$120,000,000
Al Pacino
Net Worth
Born in (City)
New York
Born in (Country)
United State of America
Date of Birth
25th December, 1940
Date of Death
-
Mother
Rose Gerardi
Father
Salvatore Pacino
Children
- Julie Marie
- Anton James
- Olivia Rose
About
Alfredo James Pacino is an American filmmaker and actor. In a career lasting more than five decades, he has won numerous honors and nominations, including the Academy Award, two Tony Awards, and two Primetime Emmy Awards. He is one of the few actors to win the Triple Crown of Acting. He has also received the AFI Life Achievement Award, the Cecil B. DeMille Award, and the National Medal of Arts.
Al Pacino short for Alfredo James Pacino is an American actor and filmmaker. He is prominently known for his role, Michael Corleone in Godfather 1972. He is Oscars winning actor alongside a BAFTA award, two Emmy Awards, four Golden Globes awards, and two Tonys awards.
Early Life
Al Pacino was born on April 25, 1940, in East Harlem, New York. He was the son of Rose Gerardi and Salvatore Pacino, a salesman and restaurateur who had come from San Fratello, Sicily. At the age of 2, his parents were divorced and Al Pacino moved to her parent's house with his mother. Pacino attended Herm Ridder Junior High School, where his peers dubbed him 'Sonny.' When he said that to his mother, she did not consent, which led to a dispute between them. Pacino left his mother's house in a rage. He began working as a courier, a busboy, a postal clerk to fund his studies. Soon Pacino began to smoke and drink. He's lost his two closest buddies to heroin abuse. Serving in low-paid occupations, Pacino had to sleep in theatres, at a friend's home, or sometimes in the parks. Pacino left school and began his career at the Herbert Berghof Studio in 1959. In 1963, he played a part in William Saroyan's Hero, Out there.
Road to Success
A method actor and a former pupil at the HB Studio and the Actors Studio, where he was trained by Charlie Laughton and Lee Strasberg, Pacino's film debut came at the age of 29 with a minor role in Me, Natalie (1969). He was given a favorable note of his first leading role as a drug user in The Panic in Needle Park (1971). Wide praise and recognition came with his ground-breaking performance as Michael Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather (1972), for which he got his first Oscar nomination, and he would return to the role of The Godfather Part II (1974) and The Godfather Part III (1990). Pacino was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for Serpico (1973), The Godfather Part II, Dog Day Afternoon (1975) and ...And Justice for All (1979), eventually receiving the Academy Award for Blind Military Veterans in Scent of a Woman (1992). He won Best Supporting Actor Oscar nominations for his roles in The Godfather, Dick Tracy (1990), Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), and The Irishman (2019). Other notable portraits include Tony Montana in Scarface (1983), Carlito Brigante in Carlito's Way (1993), Benjamin Ruggiero in Donnie Brasco (1997), and Lowell Bergman in The Insider (1997). (1999). He also starred in the thrillers Heat (1995), The Devil's Advocate (1997), Insomnia (2002), and appeared in Hollywood Once Upon a Time (2019). On film, Pacino has appeared in many productions for HBO, including Angels in America (2003) and Jack Kevorkian biopic You Don't Know Jack (2010), winning a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in Miniseries or a Movie for both of them. Pacino is now starring in the Amazon Video streaming television series Hunters (2020–present). He's also had a long career on stage. He was a two-time Tony Award recipient, in 1969 and 1977, for his roles in The Tiger Wear a Necktie and Pavlo Hummel's Basic Training.
Challenges
In 1967, Pacino spent a season at the Charles Playhouse in Boston, appearing at Clifford Odets' Awake then Sing, and at Jean-Claude Van Itallie's America Hurrah. In this play, he met actress Jill Clayburgh. They had a five-year affair and moved back to New York City together. In 1968, Pacino appeared in Israel Horovitz's The Indian Wants the Bronx at the Astor Place Theater, performing Murph, a street punk. The play premiered on January 17, 1968, and ran for 177 performances; it was staged in a double bill with Horovitz's It's Called the Sugar Plum, starring Clayburgh. Pacino won the Obie Award for Best Actor for his performance, John Cazale for Best Supporting Actor, and Horowitz for Best New Play. Martin Bregman saw the play and became Pacino's mentor, a relationship that became fruitful in the years to come, as Bregman persuaded Pacino to do The Dad, Serpico, and Dog Day Afternoon. Pacino said of his stage work, "Martin Bregman has found me... I was 26 years old, 25 years old... he discovered me and became my manager. And that's why I'm right here. I owe that to Marty, I truly do ". In October 2002, Pacino appeared in Bertolt Brecht's The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui for the National Actor's Theater and Complicity. The output was a critical achievement, in which "Pacino captures and attracts the attention of a coiled spring about to break. He's all brooding threat and crocodile grimace, butchering his way to the top with an unnervingly creepy glee." Pacino returned to the stage in the summer of 2010, portraying Shylock in Shakespeare's Park production The Merchant of Venice. The acclaimed production transferred to Broadway at the Broadhurst Theater in October, winning US$1 million at the box office in its first week. He was also awarded the Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in the Play. Pacino appeared at the 30th anniversary of Broadway's revival of David Mamet's classic Glengarry Glen Ross, which lasted from October 2012 to January 20, 2013. He starred at Broadway in China Doll, a play written for him by Mamet, which premiered on 5 December 2015 and closed on 21 January 2016 after 97 performances. The previews were made in October 2015.
Failures
Shooting had begun in early 1971. Pacino recalls the Paramount suits looking at the rushes and saying: “What the hell is this kid doing? And he’s short to boot.” They thought he was delivering an “anemic” performance. The studio brass, Pacino says, “tried to fire me three times.” There “was a movement not to have me in the part,” the 76-year-old actor recalls, sitting on the porch of his rental house in the flats of Beverly Hills. “I didn’t want me in the part.” Al Pacino as Michael Corleone in a scene from "The Godfather.” (AP) Paramount had wanted Ryan O’Neal or Robert Redford to play Michael in “The Godfather,” America’s great epic about violence and family. Pacino himself thought that he would be better as the hotheaded older brother, instead of in the role that secured his stardom. “Michael? Sonny would be more appropriate,” he remembers thinking. But ultimately, he knew what he was doing. “I was trying to create a character who you don’t know where you’re at with him,” he says. “I knew it was a tough part to pull off. Michael’s so insular, so private.” Writer and director Francis Ford Coppola believed. He had always envisioned Pacino, already an acclaimed New York stage actor, as Michael. “His intelligence is what I noted first. He knows how to use his gifts,” says Coppola. “He uses what he has, this striking magnetic quality, this smoldering ambiance.” Then came the Sollozzo scene. Michael, teeth clenched, eyes darting, grabs the gun hidden in the restaurant bathroom and shoots Corleone rival Sollozzo and corrupt New York police captain McCluskey. It’s the law-abiding son’s first mob hit, and it seals his fate as his father’s replacement.
Achievements
Nominated for 9 Academy Awards and Won the Best Actor for Scent of a Woman|Goldene Kamera: Lifetime Achievement Award in 2013|Jameson Dublin International Film Festival: Volta Award in 2012|Lifetime Achievement Award in American Film Institute in 2007|Lifetime Achievement Award in Gotham Award in 1996|National Medal of Arts in 2011
Quotes
- My first language was shy. It’s only by having been thrust into the limelight that I have learned to cope with my shyness.
- All I am is what I am going after.