为今天英语课准备的材料，在一个fans网站上当下来的，通读下来褒得比较厉害，文笔不够中立，不过无所谓了，反正俺也是Al的fans。。。加粗并加阴影的是我提醒自己要讲到的点。。。

Al Pacino: Movie Legend

Alfredo James Pacino–called "Sonny" by his friends and family–was born on April 25, 1940 to parents Salvatore and Rose Pacino, in East Harlem, New York City. His parents divorced when Al was two years old, and he and his mother went to live with her parents, the Gerards, in the South Bronx. Al’s relationship with his father was never a good one, and they rarely saw each other or spoke when he was a child; instead, his male role model was to become his grandfather James (who emigrated to the US from none other than Corleone, Sicily, if you can believe it), with whom Al became irrevocably close to. Pacino was raised in a comfortable, sheltered environment; they didn’t have much money, but they were still happy nonetheless.

When Al was a little boy and his mother came home from work, she would bring her son to the movies (usually every Saturday). Al soon became fascinated by them. He would spend hours reciting and acting out his favorite scenes, imitating his favorite actors. He particularly enjoyed mimicking dramatic deaths, and his favorite was to reinact the entire scene from The Lost Weekend where a drunken Ray Milland is having trouble finding his booze bottle. Al would perform it at most family gatherings and parties, and when his relatives struggled to keep in their uproarous giggles, the little boy would frown at them. "Why are you laughing!? The guy can’t find the bottle! It’s serious!"

"I remember, I would come home–this is interesting to think of it now–I’d come home [from the movies], I’d always make an entrance at night… And [when I made my entrance], usually it was a ‘dying’ entrance. I’d come in and ‘die’ all the way to the kitchen."

Pacino struggled as a child amongst his peers. He had many friends, but he was constantly being tormented and teased because of his height, obsession with acting, and countless other pointless things that made him different from other kids. He was also rather susceptible to injuries. While playing a game of cops and robbers with a pal, little Pacino ran straight into a barbed wire fence and caught his lip on some of the wire. Al had reinacted pain and horror so many times that his friend at first thought he was pulling his leg, but soon Al’s screams finally triggered the kid to run for help. The moment Mrs. Pacino saw her son dangling by the lip, she completely blacked out from nerves and shock.

Leading such a sheltered life made Pacino a confused kid, especially when living in the South Bronx, which is not exactly what one would call "Pleasantville." Al even told peers he was part of a street gang, that he was from Texas or that he had ten German Shepards that would eat men alive. He’d do anything to try and fit in; he even lost his virginity at age nine.

In spite of all this, Al’s thirst to act was hardly quenched enough to his content. He was always itching to be in the elementary school plays and usually ended up with lead roles, and his teachers soon took notice of the boy’s talent. They constantly urged his mother to put her son’s almost preternatural acting skills to good use. With that, Rose enrolled him into the prestigious High School for the Performing Arts in Manhattan.

Despite his obvious intelligence, Al was an underachiever in school and was constantly bored and unmotivated. He dropped out at age 17, hoping to begin a stage career. It didn’t come easy, however. He went through a long and severe period of depression, rejection after rejection. He was also arrested for carrying a concealed weapon, and sentenced to a hearty fine. He did, however, befriend famed actor Charles Laughton, which was a huge honor on Pacino’s part. Laughton could easily see that this kid had the spark that it takes to become a great actor.

Rose Pacino was intensely nervous by nature, and her son’s wild energy and recent bad luck began to wear off on her. She kept how serious in a state she was to herself, however, and when Al was twenty-two years old, she died suddenly. The impact it had on her child was unspeakable. He felt completely responsible for her death, and hated himself for his overhyped ambitions and reckless drive to be onstage. To make matters worse, his mentor and grandfather, James, passed away the next year. Al started to turn to drugs from time to time, but alcohol pretty much became his best friend. It would take years for Laughton and other pals to help Pacino get over his drinking habits.

Finally, his luck started to turn, when he got a break and was accepted into New York‘s prestigious Actors’ Studio when he was 26 years old. He studied with some of the best teachers in the business, most notably Lee Strasberg, who created the famously American form of acting: The Method. During this period, Al struggled namely bec
ause an actor of similar age, similar height, similar circumstances and similar appearance named Dustin Hoffman had a career that took off in 1967′s The Graduate. Pacino could not deny his jealousy, and people constantly coming up to him, seizing his shirt and demanding, "Are you Dustin Hoffman?", "You’re Dustin Hoffman, aren’t you?" and "Look, it’s Dustin! Dustin Hoffman!" only made it worse. He later reflected with a smile, "Maybe someone’s pulling his shirt now and saying, ‘You’re Al Pacino!’ "

His confidence restored after his valued training at the Studio, Al continued to audition for plays. When he was finally accepted to be part of the production "The Indian Wants the Bronx," something wholly unexpected happened: he won an Obie Award for his performance. Al soon became all the rage on the New York theatre scene; everybody wanted him. Soon, after being in countless shows, he won a Tony Award for his performance in "Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie?" and was beginning to get offers from film studios. Many people began to take notice of the man’s talent, including an young director named Francis Ford Coppola.

The Godfather was a bestselling novel written by Mario Puzo in the 1960s. It tells the story of an Italian family, the Corleones, and their tragic legacy as one of the great Mafia Families in fictional history. When director/screenwriter Francis Ford Coppola wanted to bring the epic novel to the screen, he collaborated with Puzo and wrote a screenplay. Marlon Brando was cast as the head of the family, Don Vito Corleone. James Caan was set to play the Don’s oldest son, Santino "Sonny" Corleone, John Cazale (who would go on to make several movies with Al) was to play the second-eldest brother, Fredo. Robert Duvall took on the role of The Don’s stepson and the Family consiglieri, Tom Hagen, and Coppola’s own sister, Talia Shire, was cast as the youngest Corleone child, Connie. All that was missing was an actor to play the story’s central and most haunting character: Michael Corleone.

Coppola had seen Al Pacino perform on stage and immediately became enamored with the young man’s talent. In the director’s head, Al was the man for Michael. Studio executives and producers, however, begged to differ. They wanted someone with huge star status to play the role; this was, after all, a big-budget production from Paramount Studios. Some of their ideal choices included James Caan (who, as previously mentioned, was later cast as Sonny, Michael’s brother), Martin Sheen, and even Robert Redford. But Coppola refused to budge. He contacted Al and had him come in and do a screen test with Diane Keaton, who was to play Michael’s future wife, Kay Adams. Luckily for Al, he and Diane were already close friends, so the chemistry was automatically perfect on-camera. Al did his best, and then hoped for it, too.

The executives at Paramount turned him down. Al was obviously hugely disappointed, but he told Coppola that perhaps he just wasn’t meant for the role, thanked him for giving him the chance, and went on his way. Coppola wasn’t finished, though. He would take Al and sneak him in for a screentest every chance he got; in the end, executives were in possession of (reportedly) nearly 100 tests with this actor nobody had ever heard of. Al was starting to get restless. "At the time, I told [Coppola], ‘I don’t respond well to being in situations where I’m not wanted,’" he recalled nearly thirty years later. It got to the point where he was being taunted and teased by the bigshots to his face, and Al had practically had enough. Coppola still reassured him that everything would be all right in the end, and at last, the executives gave the hesitant thumbs-up.

But things weren’t over then. Al was in constant fear of being fired on the set, since when Coppola wound send executives finished takes, they said that Al’s performance was too dull, too boring. But that all changed when Coppola coaxed them to watch a scene from the 1971 little-seen film The Panic in Needle Park (1971), Al’s first starring role in which he gives a gritty and unbelievable performance as a young heroin addict named Bobby. That 8-minute clip was all it took. They were left stunned. And it was set. Al Pacino, whom to Hollywood was just a thirtysomething nobody from the South Bronx, was to play Michael Corleone.

Needless to say, the film was a smash. Pacino’s performance had critics practically kissing the ground beneath his feet, and he earned an Academy Award nomination. Suddenly Al was thrust into a world which he was completely unfamiliar with: fame, fortune, glamour, pizzaz…he was finally one of those guys he had so admired as a little boy at the local cineplex.

"It’s a relative thing, fame. And it works on different people differently… And how it worked on me was…I…I started to–I didn’t talk the way I usually talk. And I realized people were receptive to me. And I hadn’t earned it. I had done nothing to earn their laughs, or their interest or anything. And it felt kinda cool to just sit there and not have to earn it. And I think that’s a trap you can fall into with fame. Because life is people, being with people, interchanging with people, that’s what life is. When you’re famous, sometimes, that part of you can get cut off. And I’ll tell you how. Because, you don’t employ the stuff that makes you what you are, because you don’t have to. And so, I fell victim to that a little bit. But I am aware of it."

After that, Al’s professional life took off. He earned three consecutive Oscar nominations for his roles in Serpico, The Godfather Part II (which was just as successful and brilliant as the first,} and Dog Day Afternoon. He refused to take roles simply for financial gain; instead he accepted parts that were powerful, meaningful, important; this helped establish him as a powerful new force amongst his peers.

Al was also involved in a serious romance between actress Jill Clayburgh for several years, but it faded when t
hey simply did not have time for each other anymore. Fortunately, the split was amicable. He also hooked up with future Author! Author! co-star Tuesday Weld, but that relationship didn’t last long.

There are, in every actor’s career, flops. They are unavoidable, and Al has certainly had his share of them. Bobby Deerfield (which did had an upside: he met beautiful actress Marthe Keller while the film was in production and they became an item within a matter of days), and Cruising to name a couple, but he got right back on top again in 1979′s …And Justice For All which earned him yet another Best Actor Oscar nomination, despite the film being panned by most critics. After a comedic movie called Author! Author! (which earned him a Golden Globe nomination), Al was offered a role in a 1983 film that would solidify his status as a screen legend.

Scarface tells the story of a "political refugee" from Cuba named Tony Montana, who goes to the US to escape the reign of Fidel Castro in 1980, and joins the massive Cuban crime wave (mostly present in Miami). Tony’s life is one of literally nothing to everything (with all that comes with it: cocaine, booze, women, and lots and lots of money), and then ultimately ends in tragic death. The film became a landmark for the street community and remains to be one of the biggest cult features of all time. Pacino’s performance is nothing short of amazing. Despite its critical panning, it’s now featured on many "Top Movies of the Twentieth Century" lists, and probably will be for years to come.

Filming Revolution in 1985 was most likely the toughest shoot in Pacino’s long list of credits; horrible weather conditions and numerous financial difficulties challenged the production, and Al was also diagnosed with a serious bout of pnemonia. He was also in a depressed state of mind, since his relationship with Marthe Keller had come to an end. It didn’t help matters when the film was released: it was labelled one of the worst movies to come out of the 1980s and declared an embarassment for all who were involved with it. Though he was still getting numerous offers from studios, Pacino fell into depression from the bad reviews of his previous film and went on a four-year hiatus from movies. He starred in a few plays but generally stayed out of the limelight. He had brief flings with actresses Carol Kane (his co-star from Dog Day Afternoon who played the teller who is phoned up by her husband during the heist), and Kathleen Quinlan.

In 1989, the world got quite a shock when Al made his comeback in Sea of Love, an erotic cop thriller. Suddenly he looked and sounded different; those four years had given birth to a lower, huskier voice that became a trademark for the actor and his eyes seemed darker, more piercing. And soon Al was completely back in the fold and better than ever, releasing hit after hit. He was nominated for an Oscar for his portrayal of comic-book villain Big Boy Caprice in Warren Beaty’s Dick Tracy (1990), and made his directorial debut in the never-released film, The Logical Stigmatic. He gave his third and final performance as Michael Corleone in The Godfather Part III. The movie was not as ingenious as the other two, but Al gave a strong performance and the movie was nominated for Best Picture at the 1990 Oscars. During the shoot, Al’s beloved grandmother Kate died, and he was accompanied by Diane Keaton at the funeral; Al and Diane, who were an on-off couple for many, many years, decided to finally call it quits near the end of Godfather III’s production. But, like many of Al’s broken relationships, they were and still remain to be very close friends. Next, he starred in Frankie & Johnny with his Scarface costar Michelle Pfieffer, a hilarious, bittersweet romantic comedy which earned him another Golden Globe nomination.

Al had another reason to celebrate during those years, however: a short (and now terminated) romance with acting teacher Jan Tarrant in the late 80′s gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, Julie Marie, whom Pacino doted on incessantly. She was the apple of his eye. Al admitted that she completely changed his perspective on so many things in his life, and her birth made him feel like a wholler and happier person. To this day, Julie (now fourteen) is extremely close with her father, as it was apparent at the 2004 Golden Globe Awards.

Al’s fans (and some critics as well) were getting restless, however, because still, after exactly thirty years since his first Oscar nomination (and seven others), he didn’t have the prestigious Academy Award on his mantle. Al didn’t really seem to mind this, but in the year 1992 he gave two flawless performances, and he was nominated for both–and won for one. He played the slick, jerky salesman Ricky Roma in Glengarry Glenn Ross, an adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play, and a retired blind Lt. Colonel named Frank Slade in Scent of a Woman. He became one of the very few actors to be nominated for two performances in the same year, and at last he finally won for his role in Scent of a Woman. A very humbled Al announced with a smile, "You broke my [losing] streak." There was much dispute after the ceremony as to whether or not that particular performance was Al’s finest (I personally think he should have won for Dog Day Afternoon), but nevertheless it remains one of the most outstanding character portrayals in movie history.

He reunited with Scarface director Brian de Palma to play yet another Spanish-speaking gangster, this time in the 1993 movie Carlito’s Way. During this time, Al had been dating director/producer Lyndall Hobbs. However later on it was revealed that she was a rather demanding and controlling woman–not to mention overbearing–and it is rumored that Al had an affair with his attractive Carlito’s Way co-star Penelope Anne Miller. Pacino and Hobbs did not last, nor did he and Miller. He had a short role in 1995′s Two Bits, and then what seemed to be a gift from the action-flick gods was released: Heat, directed by Michael Mann had Pacino starring opposite Robert de Niro (who had played Al’s father in The Godfather Part II, however in that they had no screentime together). The movie was a smash, and after that came the mediocre political w:st="on" />drama City Hall co-starring John Cusack and Bridget Fonda.

Al tried his hand again at directing in the clever documentary Looking for Richard, which basically entails the story of Pacino trying to direct, star, and produce a production of Shakespeare’s Richard III. This time, he released the movie to the public and it was very well-received; he even won the Best Director award from the Director’s Guild of America.

In 1997, Al co-starred with Johnny Depp in the fantastic Mafia movie Donnie Brasco, then went on to play Satan himself in The Devil’s Advocate next to Keanu Reeves and Charlize Theron. In 1999, he reunited with director Michael Mann to make the excellent drama/thriller The Insider with Russel Crowe. The movie was highly praised and nominated for seven Academy Awards. Then Pacino worked with renowned director Oliver Stone in the epic football film Any Given Sunday, followed by yet another movie directed by and starring Pacino, Chinese Coffee.

Around this time, Al became romantically involved with actress Beverly D’Angelo, and things seemed to be going very smoothly between them. In 2001, D’Angelo gave birth to twins–Olivia and Anton (perhaps named after one of Pacino’s favorite playwrights, Anton Chekhov)–on January 25. Soon after, however, they decided to split, and a fierce custody battle ensued. Al claimed that Beverly was charging him money to see their children, while D’Angelo said that Al was abusing his custody rights and demanding to see the children more than he was allowed. The battle was long and exhausting, and the results were not disclosed to the public; however it is known that Pacino (grudgingly) had to move to LA so he could see the children three times a week. Al now rotates his schedule between New York–still his favorite place to be–and Los Angeles, so he can try and spend time with both Julie and the twins.

In 2002, he co-starred with Robin Williams and Hilary Swank in the tense and fascinating Insomnia, then made a comedic switch by playing a disgruntled director who creates a computerized diva in S1m0ne. He made a film called People I Know with Kim Basinger and then starred with Colin Farrel in the 2003 hit The Recruit as a corrupt CIA agent.

For old time’s sake, Al agreed to make a cameo in Scent of a Woman director Martin Brest’s film Gigli, starring Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez. And I don’t think it’s necessary to say how that movie turned out. Still, Pacino once again fascinated the globe when he took on the TV miniseries Angels in America, playing a slimy, homophobic hotshot lawyer struggling to deal with his own homosexuality whilst dying from AIDS. Al won both a Golden Globe and a SAG Award for his performance.

Up next, Al is starring in Shakespeare’s classic The Merchant of Venice as Shylock, with talented actor Jeremy Irons costarring as Antonio. The film is due for release in early 2005. Other upcoming movies include 88 Minutes, a psychological thriller directed by James Foley and Two for the Money, a picture about sports gambling co-starring Matthew Maconoughay and Renee Russo.

It’s been a long and difficult road for Pacino. He’s certainly had his share of ups, but there have been downs. He’s been a strong and courageous man, and an excellent receiver of both his fans and his fame: he takes it very much in stride and with courtesy. And it is, obviously, needless to say that he is and always will be one of the most talented actors of all time.

 

附表：Al Pacino奥斯卡获奖、提名情况

Year	Result	Award	Category/Recipient(s)
1993	Won	Oscar	Best Actor in a Leading Role for: Scent of a Woman (1992)
	Nominated	Oscar	Best Actor in a Supporting Role for: Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)
1991	Nominated	Oscar	Best Actor in a Supporting Role for: Dick Tracy (1990)
1980	Nominated	Oscar	Best Actor in a Leading Role for: …And Justice for All (1979)
1976	Nominated	Oscar	Best Actor in a Leading Role for: Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
1975	Nominated	Oscar	Best Actor in a Leading Role for: Godfather: Part II, The (1974)
1974	Nominated	Oscar	Best Actor in a Leading Role for: Serpico (1973)
1973	Nominated	Oscar	Best Actor in a Supporting Role for: Godfather, The (1972)