How Al Pacino went broke: 16 cars, 23 cell phones and $400,000 in landscaping for a house he didn’t use

In the mid 1980s, Al Pacino was dating Diane Keaton when he discovered that he was broke.

“The Godfather” had been a huge critical and commercial success, but it wasn’t a big pay day for Pacino, who reportedly was only paid $35,000 on the film.

“When I finished making ‘The Godfather,’ I was broke, not that I had ever had any money, but now I owed money,” he writes. “My manager and agents got their cuts of my salary while I had to live on support from Jill Clayburgh”

“Sonny Boy” is available in bookstores now. Penguin Press

He made more with 1974’s “The Godfather II” and much more with 1983’s “Scarface,” but he hadn’t been smart with his money.

He also wasn’t working that much, making only five films throughout the 1980s.

“I had about ninety grand in the bank and that was it,” the 84-year-old actor writes in his new memoir, “Sonny Boy.” “I had a lifestyle to boot. I had my home in the country, which I didn’t want to give up. I was spending and not earning; I was putting out but I wasn’t bringing in.”

He continues, “I could say I got taken advantage of. I could blame my accountants. I could blame [my manager] Mary Bregman, who had put me into some sort of tax shelter that went south. I could blame myself, but then I’d have to take responsibility for my own actions.”

The star went to his entertainment lawyer with Keaton to discuss his paltry finances when the actress suddenly exploded and yelled at Pacino’s lawyer: “Do you know who he is?”

When the lawyer began to answer, the “Baby Boom” star jumped in again.

The actor writes of then-girlfriend Diane Keaton coming along with him to a meeting with his lawyer about finances. Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images

“Yeah, you’re going to tell me, ‘Oh, he’s an artist. no. He. Is. An idiot,” she thundered.

“He’s an ignoramus,” she continued. “When it comes to this, you’ve got to take care of him.”

Pacino writes that Keaton was right.

“I didn’t understand how money worked,” he admits, “any more than I understood how a career worked. It was a language I just didn’t speak.”

Keaton encouraged Pacino to start acting in movies again and his first project was “Sea of Love.”

Pacino experienced money problems after not making any films for four years. Getty Images for Turner

The 1989 cop thriller costarring Ellen Barkin was critically acclaimed and a huge hit. It was also Pacino’s first movie since 1985’s “Revolution.”

Pacino confesses that he didn’t make that much money from the film because he had no “appropriate back end … They knew I had been out of commission for four years, so they didn’t have to cut that sweet a deal.”

The Bronx-born actor was soon offered to reprise the role of Michael Corleone in “The Godfather: Part III,” and although he had struggled with reprising the character for the first sequel, he had no such hesitation for the third installment.

His first film after a long hiatus was “Sea of Love” with Ellen Barkin. ©Universal/Courtesy Everett Collection Pacino admits he didn’t make much for “Sea of Love” because he wasn’t offered points. ©Universal/Courtesy Everett Collection

“The choice could not have been easier,” he writes. “I was broke. Francis [Ford Coppola, the director] was broke. We both needed the bread.”

“The Godfather Part III” came out in 1990 and was widely panned.

By 2001, Pacino found himself living in LA to be closer to his twins, Anton and Olivia, now 23, whom he shares with ex-Beverly D’Angelo.

(He has two other children: Julie, 34, with acting coach Jan Tarrant and Roman, who was born in June 2023, with Noor Alfallah).

Pacino writes that he signed on for “The Godfather III” because he needed the money. Courtesy Everett Collection

However his lifestyle “was costing me a fortune.”

He writes, “My staff was getting bigger, and I was taking care of two homes, my apartments, and an office, and supporting the households of my children. I was spending three or four hundred thousand dollars a month, which is a lot of moolah.”

By 2011, Pacino began to harbor suspicions about his accountant. The actor had splurged on a family trip to Europe, which included flights on a Gulfstream 550, a whole floor of the Dorchester Hotel and a trip to Legoland in Denmark.

Back home in LA, Pacino discovered he had more money than before which struck him as odd.

“I knew something was wrong,” he admitted before finding out that the accountant was indeed crooked. He claims that he was eventually found guilty of running a Ponzi scheme and served time in prison.

The “Dog Day Afternoon” star’s money issues came to the forefront after his twins with Beverly D’Angelo were born. beverlydangelo/Instagram

But soon Pacino was again broke.

“I had fifty million dollars, and then I had nothing,” he writes. “I had property but I didn’t have any money …The kind of money I was spending and where it was going was just a crazy montage of loss.”

The “Serpico” star lists some of his expenses: paying for sixteen cars, twenty-three cell phones and a landscaper who was getting “$400,000 a year, and mind you, that was for landscaping at a house I didn’t even live in.”

Pacino found himself spending nearly half a million dollars a month. beverlydangelo/Instagram

Pacino writes that he had little knowledge of where all the money was going.

“I wasn’t even signing my own checks — the accountant signed them and I just let them go by. I wasn’t looking and he didn’t tell me how much I had or where it was going, and I wasn’t keeping track of who got what. It was all about: Let’s keep this dumb actor going, and I was keeping track of who got what. I was all about: Let’s keep this dumb actor happy, just keep him working, and will reap.”

By then Pacino was in his 70s and “the big paydays that I was used to just weren’t coming around anymore.”

So he began to budget and work more.

Pacino (second from right) has four children with three different women. Three of the kids are adults: Anton James (from left), Olivia and Julie Marie. Getty Images Pacino became a father for the fourth time last year with the birth of his son Roman with Noor Alfallah. SPOT / BACKGRID

He sold one of his houses, did commercials for Australian television and began touring with a seminar.

Pacino confesses that some of his later projects were done purely for the cash and weren’t “very good.”

“‘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 … I love Adam, he was wonderful to work with and has become a dear friend.

“I also ended up doing some really bad films that will go unmentioned, just for the cast, when my funds got low enough. And I sort of knew they were bad, but I convinced myself I could somehow get them up to being mediocre.”

Pacino realized that he had to downsize. A.M.P.A.S. via Getty Images

Now that he’s older, the Oscar winner admits that he “has to think very seriously about my estate now. That means I have to get advice from people who are way smarter than me.”

Pacino writes that “Scarface” was his most lucrative role, and it continues to pay him.

“To this day it’s still the biggest film I ever did. The residuals still support me,” he writes. “I can live on it, I mean, I could, if I lived like a normal person.”