Al Pacino

Background

Alfredo James Pacino, more commonly known as Al Pacino, was born in East Harlem, New York City, on April 25, 1940. His parents, Rose Gerardi and Salvatore Pacino, are of Italian-American descent. His parents divorced when he was two years old, and he moved to the Bronx to live with his mother and her parents, who were Italian immigrants from Sicily. His father later worked as an insurance salesman and restaurateur in Covina, California.

As a young child, he was called Sonny by his friends, and he had ambitions to become a baseball player. He attended the Herman Ridder Junior High School but dropped his classes, except for English, due to a lack of interest. He then attended the High School of Performing Arts after an audition. He left home as his mother disagreed with this choice, and to finance his acting studies, Pacino took small jobs on the side to support himself and his acting career. Growing up in the Bronx, Pacino would get into occasional fights and was considered a troublemaker. He even began smoking and drinking at the age of nine.

Pacino came to Greenwich Village when he was 19 years old, where he studied acting at the Berghof Studio and appeared in various Off-Broadway shows, including Hello, Out There in 1963 and Why is a Crooked Lekker in 1966. He also started studying acting under Lee Strasberg. In 1969, he made his Broadway debut in the play Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie? in which he received a Tony Award for his performance. Pacino acted in basement plays in the New York theatrical underground until he joined HB Studio. After four years at HB Studio, Pacino successfully auditioned for the Actors Studio — a membership organization for professional actors. Pacino reprised his role as Michael Corleone in The Godfather Part III in 1990 —cementing himself as the film star we still know and love today.