1960s
In 1966, after many previous unsuccessful attempts, he auditioned at
The Actors Studio and got accepted. He studied under legendary acting coach
Lee Strasberg (who later co-starred with Pacino in the 1974 film
The Godfather Part II). During later interviews he spoke about Strasberg and the Studio's effect on his career:
The Actors Studio meant so much to me in my life. Lee Strasberg hasn’t been given the credit he deserves. . . . Next to Charlie, it sort of launched me. It really did. That was a remarkable turning point in my life. It was directly responsible for getting me to quit all those jobs and just stay acting."
During another interview he added, "It was exciting to work for him [Lee Strasberg] because he was so interesting when he talked about a scene or talked about people. One would just want to hear him talk, because things he would say, you’d never heard before... He had such a great understanding... he loved actors so much.
Pacino found acting to be enjoyable and realized he had a gift for it. However, it did put him in financial straits until the end of the decade. In 1967, Pacino spent a season at the Charles Playhouse in
Boston, performing in
Clifford Odets'
Awake and Sing! (his first major paycheck: $125 a week); and in Jean-Claude Van Itallie's
America, Hurrah, where he met actress
Jill Clayburgh while working on this play. They went on to have a five-year romance. At the end of 1967, they moved together back to New York City.
In 1968, Pacino starred in
Israel Horovitz's
The Indian Wants the Bronx at the Astor Place Theater, playing Murph, a street punk. The play opened 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 an
Obie Award for Best Actor for his role, with
John Cazale winning for Best Supporting actor and Horowitz for Best New Play. Martin Bregman saw the play and offered to be Pacino's manager, a partnership that became fruitful in the years to come.
[8]Pacino and this production of
The Indian Wants the Bronx traveled to
Italy for a performance at the
Festival dei Due Mondi in
Spoleto. It was Pacino's first journey to Italy; he later recalled that "performing for an
Italian audience was a marvelous experience".
Pacino and Clayburgh were cast in "Deadly Circle of Violence", an episode of the
ABC television series
N.Y.P.D., premiering November 12, 1968. Clayburgh at the time was also appearing on the
soap opera Search for Tomorrow, playing the role of Grace Bolton. Her father would send the couple money each month to help.
That same year he made his movie debut with a brief screen appearance in
Me, Natalie, an independent film starring
Patty Duke, released July 1969. In 1970, Pacino signed with the talent agency Creative Management Associates (CMA).
1970s
It was the 1971 film
The Panic in Needle Park, in which he played a
heroin addict, that would bring Pacino to the attention of
director Francis Ford Coppola, who cast him as
Michael Corleone in the blockbuster 1972
Mafia film
The Godfather. Although several established actors, including
Robert Redford,
Warren Beatty, and a little-known
Robert De Niro also wanted to portray Michael Corleone, Coppola selected the relatively unknown Pacino, much to the dismay of studio executives. Pacino's performance earned him an
Academy Award nomination, and offered a prime example of his early acting style, described by
Halliwell's Film Guide as "intense" and "tightly clenched".
In 1973, Pacino starred in the popular
Serpico, based on the true story of New York City policeman Frank Serpico who went undercover to expose the corruption of fellow officers. That same year he co-starred in
Scarecrow, with
Gene Hackman, and won the
Palme d'Or at the
Cannes Film Festival. In 1974, Pacino reprised his role as Michael Corleone in the 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 bank robber
John Wojtowicz. It was directed by
Sidney Lumet, who also directed him in
Serpico a few years earlier, and for both films Pacino was nominated for Best Actor.
1980
Pacino's 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 Globenomination for his role as Cuban drug dealer/lord Tony Montana.
In 1985, Pacino worked on his most personal project,
The Local Stigmatic, a 1969
Off Broadway play by the English writer
Heathcote Williams. He starred in the play, remounting it with director David Wheeler and the Theater Company of Boston in a 50-minute film version. It was later released as part of the
Pacino: An Actor's Vision box set in 2007.
His 1985 film
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." Pacino returned to film in 1989's
Sea of Love.
1990s
2000s
On June 19, 2007, a boxed set titled
Pacino: An Actor's Vision was released, containing three rare Al Pacino films:
The Local Stigmatic,
Looking For Richard and
Chinese Coffee, as well as a documentary,
Babbleonia. Pacino produced prologues and epilogues for the discs containing the films.
88 Minutes was released on April 18, 2008 in the United States, having already been released in various other countries in 2007. The film was critically panned, although critics found the fault to be in the plot instead of Pacino's acting. In
Righteous Kill, Pacino's next scheduled film, Pacino and
Robert De Niro co-star as New York detectives searching for a
serial killer. Rapper
50 Cent also stars in it. The film was released to theaters on September 12, 2008. In
Rififi, a
remake of the 1955 French
original based on the novel by
Auguste Le Breton, Pacino will play 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. Pacino is playing Dr.
Jack Kevorkian in an HBO Films biopic entitled
You Don't Know Jack, which is currently filming. In December 2009, Pacino bought the rights to the
Philip Roth novel "
The Humbling", about a worn out stage actor who finds new hope and erotic adventures with a younger woman. The film is in
pre-production.
Personal life
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 dated from 1996 until 2003. Pacino also had a relationship with
Diane Keaton, his co-star in the Godfather Trilogy. The on-again, off-again relationship ended following the filming of
The Godfather Part III.