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Alfredo James Pacino (born April 25, 1940) is an Academy Award, Golden Globe, Tony, BAFTA, Emmy and SAG award winning American film and stage actor and director, widely considered to be one of the greatest and most influential actors of all time. He is well known for his roles as Michael Corleone in the The Godfather trilogy, Tony Montana in Scarface, Sonny Wortzik in Dog Day Afternoon, Frank Serpico in Serpico, and Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade in Scent of a Woman. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1992 for his role in Scent of a Woman after being nominated 7 times beforehand for various roles. Arguably the greatest and most accomplished actor of his generation, Al Pacino became a cultural icon thanks to revered performances in a wide range of classic films, including “The Godfather” (1972), “Scarface” (1983) and “Glengarry Glen Ross” (1992). Coming to prominence during the 1970s – a period commonly regarded as Hollywood’s last Golden Age – he possessed none of the classic features of leading men from Tinseltown’s previous heydays, but nonetheless, enthralled audiences with absorbing performances on screens both large and small, as well as on stage. As a Method actor, Pacino revealed the dark complexities of characters like Frank Serpico, Sonny Wortzik and Colonel Frank Slade. But in life, the actor remained an elusive figure, preferring to avoid disclosing anything of a personal nature. Despite such reluctance to open up about his life, Pacino maintained a long, prominent career in which he accomplished acting’s rarest of feats—winning Oscar, Emmy and Tony awards. Born on April 25, 1940 in South Bronx, NY, he was raised by his mother, Rose, and maternal grandparents, after his father, Salvatore, an insurance salesman and restaurateur, abandoned the family when Pacino was two years old. Thanks to being exposed to theater and movies through his mother, he alleviated loneliness and shyness by acting out scenes from “The Lost Weekend” to whoever would pay attention. Pacino later attended The School of Performing Arts, but dropped out when he was 17; instead studying at HB Studio and apprenticing at such avant-garde off-off-Broadway venues as Elaine Stewart's Cafe LaMaMa and Julian Beck and Judith Malina's Living Theatre. In one of those life changing events that seemed innocuous at the time, Pacino was cast in August Strindberg’s “Creditors,” directed by Charlie Laughton – the two went on to be lifelong friends – an experience that convinced him that he could be an actor. Pacino moved on to train at the fabled Actors Studio under Lee Strasberg, acquiring the Method acting intensity that propelled him to stardom. It was the 1971 film The Panic in Needle Park, in which he played a heroin addict, that would bring him to the attention of director Francis Ford Coppola. Pacino's rise to fame came after portraying Michael Corleone in Coppola's blockbuster 1972 Mafia film The Godfather and Frank Serpico in the eponymous 1973 movie. Although several established actors, including Robert Redford, Warren Beatty, and a little-known Robert De Niro were vying to portray Michael Corleone, director Coppola selected the relatively unknown Pacino, much to the dismay of studio executives. His performance earned him an Academy Award nomination. Pacino's performance as Michael Corleone offers one of the finest examples of his early acting style, described by Halliwell's Film Guide as "intense" and "tightly clenched". In 1973 Pacino starred in the very successful Serpico and the less popular Scarecrow alongside Gene Hackman. In 1974, Pacino reprised his role as Michael Corleone in the very successful sequel The Godfather Part II, acclaimed as being comparable to the original. In 1975, he enjoyed further success with the release of Dog Day Afternoon, based on the true story of a bank robber John Wojtowicz. In 1977, Pacino starred as a race-car driver in Bobby Deerfield, directed by Sydney Pollack and received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Motion Picture Actor – Drama, for his portrayal of Bobby Deerfield, but lost out to Richard Burton, who ultimately won for Equus. During the 1970s, Pacino had four Oscar nominations for Best Actor for his performances in Serpico, The Godfather Part II, Dog Day Afternoon, and ...And Justice for All. Pacino continued his dedication to the stage, winning a second Tony Award for The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel and performing the title role in Richard III for a record run on Broadway, despite poor notices from critics. His career slumped in the early 1980s, and his appearances in the controversial Cruising and the comedy-drama Author! Author! were critically panned. However, 1983's Scarface, directed by Brian DePalma, proved to be a career highlight and a defining role. Upon its initial release, the film was critically panned but did well at the box office, grossing over US$45 million domestically. Pacino earned a Golden Globe nomination for his performance in Scarface as a Cuban drug gangster. Years later, he would reveal to interviewer Barbara Walters that Tony Montana represented the best work of his career. Pacino worked on his most personal project, The Local Stigmatic, a 1969 Off Broadway play by the English writer Heathcote Williams, in which he starred, which he remounted with director David Wheeler and the Theater Company of Boston in a 1985 50-minute film version, which was screened in New York in March 1990. It was later released as part of the Pacino: An Actor's Vision boxset in 2007. 1985's Revolution was a commercial and critical failure, resulting in a four year hiatus from films, during which Pacino returned to the stage. He mounted workshop productions of Crystal Clear, National Anthems and other plays; he appeared in Julius Caesar in 1988 in producer Joseph Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival. Pacino remarked on his hiatus from film: "I remember back when everything was happening, '74, '75, doing The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui on stage and reading that the reason I'd gone back to the stage was that my movie career was waning! That's been the kind of ethos, the way in which theater's perceived, unfortunately."[9] Pacino returned to films in 1989's Sea of Love. His greatest stage success of the decade was David Mamet's American Buffalo, for which Pacino was nominated for a Drama Desk Award. Greatest Movie Of The 80's. Pacino received an Oscar nomination as Big Boy Caprice in the box office hit Dick Tracy (1990) followed by a return to arguably his most famous character, Michael Corleone, in The Godfather Part III (1990). In 1991, Al Pacino starred in Frankie and Johnny with Michelle Pfeiffer, who also co-starred with Pacino in Scarface. He would finally win an Oscar for Best Actor, for his portrayal of the depressed, irascible, and retired blind Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade in Martin Brest's Scent of a Woman (1992). That very year, he was also nominated for the supporting actor award for Glengarry Glen Ross, making Pacino the first male actor ever to receive two acting nominations for two different movies in the same year, and to win for the lead role (as did Jamie Foxx in 2004). During that same year, Pacino was offered to voice Batman villain Two-Face in the hugely successful Batman The Animated Series but turned down the role. Pacino has since turned acclaimed performances in such crime dramas as Carlito's Way (1993), Donnie Brasco (1997), the multi-Oscar nominated The Insider (1999) and Insomnia (2002). In 1995, Pacino starred in Michael Mann's Heat, in which he and fellow film icon Robert De Niro appeared onscreen together for the first time. (Though both Pacino and De Niro starred in The Godfather Part II, they did not share any scenes. The pairing drew much attention as the two actors have long been compared). In 1996, Pacino starred in his theatrical feature Looking for Richard, and was lauded for his role as Satan in the supernatural drama The Devil's Advocate in 1997. Pacino also starred in Oliver Stone's critically acclaimed Any Given Sunday in 1999, playing the team coach. The speech he performs in the film has become known world-wide as "the Al Pacino Speech" which is used to inspire many athletes around the world. Pacino has not received another nomination from the Academy since Scent of a Woman, but has won two Golden Globes during the last decade, the first being the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2001 for lifetime achievement in motion pictures, and the second for his role in the highly praised HBO miniseries Angels in America in 2004. Pacino has turned down several key roles in his career, including that of Han Solo in Star Wars, Jimmy Conway in Goodfellas, Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, Ted Kramer in Kramer Vs. Kramer, Paul Sheldon in Misery, Captain Willard in Apocalypse Now, Richard Sherman in a never-filmed remake of The Seven Year Itch, and Edward Lewis in Pretty Woman. In 1996, Pacino was slated to play General Manuel Noriega in a major biographical motion picture when director Oliver Stone pulled the plug on production to focus on his movie Nixon. Pacino's greatest stage successes of the decade were in revivals of Eugene O'Neill's Hughie and Oscar Wilde's Salome. Pacino recently turned down an offer to reprise his role as Michael Corleone in The Godfather: The Game, ostensibly because his voice had changed dramatically since playing Michael in the first two Godfather films. As a result, Electronic Arts was not permitted to use Pacino's likeness or voice in the game, although his character does appear in it. It is rumored Pacino actually declined the role due to a conflict with Electronic Arts' rival, Vivendi Universal, which launched a competing game adaptation of the remake of 1983's Scarface, titled Scarface: The World is Yours. However, Pacino did not voice his character in this game for the same given reason. Pacino allowed his likeness to be used for the game, but not his voice. Rising director Christopher Nolan worked with Pacino for Insomnia, a remake of the Norwegian Film of the same name. The film and Pacino's performance was critically lauded and the film did moderately well at the box office. Pacino starred as lawyer Roy Cohn in the 2003 HBO miniseries of Tony Kushner's play Angels in America. Pacino still acts on stage and has dabbled in film directing. While The Local Stigmatic remains unreleased, his film festival-screened Chinese Coffee has earned good notices. On the AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains, he is only the second actor to appear on both lists: on the "heroes list" as Frank Serpico and on the "villains list" as Michael Corleone. Pacino starred as Shylock in Michael Radford's 2004 film The Merchant of Venice. On October 20, 2006, the American Film Institute named Pacino the recipient of the 35th AFI Life Achievement Award. On November 22, 2006, the University Philosophical Society of Trinity College, Dublin awarded Pacino the Honorary Patronage of the Society. With his box office earnings relatively modest of late, Pacino looks to be gearing up with several new projects. He starred in Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean's Thirteen alongside George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, and Andy Garcia as the villain Willy Bank, a casino tycoon who is targeted out of revenge by Danny Ocean and his crew. On June 19, 2007, a boxset titled Pacino: An Actor's Vision was released, containing 3 rare Al Pacino films: The Local Stigmatic (Disc 1), Looking For Richard (Disc 2) and Chinese Coffee (Disc 3), and also a documentary on Pacino's entire film career, Babbleonia (Disc 4). Al Pacino's latest film 88 Minutes is expected to be released in 2008 in America, having already been released in various other countries in 2007. In his next scheduled release Righteous Kill, Pacino and Robert De Niro co-star as New York detectives searching for a serial killer. In Rififi, a remake of the 1955 French original based on the novel by Auguste Le Breton, Pacino plays a career thief just out of prison who finds his wife has left him; in his anger, he starts planning a heist. Also Pacino is set to play surrealist Salvador Dalí in the film Dali & I: The Surreal Story, Al Pacino also won several awards during this time including one for being named the greatest actor of all time in Channel 4's poll of the greatest actors. On January 7, 1961, Pacino and two others were seen by police circling in their vehicle in a suspicious manner, and wearing black masks and gloves. When police pulled them over, Pacino was found to be carrying a concealed weapon and was arrested. Pacino, who was 21 years old and living in New York City, stayed in jail for three days before being released when it was found that the weapons were, in fact, props from a movie set. While Pacino has never married, he has three children. The first, Julie Marie, (b. 1989) is his daughter with acting coach Jan Tarrant. He also has twins, Anton James and Olivia Rose (b. January 25, 2001), with ex-girlfriend Beverly D'Angelo, whom he was with from 1997 until 2001. Pacino rebounded with a stellar turn as Roy Cohn in HBO's acclaimed adaptation of "Angels In America" (2003), a performance that earned him a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Miniseries or a Motion Picture Made-for-Television and an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie. In 2004, Pacino was able to bring one of his favorite Shakespeare plays to the big screen with director Michael Radford, playing the comically bitter Shylock in "The Merchant of Venice.” Although the anti-Semitic overtones of the play made it difficult to perform in modern times, Pacino effectively portrayed the moneylender's claim for his pound of flesh, as driven by a realistic anger over the loss of his daughter to a Christian man. Pacino returned to his scenery-chewing ways in “Two For the Money” (2005), playing Walter Abraham, a sports wagering consultant who takes a former college basketball star (Matthew McConaughey) under his wing after learning that he has a knack for predicting games. After sitting out for much of 2006, sans a rare extensive interview on the long-running series “Inside the Actors Studio” (Bravo, 1995- ), Pacino joined the ensemble cast for “Ocean’s 13” (2007), playing a ruthless Las Vegas casino owner whose double-crossing of Danny Ocean (George Clooney) and company leads to his downfall. |
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