Al Pacino

Al Pacino
Born	Alfredo James Pacino

Alfredo James "Al" Pacino (born April 25, 1940) is an Academy Award, Emmy Award and Tony Award-winning American stage and film actor. He is probably best known for his roles as Tony Montana in the film Scarface and as Michael Corleone in The Godfather.

Early life

Al Pacino was born in the Manhattan borough of New York City to Italian-American parents Salvatore Pacino and Rose Gerard (the daughter of an Italian-born father and a New York-born mother of Italian descent). His parents divorced when Pacino was two years old. After the divorce, Al and his mother moved to The Bronx, New York to live with his grandparents. His grandparents originated from Corleone, Sicily. His father Salvatore moved to Covina, California, working as an insurance salesman and owner of his own restaurant called Pacino's Lounge.

Pacino attended Manhattan's School of Performing Arts.

Tough times forced the closure of Pacino's in the early 1990s; it's now called Citrus Grill. Salvatore died on January 1, 2005 at the age of 82.

Career

1960s

In 1966, Pacino studied under legendary acting coach Lee Strasberg (alongside whom he would later feature in the 1974 film The Godfather Part II). He was finding acting to be an enjoyable talent that he had possessed since childhood, though it left him penniless and without a home so he was sleeping on the stage that he performed on. Yet by the end of the decade, he had won an Obie award for his stage work in The Indian Wants the Bronx and a Tony award for Best Supporting Actor in a Broadway Play for Does the Tiger Wear a Necktie?. He then made his first screen appearance in an episode of the television series N.Y.P.D. in 1968. His movie debut came the following year in Me, Natalie, which went largely unnoticed.

1970s

It was the 1971 film The Panic in Needle Park, in which he played a heroin addict, that would showcase his talents and bring him to the attention of director Francis Ford Coppola.

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Pacino (right) in The Godfather (1972).

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 numerous established actors, including Robert Redford, Warren Beatty, and a then unknown Robert De Niro, were vying to portray Michael Corleone, Coppola selected the relatively unknown Pacino, much to the dismay of studio executives. His performance earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. In 1973 Pacino starred in the very successful Serpico and the less popular Scarecrow alongside Gene Hackman. In 1974 he reprised his role as Michael Corleone in the sequel The Godfather Part II which was very successful and was critically acclaimed for being arguably as good as the original. In 1975, Pacino reached the first height of his popularity when Dog Day Afternoon was released. The film was based on the true story of a bank robber John Wojtowicz. Other minor works to close out the decade include Bobby Deerfield and ...And Justice for All.

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Pacino in Dog Day Afternoon (1975).

During the 1970's, 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.

1980s

Pacino's career slumped in the early 1980s and his appearances in the controversial Cruising and the comedy-drama Author! Author! were critically panned. 1983's Scarface, directed by Brian DePalma later proved to be both a career highlight and a defining role. When the film was first released, it too was panned critically but it did perform well at the box office grossing over $45 million domestically. Pacino earned a Golden Globe nomination for his performance in Scarface as a Cuban drug lord who cries out the now famous line, punctuated by a grenade launcher blast, "Say hello to my lil' friend!". The role and film succeeded in elevating Pacino to iconic status.

1985's Revolution continued Pacino's string of commercial and critical failures. This resulted in him not appearing in any films and returning to stage work for four years. He mounted workshop productions of Crystal Clear, National Anthems and other plays; appeared in Julius Caesar in 1988 for producer Joseph Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival; and worked on his most personal project, The Local Stigmatic, a play he had starred in Off Broadway in 1969, then remounted in 1985 with director David Wheeler and the Theater Company of Boston in order to film a 50-minute movie version unreleased as of 2006.

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." Pacino returned to films in 1989's Sea of Love.

1990s

Pacino received an Oscar nomination as Big Boy Caprice in the box office hit Dick Tracy (1990) followed by his return to his most famous role as Michael Corleone in The Godfather Part III (1990). He would finally later win an Oscar for Best Actor, for his portrayal of the depressed, irascible, retired and blind Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade in Martin Brest's Scent of a Woman (1992). That same year, he was also up for the supporting award for his role in Glengarry Glen Ross, making Pacino the first male actor ever to receive two acting nominations for two different movies in the same year, and the first actor of either gender to achieve that feat and then win for the lead role. (Jamie Foxx did the same in 2005.) Pacino has since turned in acclaimed performances in such crime thrillers as Carlito's Way (1993), the crime drama 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 on screen together for the first time (though both Pacino and De Niro starred in The Godfather Part II, they didn't share any scenes). The duo drew much attention from fans as both actors have generally been compared throughout their careers. In 1996 he starred in his theatrical feature Looking for Richard. He was also highly acclaimed for his role as the Devil in the supernatural drama The Devil's Advocate (1997).

Pacino has not received another nomination from the Academy since Scent of a Woman, but has won two Golden Globes since the turn of the 21st century, the first being the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement in motion picture, and the second for his role in the highly praised HBO miniseries Angels in America.

Pacino has turned down a number of key roles in his career, including that of Han Solo in Star Wars, Captain Willard in Apocalypse Now, Richard Sherman in a remake of The Seven Year Itch (which was never filmed) and Edward Lewis in Pretty Woman. In 1996, Pacino was set to play General Manuel Noriega in a major biographical motion picture when director Oliver Stone pulled the plug on production to focus on the movie Nixon. Later on, he received his own star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

2000s

Additionally, Pacino had recently turned down the offer to reprise the role of Michael Corleone in The Godfather: The Game, due to the fact that his voice had changed dramatically since he played the young Michael. As a result, Electronic Arts could not use Pacino's likeness or voice in the game (although Michael does appear in it). It is rumored that this decision was made by Pacino due to a conflict with EA's rival game publisher, Vivendi Universal, which launched a competing movie-to-game adaptation of the 1983 remake of Scarface, titled Scarface: The World is Yours.

Pacino still performs theater work and has also dabbled in directing. While The Local Stigmatic remains unreleased, his film festival-screened Chinese Coffee earned good notices. Several characters essayed by Pacino are famous in popular culture. On the AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains, he is only the second actor to have two appearances on both lists: on the heroes as Frank Serpico and on the villains list as Michael Corleone.

In October 1997, Pacino was ranked No 4 in Empire magazine's The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time list,and later was voted the Number 1 greatest movie star of all time in a Channel 4 (UK) poll. With takings comparatively quiet at the box-office of late, Pacino looks like stepping up a gear in 2007 with several new projects. He will star in Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean's Thirteen, alongside George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Andy Garcia.

Also scheduled for release is 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 and so in his anger starts planning a heist.

Pacino is also set to play surrealist Salvador Dalí in the film Dali & I: The Surreal Story.

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.

Personal life

Pacino has three children. The first, Julie Marie is his daughter with acting coach Jan Tarrant. He also has twins, Anton and Olivia, with his ex-girlfriend Beverly D'Angelo.

Filmography

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External links

• Al Pacino at IMDb
• Al Pacino at the TCM Movie Database
• Al Pacino at the Internet Broadway Database
• Los Angeles Times, Sunday, Sept. 17, 1989: "Pacino Re-Focuses on Film Career: After Five-Year Absence, Actor Returns to the Big Screen", by Frank Lovece
• Complete list of roles turned down by Al Pacino

References

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