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Al Pacino

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File:Al Pacino and Robert Duvall in the Godfather.jpg
Pacino (right) with Robert Duvall in The Godfather.

Alfredo James "Al" Pacino (born April 25, 1940) is an Academy Award-winning American actor, widely considered as one of the finest of his generation.

Early life

Pacino was born in The Bronx, New York to Italian American parents Salvatore Pacino (who was born in the Italian town of Corleone) and Rose Gerard (the daughter of an Italian-born father and a New York-born mother of Italian descent). His parents divorced while Pacino was still a child. His grandparents originate from Corleone, Sicily.

Career

In 1966, Pacino studied under legendary acting coach Lee Strasberg (alongside whom he would later feature in the 1974 film The Godfather Part II), finding acting a therapeutic outlet in a youth which saw him depressed and so impoverished he could barely afford the bus fares required to get him to his next audition. 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 Does the Tiger Wear a Necktie? His movie debut came in 1969's Me, Natalie but 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.

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 1972 movie. Although numerous established actors, including Robert Redford, Warren Beatty, and a then unknown Robert De Niro, were vying for the part, Coppola selected the relatively unknown Pacino. His performance earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor and, by the end of the 1970s he would have three more nominations, all for Best Actor. Despite further nominations, it wasn't until 1992 that Pacino would win an Oscar, for Best Actor, for his portrayal of the irascible, retired and blind Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade in Martin Brest's Scent of a Woman.

That 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 win for the lead acting nomination. (Jamie Foxx did the same in 2005.) Pacino has not received another nomination from the Academy since those two, but has won two Golden Globes since the turn of the century, the first being the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement in motion picture, and the second for his role in the HBO miniseries Angels in America.

Pacino's career took a downturn in the early 1980s and his appearances in the controversial Cruising and the comedy-drama Author! Author! saw him critically panned. 1983's Scarface proved to be both a career highlight and a defining role, earning Pacino a Golden Globe nomination for his performance as a Cuban drug lord who cries out the now infamous line, punctuated by an automatic rifle blast, "You wanna play rough? Okay! Say hello to my little friend!".

However, 1985's Revolution was a commercial and a critical dud, and Pacino returned 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 re-mounted in 1985 with director David Wheeler and the Theater Company of Boston in order to film a 50-minute movie version unreleased as of 2005.

Pacino remarked on his film hiatus that, "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" [1].

Pacino re-surfaced in film in 1989's Sea of Love, which was to signal a return to form. The next year, in 1990, he received an Oscar nomination as Big Boy Caprice in the box office hit Dick Tracy. Pacino was nominated for, and won, a belated Academy Award for his role as the blind ex-Army Officer in "Scent of A Woman." Pacino has turned in excellent performances in such crime thrillers as Carlito's Way, Heat, and Insomnia, the crime docudrama Donnie Brasco, the supernatural drama The Devil's Advocate, and others.

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.

The quality of Pacino's performances, as well as his larger-than-life onscreen presence (in reality he's 5 ft 6 in), have established him as one of the world's major actors. Pacino still performs theater work and has also dabbled in direction. While The Local Stigmatic remains unreleased, his theatrical feature Looking for Richard and 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 three appearances on both lists: on the heroes as Frank Serpico and on the villains list as Tony Montana and Michael Corleone.

Although he has never been married, Pacino has three children. The first, Julie Marie, is his daughter with acting coach Jan Tarrant. He also has twins, Anton and Olivia, with ex-girlfriend Beverly D'Angelo.

Filmography

Year Film Role Notes
1969 Me, Natalie Tony
1971 The Panic in Needle Park Bobby
1972 The Godfather Michael Corleone
1973 Scarecrow Francis Lionel 'Lion' Delbuchi
1973 Serpico Officer Frank Serpico
1974 The Godfather Part II Michael Corleone
1975 Dog Day Afternoon Sonny
1977 Bobby Deerfield Bobby Deerfield
1979 ...And Justice for All Arthur Kirkland
1980 Cruising Steve Burns
1982 Author! Author! Ivan Travelian
1983 Scarface Tony Montana
1985 Revolution Tom Dobb
1989 The Local Stigmatic Graham Unreleased; also director and producer
1989 Sea of Love Detective Frank Keller
1990 Dick Tracy Big Boy Caprice
1990 The Godfather Part III Michael Corleone
1991 Madonna: Truth or Dare Documentary
1991 Frankie and Johnny Johnny
1992 Glengarry Glen Ross Ricky Roma
1992 Scent of a Woman Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade Oscar winner (leading actor)
1993 Carlito's Way Carlito 'Charlie' Brigante
1994 Jonas in the Desert Documentary
1995 Two Bits Gitano Sabatoni
1995 Heat Lieutenant Vincent Hanna
1996 City Hall Mayor John Pappas
1996 Looking for Richard Documentary; also director and producer
1997 Pitch Documentary
1997 Donnie Brasco Benjamin 'Lefty' Ruggiero
1997 Devil's Advocate John Milton
1999 The Insider Lowell Bergman
1999 Any Given Sunday Tony D'Amato
2000 Chinese Coffee Harry Levine Also director
2002 Insomnia Detective Will Dormer
2002 S1m0ne Viktor Taransky
2002 People I Know Eli Wurman
2003 The Recruit Walter Burke
2003 Gigli Starkman
2003 Angels in America Roy Cohn
2004 The Merchant of Venice Shylock
2005 Two for the Money Walter Abrams
2006 88 Minutes Jack Gramm Currently in post-production
2006 Torch Currently announced start of production
2007 Rififi Currently announced start of production

Academy Award and Nominations

Preceded by Best Actor
1992 		Succeeded by

References


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