Pacino, Al

▪ American actor

in full  Alfredo James Pacino 

born April 25, 1940, New York, N.Y., U.S.

      American actor best known for his intense, explosive acting style.

      After growing up in East Harlem and the Bronx, Pacino moved at age 19 to Greenwich Village, where he studied acting at the Herbert Berghof Studio and appeared in many Off-Broadway and out-of-town productions, including Hello, Out There (1963) and Why Is a Crooked Letter (1966). He took further acting lessons from Lee Strasberg (Strasberg, Lee) and played a small part in the film Me, Natalie in 1969. The same year, he made his Broadway debut and won a Tony Award for his performance in the play Does the Tiger Wear a Necktie? Pacino's first leading role in a film came with The Panic in Needle Park (1971), a grim tale of heroin addiction that became something of a cult classic.

      Director Francis Ford Coppola (Coppola, Francis Ford) cast the unknown Pacino in the film that would make him a star, The Godfather (1972). The saga of a family of gangsters and their fight to maintain power in changing times, The Godfather was a wildly popular film that won the Oscar for best picture and earned Pacino numerous accolades for his intense performance as Michael Corleone, a gangster's son who reluctantly takes over the “family business.” Pacino solidified his standing as one of Hollywood's most dynamic stars in his next few films. In Scarecrow (1973), he teamed with Gene Hackman (Hackman, Gene) in a bittersweet story about two transients, and his roles in Serpico (1973) and Dog Day Afternoon (1975) displayed Pacino's characteristic screen qualities of brooding seriousness and explosive rage. He also repeated the role of Michael Corleone for Coppola's The Godfather, Part II (1974), a film that, like its predecessor, won the best picture Oscar.

      Pacino's next few films did not fare as well. Bobby Deerfield (1977) was notable as his first box-office failure since he had become a star. The dark comedy …And Justice for All (1979) featured some of Pacino's most memorable scenes, but Cruising (1980) and the light comedy Author! Author! (1982) were critical and popular disasters.

      In Brian De Palma (De Palma, Brian)'s Scarface (1983), Pacino returned to the kind of combustible, high-intensity role that had made him famous. As gangster Tony Montana, Pacino gave a highly charged, unrestrained performance that, although loved by some and deplored by others, ranks among his most unforgettable. His next film, Revolution (1985), was an expensive flop, and Pacino did not appear in another film for four years.

      Sea of Love (1989), his biggest hit in years, reestablished Pacino as a major film star. He reprised the role of Michael Corleone in The Godfather, Part III (1990), but it was his hilarious portrayal of grotesque gangster Big Boy Caprice in Dick Tracy (1990) that won him a supporting actor Oscar nomination. Frankie and Johnny (1991) and Glengarry Glen Ross (1992) continued his string of well-received films, and he won a best actor Oscar for his portrayal of a bitter blind man in Scent of a Woman (1992). Pacino's other notable films of the 1990s include Carlito's Way (1993); Heat (1995), a crime drama in which he played a detective hunting a thief (Robert De Niro (De Niro, Robert)); Donnie Brasco (1997), in which he starred as a low-level mobster who unknowingly befriends an FBI agent (Johnny Depp (Depp, Johnny)); and Oliver Stone's Any Given Sunday (1999). Also in 1999 Pacino appeared opposite Russell Crowe (Crowe, Russell) in The Insider. Based on real-life events, it examines tobacco companies and their efforts to conceal the dangerous side effects of cigarettes.

      Pacino's prolific acting career continued into the 21st century. In 2002 he starred with Robin Williams in the thriller Insomnia, and he later appeared in Ocean's Thirteen (2007), the final installment of a popular comedy trilogy that featured George Clooney (Clooney, George) and Brad Pitt. Pacino earned an Emmy and a Golden Globe Award for his role as homophobic lawyer Roy Cohn in Angels in America (2003), an HBO miniseries about AIDS in the 1980s; it also starred Emma Thompson (Thompson, Emma) and Meryl Streep (Streep, Meryl).

      Pacino frequently returned to the stage throughout his career. He won a Tony Award for his leading role in The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel (1977) and also starred in such plays as Richard III (1973, 1979), American Buffalo (1980, 1981, 1983), and Julius Caesar (1988). In 1996 he directed Looking for Richard, a documentary film about his own production of Richard III. Four years later, he directed and starred in Chinese Coffee, in which he played the role of Harry Levine, a washed-up writer who is depressed about his lack of success.

Additional Reading

William Schoell, The Films of Al Pacino (1995).

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