Al Pacino had to start all over in his 70s in order to save himself from financial ruin.
In his new memoir, Sonny Boy, the Hollywood icon reveals his former accountant, who eventually served nearly eight years in prison for running a Ponzi scheme, swindled away his life savings.
The Oscar winner’s bank account went from $50 million to zero due to the corrupt accountant.
Pacino wrote that he would ““et warnings that my accountant at the time, a guy who had lots of celebrity clients, was not to be trusted.”
The Scarface star was living a lavish life at the time, renting a “big fancy house in Beverly Hills,” and splurging on international vacations with his family and friends.
He became suspicious after realizing his accounts never wavered, despite overspending.
“And I thought, It’s simple. It’s clear. I just know this. Time stopped. I am f—ed. I was broke. I had $50 million, and then I had nothing. I had property, but I didn’t have any money,” Pacino reflects in the book.
“In this business, when you make $10 million dollars for a film, it’s not $10 million. Because after the lawyers, and the agents, and the publicist, and the government, it’s not $10 million, it’s $4.5 million in your pocket. But you’re living above that because you’re high on the hog. And that’s how you lose it. It’s very strange, the way it happens. The more money you make, the less you have,” the 84-year-old screen legend explains in the memoir.
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Having to start over later in life was something the Scent of a Woman actor wasn’t sure was possible.
“I wasn’t a young buck, and I was not going to be making the kind of money from acting in films that I had made before. The big paydays that I was used to just weren’t coming around anymore. The pendulum had swung, and I found it harder to find parts for myself,” he writes, noting he no longer had the luxury of only doing films in which he “related to the part.”
Needing a paycheck, Pacino ended his ban on doing commercials, and then signed on to star in Adam Sandler’s maligned Jack and Jill.
“Jack and Jill was the first film I made after I lost my money. To be honest, I did it because I didn’t have anything else. Adam Sandler wanted me, and they paid me a lot for it. So I went out and did it, and it helped. I love Adam, he was wonderful to work with and has become a dear friend. He also just happens to be a great actor and a hell of a guy,” he writes.
Pacino was also forced to sell two of his homes and began to conduct seminars to earn a living.
“My seminars were another big find for me. In the past, I used to go to colleges all the time and talk to the kids there, just to get out there and perform for them, in a sense. I’d tell them a little bit about my life and have them ask me questions … I didn’t get paid for it. I just did it. Now that I was broke, I thought, ‘Why don’t we follow this up?’ There were more places I could go and do these seminars. Not necessarily universities. I knew there was a wider market for this. So I started traveling around. And I found that they worked. Audiences came because I still had popularity,” the star writes in his book.
Thankfully, Pacino is back on top. He welcomed his fourth child, Roman Pacino, in 2023 with former girlfriend, Noor Alfallah.
He also shares daughter Julie Marie with ex Jan Tarrant, and twins, Anton and Olivia, with former flame Beverly D’Angelo.
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