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Al Pacino - Biography

Actor. Born Alfredo Pacino, on April 25, 1940, in New York City, of Sicilian descent. Intense, brooding, compactly built antiheroic star of Hollywood films of the 70's. Raised in the South Bronx by his mother and grandparents from age two, after his father, a mason, left the family, he showed little interest in academic studies, but his enthusiasm for acting led to his acceptance by Manhattan's High School of Performing Arts. He dropped out of school at 17 and spent several years drifting from job to job, working in such menial occupations as those of delivery boy, usher, porter, and apartment building superintendent, all the while maintaining a desire for a career on the stage. He finally saved up enough money to attend Herbert Berghof's' acting school, where he was tutored by Charles Laughton, and began playing small roles in off-off-Broadway productions.

In 1966 he was admitted to Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio and two years later he won an Obie Award for his performance in the role of a drunken psychotic in the off-Broadway play "The Indian Wants the Bronx." In 1969 he won the coveted Tony for playing a drug addict in "Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie?" on Broadway and made his screen debut, playing a small role in Me Natalie. On the strength of his performance as a junkie in The Panic in Needle Park (1971), he was selected for the complex key role of Michael Corleone, Don Vito's designated heir, in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather (1972), for which he was nominated for a best supporting actor Academy Award. It became the pivotal role in Paramount's sequel, The Godfather Part II (1974), for which he gained an Oscar nomination as best actor. Pacino also scored personal triumphs with (and received additional Academy Award nominations for) Serpico (1973), Dog Day Afternoon (1975); . . . And Justice for All (1979), Dick Tracy (1990), and Glengarry Glen Ross (1992).

He finally won the elusive Oscar for his performance in Scent of a Woman (1992). Despite his success in films, he remained committed to his first love, the stage, and in 1977 he returned to Broadway in "The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel", for which he won his second Tony.