Al Pacino went broke and had to star in bad movies for money

Al Pacino writes in his recently published memoir “Sonny Boy” that he was forced to make dramatic career changes after losing all his money to a corrupt accountant who ended up serving seven and a half years in prison for running a Ponzi scheme. The accountant mismanaged the Oscar winner’s funds, causing Pacino’s savings to plummet from a staggering $50 million to $0.

According to Pacino, in 2011 he began “getting warnings that my then-accountant, a man with many high-profile clients, could not be trusted.” The actor already paid “a ridiculous amount of money to rent a big, fancy house in Beverly Hills,” and then he took his entire family on a trip to Europe, where he whisked various guests abroad “on a beautiful Gulfstream 550.” flew and “rented”. an entire floor of the Dorchester Hotel in London was expanded.”

When Pacino returned to his Hollywood home, he became suspicious when he realized that despite spending so much vacationing, his finances had not changed dramatically. “And I thought: It’s easy. It’s clear. I just know that. Time stopped. I’m screwed,” he writes.

“I was broke. I had $50 million and then I had nothing. “I had property but no money,” Pacino recalls when he finally addressed his finances. “In this business, if you make $10 million for a movie, it’s not $10 million. Because according to the lawyers, the agents, the publicist and the government, it’s not $10 million, it’s $4.5 million in your pocket. But you live above it because you are very popular. And so you lose it. It’s very strange how it happens. The more money you make, the less you have.”

“The type of money I spent and where it went was just a crazy loss montage,” he adds. “The landscaper was getting $400,000 a year and I don’t exaggerate these things. It just kept going. However, that was for landscaping a house I didn’t even live in.”

Pacino was in his 70s when he learned he was broke, adding: “I wasn’t a young guy, and I wasn’t going to make as much money acting in films as I did before.” The big paydays I was used to just weren’t there anymore. The pendulum had swung and I was having a harder time finding pieces for myself.”

Before going broke, Pacino “made films where I thought I had something to do with the role and felt like I had something to bring to the table.” Examples that fit this career mentality included “Ocean’s 13″ and ” 88 Minutes,” although the latter title turned out to be “a disaster,” according to the actor. But when Pacino was broke, he had to throw out all the rules governing his career and start taking on all the roles that promised him big money. That’s why he agreed to star in Adam Sandler’s infamous “Jack and Jill” and ended his advertising ban. For example, he shot a coffee commercial with director Barry Levinson.

“’Jack and Jill’ was the first movie I made after I lost my money. Honestly, I did it because I had nothing else,” Pacino writes. “Adam Sandler wanted me and they paid me a lot for it. So I did it and it helped. I love Adam, he was wonderful to work with and he has become a dear friend. Plus he’s just a great actor and a damn good guy.”

Pacino also sold one of his two houses to make money and began charging money for conducting seminars and colleges and universities, something he had rarely charged for before: “My seminars were another great discovery for me. I used to go to college all the time and talk to the kids there just to get out and perform for them in a way. I told them a little about my life and let 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 pursue this?” There were more places where I could do these seminars. Not necessarily universities. I knew there was a bigger market for it. So I started traveling around. And I found that they worked. The audience came because I was still popular.”

Pacino’s memoir “Sonny Boy” is available to purchase now.