THIS MYSPACE IS CURRENTLY UNDER REPAIRS
IT WIL BE UP AND RUNNING BY 25/12
I was born April 25, 1940, in New York City to Salvatore and Rose Pacino. My father left the family when I was a baby and although I visited My father in East Harlem, I was raised by my mother and maternal grandparents in a bilingual Italian American three-room household. Rose Pacino was ill throughout my childhood, as well as mentally troubled and poor, and died of a heart attack when I was 22. I was under strict rule at home but had a happy, sheltered childhood. I was bored and unmotivated in school. I found my place in school plays and dreamed of a career in acting.My first acting lessons were at the Dover Theater, where I would go with my mother or grandmother to watch movies. After imitating the action on the screen for my grandmother, I was often asked to do the "looking for the bottle scene" from The Lost Weekend. I found I could get positive attention with my acting antics. I won admission into Manhattan's prestigious High School of the Performing Arts but dropped out at age 17. As a teenager, I took acting lessons from Charlie Laughton, who became a friend. I held odd jobs to support my family.
I moved to Greenwich Village and started to audition. Once on the theater scene, I entered a period of depression and poverty. There were days when I could not afford bus fare or even lunch. I lived for awhile off the pay of my soap-opera-actor girlfriend and future movie star, Jill Clayburgh. I found work where I could, in a coffeehouse, a workshop, a mailroom, a theater, and elsewhere.Finally, in 1966, I entered the prestigious Actors Studio and studied under Lee Strasberg, known for his Method Approach to acting. In 1967, I won an Obie for my performance in The Indian Wants the Bronx, an off-Broadway, one-act play that ran for 204 performances. In 1969, I won the Antoinette Perry (Tony) Award for the Broadway play Does the Tiger Wear a Necktie? The play had only a brief run, but my work in Tiger got me noticed by film director Dominick Dunne.
In 1969 I debuted on screen in Me, Natalie. But I felt awkward away from the stage and had such a bad experience that I did not return to film for a couple of years. I said to Jimmy Breslin of Esquire, "I was used to working on a tightrope onstage. A movie is just a line painted on the floor." In 1971 I played a junkie in Panic in Needle Park, directed by Dunne.In the early 1970s, such actors as Robert Redford, Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson, and Robert De Niro sought the role of Michael Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather. But Coppola wanted me, who had given solid performances in Panic in Needle Park and on Broadway. After a series of disastrous screen tests, no one - from the producers to fellow actors - wanted me in the film, except for Coppola. Coppola stuck to his guns, and I earned my first Academy Award nomination.I decided not to ride a wave of Hollywood success into lightweight blockbusters. Instead, I took a series of difficult, important film roles that highlighted my genuine acting abilities. 1973's Serpico was a crime drama spotlighting the mental struggles of a New York cop. I was nominated for an Oscar for Serpico and for my portrayal of Michael Corleone in The Godfather II in 1974. In 1975, I was nominated for an Oscar for my role in Dog Day Afternoon, the story of a man trying to get money for his gay lover's sex change operation by holding up a bank and taking hostages. In 1977, Bobby Deerfield foreshadowed a downturn in his career, but I received another Oscar nomination for best actor for the hard-hitting legal drama … And Justice for All.
