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"The rare celebrity memoir that's also a literary read. As funny as it is reflecive, it shares stories behind Pacino's hardscrabble upbringing, classic films and journey to icon status." —People Magazine
From one of the most iconic actors in the history of film, an astonishingly revelatory account of a creative life in full
To the wider world, Al Pacino exploded onto the scene like a supernova. He landed his first leading role, in The Panic in Needle Park, in 1971, and by 1975, he had starred in four movies—The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, Serpico, and Dog Day Afternoon—that were not just successes but landmarks in the history of film. Those performances became legendary and changed his life forever. Not since Marlon Brando and James Dean in the late 1950s had an actor landed in the culture with such force.
But Pacino was in his midthirties by then, and had already lived several lives. A fixture of avant-garde theater in New York, he had led a bohemian existence, working odd jobs to support his craft. He was raised by a fiercely loving but mentally unwell mother and her parents after his father left them when he was young, but in a real sense he was raised by the streets of the South Bronx, and by the troop of buccaneering young friends he ran with, whose spirits never left him. After a teacher recognized his acting promise and pushed him toward New York’s fabled High School of Performing Arts, the die was cast. In good times and bad, in poverty and in wealth and in poverty again, through pain and joy, acting was his lifeline, its community his tribe.
Sonny Boy is the memoir of a man who has nothing left to fear and nothing left to hide. All the great roles, the essential collaborations, and the important relationships are given their full due, as is the vexed marriage between creativity and commerce at the highest levels. The book’s golden thread, however, is the spirit of love and purpose. Love can fail you, and you can be defeated in your ambitions—the same lights that shine bright can also dim. But Al Pacino was lucky enough to fall deeply in love with a craft before he had the foggiest idea of any of its earthly rewards, and he never fell out of love. That has made all the difference.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
October 15, 2024 -
Formats
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Kindle Book
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9780593655122
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9780593655122
- File size: 60038 KB
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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May 1, 2024
Oscar-, Tony-, and Golden Globe-winning Pacino writes a memoir about acting, and how it has been the love and light of his life. He details his youth in the South Bronx, his family life, his education in the arts, his life in avant-garde theater, and all the films that made him famous. Prepub Alert.
Copyright 2024 Library Journal
Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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Starred review from November 1, 2024
Winning reminiscences by a reluctant movie star. Pacino, it seems, would rather be known for interpreting Shakespeare than for playing Michael Corleone in theGodfather films, but of course it's the latter that brought him much of his fame. The debt to the Bard is great, though: As a young man growing up in the tenements of New York, where his childhood friends would die of drug abuse, he walked the streets and declaimed: "If the hour was late and you heard the sound of someone in your alleyway with a bombastic voice shouting iambic pentameter into the night, that was probably me, training myself on the great Shakespeare soliloquies." In time, good luck smiled on him: He roomed with another young actor named Marty Sheen, "one of the best people I'd ever know," earned roles in which he portrayed tough but sensitive young men in films likeThe Panic in Needle Park andDog Day Afternoon, and became a star thanks toThe Godfather. Pacino's notes on acting can be mysterious ("The thing about acting is, you don't really do it and yet it's real. That's the phenomenon"), but, considered in light of his work, they mostly make sense. What's more, he reads deeply into his characters, nowhere more so than the Shakespearean ones, as when he writes of the much-maligned Shylock, "He feels a righteousness because of what was done to him. He's not a Iago, not a Richard III, or any of the other villains of Shakespeare. There is a touch of the hero in him. He is a survivor." So, clearly, is Pacino, and we're fortunate to have this report from a long life on stage and screen. Fans of Pacino--and students of the actor's craft--will delight in this gracefully told memoir.COPYRIGHT(2024) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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