Although he’s an icon, he’s an “idiot” with money — that’s one the takeaways from Al Pacino‘s new memoir, Sonny Boy.
According to excerpts from the New York Post, Pacino found himself in a shortfall, partially from his own lavish spending and partially because his accountant was involved in — and later jailed for — a Ponzi scheme.
Although The Godfather was a huge hit, Pacino only got $35,000 for playing Michael Corleone, and after paying his agents and the like, he was “broke.”
He explained it was his Godfather co-star, then-girlfriend Diane Keaton, who marched the actor before his attorney in the mid-’80s to try to beat some financial sense into him. “You’re going to tell me, ‘Oh, he’s an artist.’ No. He. Is. An idiot,” she reportedly said.
Calling his spending even into the 2010s “a crazy montage of loss,” he said at one point he had 16 cars, 23 cellphones and paid a landscaper $400,000 a year for “a house I didn’t even live in.”
And then there was the shady accountant.
Pacino said, “I had fifty million dollars, and then I had nothing.”
He was also supporting his three children at the time — and added a fourth in 2023.
Pacino said his now “dear friend” Adam Sandler threw him a lifeline — and a big check — for 2011’s Jack and Jill.
“Jack and Jill was the first movie 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.”
At 84, the actor says he “has to think very seriously about my estate now … I have to get advice from people who are way smarter than me.”
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