Al Pacino, memoirs of a survivor from the Bronx
In his book, ‘Sonny Boy’, the actor known for his roles in ‘The Godfather’ and ‘Scarface’ takes an emotional trip back to a place and a time full of hardship and joy that deeply marked his personality
Alfredo James Pacino was supposed to have died in the late 1960s or early 1970s in some alley or apartment in the South Bronx, New York. Just like his three best friends: Cliffy, Bruce and Petey. He himself went hungry, slept on the street or on friends’ couches on numerous occasions, was caught by the police after some of the pranks committed by his gang of teenagers (”If we wanted food, we’d steal it. We never paid for anything. Making mischief and running away from authority figures was our pastime”), and jumped from one rooftop to another on the tenements of Bryant Avenue. He drank (a lot) and did drugs (not so much). Like all of them.
Al Pacino, who turned 84 in April, should have died in that working-class New York neighborhood, but Sonny Boy, a nickname given to him by his mother after a popular Al Jolson song, has always come out on top: winner of an Oscar (and a nominee on eight other occasions), two Emmys, two Tonys and an Obie, he has succeeded thanks to his luck, to the fact that many nights his family called him to dinner — while his friends continued to hang out on the streets — and, above all, to his enormous talent, combined with an enormous amount of energy. That is why he is one of the greatest American actors of all time today, and why his memoir, Sonny Boy, reads like the diary of a survivor, one who has been in films such as The Godfather, Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, Scarface, The Dilemma, Glengarry Glen Ross, Any Given Sunday, The Merchant of Venice and The Irishman.
The book begins with “I was performing since I was just a little boy. My mother used to take me to the movies when I was as young as three or four [...]. I didn’t know she was supplying me with a future. I was immediately attached to watching actors on the screen,” and it ends with “If I’m lucky, if I go to heaven, maybe I’ll be able to meet my mother there. All I want is the chance to go up to her, look her in the eyes and just say, ‘Hey, Mom, did you see how I did?’” Pacino is the son of Rose Gerardi, and the shadow of his mother covers every page of the volume: “She’s the one who kept a lid on all of this, who parried me away from the path that led to delinquency, danger and violence, to the needle, that lethal delight called heroin that killed my three closest friends. I believe she saved my life.”
The Pacino couple separated when their son was two years old, and Rose Gerardi committed suicide when Pacino was 21. “My mother’s tragedy was poverty.” A few months later, devastated by sadness, his maternal grandfather died. The actor was 22 and “the two most influential people in my life were gone.” That threw him over the edge. Almost a third of the 300 pages of his memoirs, between the opening and closing blocks, are intended to recreate and reflect on that life in New York that left such a deep mark on him and still serves as a happy refuge in his memories when things go wrong.
Sonny Boy is also a work of self-justification. Pacino uses it to explain why he didn’t go to some Oscar ceremonies (at others, like the gala where he was nominated for Serpico, he was so drunk that he fell asleep), and of the 1970s he says that he was into drugs and alcohol, “high and immersed in a fog,” as a way to defend himself against the lack of understanding he sensed from Hollywood (which is mutual), and to counterattack against his reputation for being conflictive on set, where he would force retakes and give advice to directors when he felt something was wrong. He even retired in the 1980s until he ran out of money. He also notes that he needs to feel a connection with a character, or else he’d rather pass. He read the script for Star Wars because he was approached to play Han Solo, and he didn’t understand a thing. He also turned down projects by Bergman, Bertolucci and Fellini: “I wanted to work with them but I couldn’t make the films they offered me because I didn’t connect with the role.”
His high school teacher encouraged him to enter the High School of Performing Arts in New York. “I always felt at home on stage.” At 15, he saw a production of The Seagull: “It was wonderful [...]. I started reading Chekhov, he became a friend.” His career began in the theater, when he made a name for himself in The Indian Wants the Bronx, with another promising young actor, John Cazale. He believes that he benefited from two “earthquakes” in the world of acting: first, the one caused by Marlon Brando, which opened the door to the likes of Paul Newman, Ben Gazzara, Peter Falk and John Cassavetes. The second one was Dustin Hoffman. When Pacino saw The Graduate, he thought: “That’s it. It’s over. He’s broken the sound barrier.”
In the pages of his memoir — written in direct, very Pacino-like English (in the acknowledgments he reveals part of the magic by naming Dave Itzkoff, a prestigious film reporter from The New York Times) — the actor talks about The Godfather, which made him famous, and Scarface, which he considers the best film he has ever worked on.
Pacino writes with admiration about Francis Ford Coppola because he took a chance on him when he’d only had one leading role in film (Panic in Needle Park). He confesses that his two favorite characters are Michael Corleone and, in theater, Shylock from The Merchant of Venice. Paramount executives were on the verge of firing him from The Godfather because in the first weeks of shooting they saw a lost and uncharismatic guy. It was just Pacino’s plan for Michael, who would be given personality as the action progressed. To counteract the growing discontent, Coppola reorganized the filming and, in a hurry, they shot the murder of Sollozzo, the traitor, and the corrupt policeman McCluskey in a small restaurant in New York for 15 hours. “When Francis screened the sequence in the studio, they sensed something. They kept me in the film.” And yet, he confesses that he has spent most of his life without seeing the whole of The Godfather until a screening that commemorated 50 years since its premiere.
Pacino has had a hard time dealing with fame for decades. He left the industry in the mid-1980s to concentrate on theater, but returned to the big screen five years later, pushed by Charlie Laughton, his mentor, by his friend, producer and one-time manager, Marty Bregman, and by an actress who knows him well, Diane Keaton, then his partner. Also because he was running out of money.
The same thing happened to him again in 2011, when he discovered that his accountant had taken advantage of him. “I was broke. I thought I had $50 million, and suddenly I had nothing. I had property, but no money.” And excessive spending, such as $400,000 a year on a house he never set foot in, or eccentric trips with his three children. Hence the series of deplorable films he made, starting with Adam Sandler’s Jack and the Twins.
In many parts of the book, Pacino still seems to be fighting against his image as a movie star. That is why he produced and starred in three experimental films at different times in his life: The Local Stigmatic (1990), Looking for Richard (1996) and Wilde Salomé (2011), in which he introduced Jessica Chastain to the world.
Pacino speaks fondly of his friends Martin Sheen, Robert De Niro and Johnny Depp. However, Sonny Boy can also be read by pointing out the absence of many co-workers or people close to him on a personal level: he does not even name the mother of his first daughter; the mother of his twins, the actress Beverly D’Angelo, is mentioned only once; yet he dedicates entire pages to other couples. He also doesn’t even mention some films, some of considerable quality. He confesses that he almost died because of Covid. He deeply loves his children (the youngest, Roman, was born in June 2023); and he is grateful to have become fashionable again with Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood and The Irishman, and about the existence of the teleprompter, which allows him to recite on stage without memorizing the texts. “It’s the most fantastic thing I’ve ever seen in my life as an actor.” He also says he will never retire: “They asked me what God will say to me at the gates of heaven, and I answered: ‘I hope he says that rehearsals start tomorrow at three in the afternoon.’”
Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition