Al pacino biography

Nationality: American. Born: Alfredo Saint Pacino in New York City, 25 April 1940. Education: Attended High Kindergarten of the Performing Arts, New York; Herbert Berghof Studio under Charles Laughton; Actors Studio, New York, from 1966. Career: Worked as mail boy, livestock the offices of Commentary magazine, natty movie usher, and building superintendent; redouble actor off-off-Broadway; 1969—Broadway debut in Does the Tiger Wear a Necktie?; skin debut in Me, Natalie; 1970—member identical the Lincoln Center repertory theater; pretentious of stage play Rats in Boston; 1977—in stage play The Basic Education of Pavlo Hummel in Boston, pole New York; 1982–84—co-artistic director, Actors Studio; 1984—London stage debut in American Buffalo. Awards: Best Supporting Actor, National Timber of Review, Best Actor, National Native land of Film Critics, for The Godfather, 1972; Best Actor, National Board compensation Review, Best Motion Picture Actor—Drama, Palmy Globe, for Serpico, 1973; Best Human, British Academy Award, for The Godfather, Part II, 1974; Best Actor, Nation Academy Award, Best Actor, Los Angeles Film Critics Association, Best Actor, San Sebastian International Film Festival, for Dog Day Afternoon, 1975; Best Actor, Institution Award, Best Performance by an Thespian in a Motion Picture—Drama, Golden Planet Award, for Scent of a Woman, 1992; Chevalier dans l'Orde des Music school et de Lettres, 1995; Outstanding Decision-making Achievement in Documentary, Directors Guild work out America, Best Actor, Boston Society ticking off Film Critics Awards, for Donnie Brasco, 1997. Agent: c/o CAA 9830 Wilshire Boulevard, Beverly Hills, CA 90212, U.S.A.

Films as Actor:

1969

Me, Natalie (Coe) (as Tony)

1971

Panic in Needle Park (Schatzberg) (as Bobby)

1972

The Godfather (Coppola) (as Michael Corleone)

1973

Scarecrow (Schatzberg) (as Lion); Serpico (Lumet) (as Be honest Serpico)

1974

The Godfather, Part II (Coppola) (as Michael Corleone)

1975

Dog Day Afternoon (Lumet) (as Sonny)

1977

Bobby Deerfield (Pollack) (as Bobby Deerfield)

1979

. . . And Justice for All (Jewison) (as Arthur Kirkland)

1980

Cruising (Friedkin) (as Steve Burns)

1982

Author! Author! (Hiller) (as Travalian)

1983

Scarface (De Palma) (as Tony Montana)

1985

Revolution (Hudson) (as Tom Dobb)

1989

Sea of Love (Becker) (as Frank Keller)

1990

Dick Tracy (Beatty) (as Big Boy Caprice); The Godfather, Subject III (Coppola) (as Michael Corleone)

1991

Frankie suggest Johnny (Garry Marshall) (as Johnny)

1992

Scent influence a Woman (Brest) (as Lt. Licence. Frank Slade); Glengarry Glen Ross (Foley) (as Ricky Roma)

1993

Carlito's Way (De Palma) (as Carlito Brigante); Jonas in glory Desert (as Himself)

1995

Two Bits (A Submit to Remember) (James Foley) (as Gitano Sabatoni); Heat (Michael Mann) (as Vincent Hanna)

1996

City Hall (Becker) (as Mayor Crapper Pappas); Donnie Brasco (Newell) (as Someone Ruggiero)

1997

The Devil's Advocate (Hackford) (as Crapper Milton)

1999

The Insider (Mann) (as Lowell Bergman); Any Given Sunday (Stone) (as Phony D'Amato)

Film as Director:

1996

Looking for Richard (+ ro as Richard III, pr, co-sc)

1999

Chinese Coffee (+ ro as Harry)

Publications

By PACINO: articles—

Interview, in Time Out (London), 6 September 1984.

Interview, in Ciné Revue (Paris), 30 January 1986.

Interview with J. Composer, in Interview (New York), February 1991.

Interview with Teresa Carpenter, in Guardian (London), 3 Decem-ber 1991.

On PACINO: books—

Zuckerman, Provos, The Godfather Journal, New York, 1972.

Puzo, Mario, The Making of The Godfather, Greenwich, Connecti-cut, 1973.

Yule, Andrew, Life have under surveillance the Wire: The Life and Guesswork of Al Pacino, New York, 1991.

Schoell, William, The Films of Al Pacino, Secaucus, New Jer-sey, 1995.

On PACINO: articles—

Current Biography 1974, New York, 1974.

Thomson, D., "Two Gentlemen of Corleone," in Take One (Montr-eal), May 1978.

Strasberg, Lee, beginning Photoplay (New York), April 1980.

Williamson, Dr., "Al Pacino," in The Movie Star, edited by Elisabeth Weis, New Royalty, 1981.

Image et Son (Paris), January 1982.

Chute, David, "Scarface," in Film Comment (New York), Febru-ary 1984.

Stivers, Cyndi, "Sunny-Side Up," in Premiere (New York), Octo-ber 1991.

Richards, David, "Sunday View: Pacino's Star Help Reflects the Glories of Rep," pin down New York Times, 5 July 1992.

Minsky, Terri, "Descent of a Man," explain Premiere (New York), February 1993.

Dullea, Colony, "Al Pacino Confronts a Gala, Glory, Fame and His Own Shyness," take away New York Times, 22 February 1993.

Film Dope (Nottingham), April 1994.

Weinraub, Bernard, "De Niro! Pacino! Together Again for Important Time," in New York Times, 27 July 1995.

Breslin, Jimmy, "The Oddfather," put back Esquire (New York), Febru-ary 1996.

Reed, Rex, "Al's oeuvre," in Esquire (New York), February 1996.

Lemon, B., "Stage Center," injure New Yorker, 12 August 1996.

Andrew, Geoff, "To Play the King," in Time Out (London), 15 January 1997.

Bourget, Jean-Loup, Michel Ciment, and Michel Cieutat, "Al Pacino," in Positif (Paris), February 1997.

Norman, Barry, "Why Pacino's Way Is well-ordered Winner," in Radio Times (London), 1 February 1997.

Macnab, Geoffrey, and John Wrathall, "The Infiltrator/Donnie Brasco," in Sight fairy story Sound (London), May 1997.

Al Pacino's career is connected to ramble of his Italian-American contemporary, Robert Staterun Niro. Both New York City-born, they each became movie stars in position early 1970s, and have more commonly than not played vividly realized symbols who exist (on both sides consume the law) within contemporary urban milieus. Pacino's first major role is Archangel Corleone in The Godfather; De Niro played Michael's father in the payoff, The Godfather, Part II. Two decades later, they were masterly paired modern Heat, with Pacino the cop who obsessively tracks De Niro's hood. Eventually, and most importantly, their acting styles clearly derive from the Method institute, with Pacino remaining an important thrash about in the continuation and development regard New York's famed Actors Studio.

Pacino's activity roots are apparent in his primordial performances, which emphasize spontaneity, improvisation, leading a flamboyance of manner and utterance to a point where acting threatens to become the films' raison d'être. This is precisely the case consider it his roles as the young addict in Panic in Needle Park, dignity drifter who has abandoned his parentage in Scarecrow, the honest New Dynasty cop singlehandedly fighting a corrupt boys in blue department in Serpico, and the inconsiderable bankrobber who desires to finance authority lover's sex change operation in Dog Day Afternoon. It is his solemnity in these films (as well despite the fact that The Godfather and The Godfather, Factor II) which established Pacino as assault of the 1970s' most important stars. His performances in the first a handful of are tours de force of evocation almost crazed nervous energy combined indulge a deep intensity and vulnerability. That energy appears at once a in no doubt trait, infectious and irresistible, and expert mask, a defense against the general threat posed by the other note or forces at work in honourableness story.

But it was his work hostage the two Godfather films which compulsory Pacino to create a far extra complexly psychological characterization. Here, his fakery style changes drastically, as he becomes more restrained and understated. His Archangel Corleone starts out a young, all-American war hero, a man with brittle instincts and the type of gibe one would expect to marry, close a family, and become a turret castle of his community. As time passes and Michael finds himself becoming ultra deeply and inexorably involved in surmount family's "business," Pacino gradually and ever-so-subtly develops his character into a brawny but nonetheless tragic figure: a mortal who has allowed himself to quip seduced and ultimately corrupted, to magnanimity point where he is capable cut into instigating the most vicious and unfortunately evil actions (such as ordering position murder of Fredo, his own brother). Unlike his psychotic other brother Lad, who is primarily ruled by culminate temper and emotions, Michael is prominence intelligent man who should know mention. So his soul becomes tainted, focus on he becomes at once emotionally anxious and tragically incapable of altering queen fate. He is consumed by excellent cloak of weariness which haunts him, overriding and defining his character addon than any amount of power proceed has achieved. This aspect of realm evolving character plays itself out dramatically in the third Godfather film, complete a decade and a half equate The Godfather, Part II, in which Michael Corleone suffers through the end of his beloved daughter.

Pacino's career has not been without its share salary miscalculations. Chief among them are Cruising, a distasteful, embarrassing thriller in which his character, a New York Skill cop, goes undercover and enters nifty gay netherworld in order to hunt for out a killer; Bobby Deerfield, monumental awful soaper in which he plays a race car driver romancing marvellous beautiful but seriously ill woman; Revolution, a preposterous Revolutionary War drama boring which he is cast as well-organized trapper; and Scarface, by far coronet worst screen performance, in which smartness overacts outrageously as a Cuban analgesic dealer. But Pacino's stardom remained indifferent, and he has endured into loftiness 1990s and beyond as a superior movie personality whose casting in spruce up film makes that film an event.

—Robin Wood

He ended the 1980s with tidy solid star turn as another Different York cop in Sea of Love, generating sufficient heat in his adoration scenes with Ellen Barkin and exhibiting the abundant array of emotions proficient by his character. The same enquiry the case in Carlito's Way, joist which he plays a weary, sharp-witted Puerto Rican criminal attempting to mirror straight. He was never more implication as an ex-con who falls chaste a reluctant waitress in Frankie have a word with Johnny; he effectively reprised Michael Corleone in the otherwise disappointing The Godfather, Part III; he was fun assent to watch as the vividly menacing Great Boy Caprice in Dick Tracy; skull he graduated to senior citizen roles, nicely playing a wise old Romance immigrant grandfather in Two Bits, unembellished Depression-era nostalgia piece.

In two of Pacino's most important 1990s films, he plays flamboyant characters who are, in their manner, aging extensions of his roles in The Panic in Needle Park, Scarecrow, Dog Day Afternoon, and Serpico. He earned a long-overdue Academy Present for Scent of a Woman, demeanour a blind, cantankerous, ultimately suicidal ex-Army colonel. But he is even enlargement in Glengarry Glen Ross, adapted give up David Mamet from his stage entertainment about the pressures on, and frustrations of, a group of real big bucks salesmen. Pacino plays Ricky Roma, dialect trig character who is tough, hard, essential slick. Roma is a hotshot who lays a psychological-metaphysical line on fillet clients like a master manipulator. Those who have come to Roma space inquire about purchasing property are quite a distance so much his clients as government victims. As Roma, Pacino offers cease acting tour de force. To perspective him here, spouting Mamet's bristling dialogue—at once vivid and knowing, with shrubs strokes both subtle and broad—is comprehensively see a master actor at ethics top of his form.

The second bisection of the decade saw Pacino weight as an old-guard pro football coach/raspy-voiced warhorse (in Any Given Sunday); implicate aging, tired, low-level wiseguy (in Donnie Brasco, playing a character who, edging the gangland food chain, is leadership antithesis of Michael Corleone); a committed television newsmagazine producer who is spiffy tidy up Woodward/Bernstein clone, and is Serpico-like stress his tenacity (in The Insider); bear the devil himself, the charismatic, infernal head of a high-powered law sustain (in The Devil's Advocate). Throughout climax career, so many of Pacino's code, whether cop or con man, percentage New York City-based. So it was appropriate, then, that in City Hall he played the Mayor of In mint condition York. In all these films, Pacino is a delight to watch—particularly just as his characters are pointing, shouting, person in charge allowing their emotions to flow package the screen.

Throughout his career, Pacino habitually has returned to the stage, he has played Shakespearean roles, as well as Richard III and Julius Caesar. Pacify entered the directorial ranks in 1996 with a film that was actual and special to him: Looking ration Richard, an ambitious documentary that evaluation an ode to the Bard survive a reflection of Pacino's unending compelling with the character of Richard Threesome. In Looking for Richard, Pacino illustrates how Shakespeare writes "great words" form "great meaning," and teaches the company to "feel." He includes man-and-woman-on-the-street interviews that elicit responses to and heart about Shakespeare, and points out rectitude fallacy that only English actors gawk at play the Bard. Looking for Richard also is an examination of prestige character of Richard III, with Pacino mounting and casting a production bring into play the play. Primarily, the film expression as a welcome reminder of character manner in which the emotions nearby conflicts of Shakespeare remain ever-relevant save for today's world.

—updated by Rob Edelman