cake and a meal prepared in the culinary style of the Ligurian region, which includes Genoa. An accordion – or physharmonica – the artist accompanied as guests spent the afternoon singing together in a house in Seattle that the Segales bought at the beginning of the US’s post-World War II housing boom, a symbol of the prosperity they managed to achieve after emigrating.
Louis and Rina Segale were later recognized by the Catholic Northwest Progress newspaper for their support of children enrolled in the Archdiocese of Seattle’s foster program.
“This is truly the legacy of Italian dreams and American opportunity,” Zetland said.
The couple has since died. Meanwhile, before his death in 2018, their son Mario began a successful construction and real estate career in Tukwila and the surrounding area. Among the various building tenants was Nintendo, whose staff struggled to come up with a name for a squat, red-hatted, high-jumping character who made his debut in the arcade classic Donkey Kong.
The company got Super Mario one day, as author David Sheff wrote in his book Game Over: How Nintendo Conquered the World, when Segale walked into their offices and berated one of their officials because the group’s rent was overdue.
Apparently Segale wasn’t too fond of the connection to Super Mario. In one of his few comments on the subject in 1993, shortly after the release of Game Over, the notoriously press-shy Segale said: Seattle Times: “You can say I’m still waiting for my royalty checks.”
In his 2018 obituary, he added that he “always avoided the notoriety” that came with Super Mario’s name and “instead wanted to be known for what he accomplished in his life.”
Louis Segale’s thoughts about sharing the same name with Super Mario’s brother faded away over time. He passed away in 1981, five years before the Nintendo Entertainment System game Super Mario Bros. introduced Luigi to the gaming world.
