Sonny Boy: A Memoir

In his 60s Pacino moved from New York to LA to be closer to his young children. A New Yorker at heart, Pacino had some trouble adjusting to LA life. He continued to work in film, starring in Ocean’s Thirteen and Wilde Salome. 

With money coming in, Pacino was spending liberally without thinking of the consequences. Eventually, Pacino realized that his accountant was giving him poor advice and was breaking the law. Pacino regrets his lack of oversight into his finances, recalling how he was astonished to find himself broke. He earned more by accepting commercial work, doing talks for students and acting fans, and selling one of his houses. Pacino soon learned that his accountant had been arrested for running a Ponzi scheme. Sorely needing money, Pacino accepted a variety of film roles that paid well, but he could not resist performing Shakespeare for free. He also performed in the play China Doll.

Pacino reveals that he is still working and that his passion projects keep him interested and engaged in life. For instance, he is developing a film version of King Lear with himself in the title role. He feels he’s had a long career because he has managed to age into good roles and always find new parts, even in his 70s. Pacino reveals that he would have loved to play Napoleon, but it never panned out.

He reflects on aging, explaining that while his looks have changed, he still has his energy. In Pacino’s childhood, his family did not have bank accounts or wills, and he never benefited from his parents’ or grandparents’ deaths. Considering his death, Pacino admits that he will have to think carefully about his estate. In his later years Pacino’s perspective has shifted because he knows that he does not have as much time.

Pacino admits that he did not take very good care of his health for much of his life, and he is surprised that he has made it past the age of 80. He is glad he stopped drinking and using drugs; he believes that quitting has greatly extended his life. Pacino suffered an unnerving health scare when doctors operated on arteries in his neck and accidentally hit a nerve in one of his vocal cords, paralyzing it for a year.

Pacino wants to continue acting for as long as he can, and he still finds the process interesting. Even with his vocal cords damaged, he was still doing theater. He reminisces about how he may have technically briefly died during his first stint with the COVID-19 virus. He believes that there is nothing after death, but is not sure. Pacino now sees his health and energy as precious and wants to conserve it.

He proudly relates how he has been in several well-received movies, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, The Irishman, and House of Gucci, in recent years. His Oscar nomination for The Irishman was the first time Pacino enjoyed the Oscars, as he was there with his children. Pacino reminisces about his successful career, admitting that he never had a master plan or felt he knew what he was doing. He advises younger actors to take their roles to heart and try to believe that they’re really happening, and try to absorb the characters as fully as possible.

Pacino remembers his wild childhood days running around the Bronx with his friends, and admits that the more he thinks about it, the more he recalls those years in a positive light. He is often reminded of certain people or places from his youth, even though he rarely visits since the South Bronx is very different from how it used to be. Growing up, some adults in his life felt that he was on the wrong path because of his friendships, but Pacino was always convinced that he would escape the cycle of poverty. He cannot explain his fortunate rise to stardom, and wonders if his grandmother was right when she used to say, “‘Sonny boy is a lucky boy’” (344).

Pacino has vivid memories of his childhood and youth and admits that as he’s aged he’s spent more time reminiscing about them. He recalls coming down with a terrible fever and cold after sleeping in a wet, freezing room as a 20-year-old, and being nursed back to health by his cousin Mark. As a young actor he went to audition after audition, often experiencing rejection with an unusual resilience, simply thinking, “‘It’s their loss’” (349). 

He also worked as an usher, work he didn’t mind since he got to watch a lot of movies, though he was often fired from these menial jobs. For instance, he was fired from his usher job at Carnegie Hall when he seated people randomly instead of according to the number on their ticket, causing fights amongst the patrons. Pacino recalls how he went from job to job by day, and would roam the streets at night, reciting monologues to himself. He feels that New York City provided him with so many provisions and so much inspiration in those early years.

Looking back, Pacino feels that the world he grew up in as a child is impossible for modern people to understand. It sounds like a historical, far-away world, like Charles Dickens’s London. Even Pacino himself did not intimately know all of the Bronx as a kid, as his block was his “provincial world, its own little community” (354). He recalls being 13 and realizing that he and his friend Cliffy were growing apart. Cliffy spontaneously broke a shoe shop window, and he and Pacino were caught by police and marched back to the crime scene, scaring Pacino and making him rethink the friendship. 

At the time, Pacino was unaware of the world beyond his neighborhood, and did not realize that, compared to other Americans, he was growing up in poverty. As a kid he felt that his neighborhood was a “paradise” and he loved exploring it with his friends and getting into mischief like interrupting boy scouts meetings. He recalls his mother calling for him off the roof of the tenement buildings, and how he would leave the vacant lots where he’d play with his friends and go in for supper. This simple ritual separated him from his friends, as their parents weren’t calling for them.

Pacino sadly reminisces on the early deaths of his friends Petey, Bruce, and Cliffy. He recalls how Cliffy was so spirited and so sensitive in many ways, and he believes that he was not a malicious person but simply had a wild streak. He attributes his joyful childhood and sense of safety in his neighborhood to his companionship with the boys. He makes a eulogy to his friends with a poem by his friend Charlie Laughton called “When I Die,” which includes descriptions of everyday life in the tenements. Pacino considers again why he survived and his friends didn’t, thinking of how his mother, Charlie Laughton, and the great writers all pulled him away from the street and into the arts. He wishes that he could see his mother again, and tell her all about his incredible life.