Al Pacino had to start all over in his 70s in order to save himself from financial ruin.
The Hollywood legend discloses in his October 2024 memoir, Sonny Boy, that his life savings were stolen by his former accountant, who was eventually imprisoned for almost eight years for operating a Ponzi scheme.
The Oscar winner's bank account went from $50 million to zero due to the corrupt accountant.
"I was broke," Pacino wrote. "I had $50 million, and then I had nothing. I had property, but I didn't have any money."
Al Pacino was scammed by his accountant
According to Pacino, it was in 2011 when he started “to get warnings that my accountant at the time, a guy who had lots of celebrity clients, was not to be trusted.”
After paying “a ridiculous amount of money to rent some big fancy house in Beverly Hills,” the actor took his family to Europe, where he flew various guests “on a gorgeous Gulfstream 550” and “rented out a whole floor of the Dorchester hotel in London.”
After returning home to Hollywood, Pacino became concerned because his finances remained the same despite spending so much on vacation.
“And I thought, It’s simple. It’s clear. I just know this. Time stopped. I am fucked,” he writes.
Several other red flags eventually led him to an accountant who told him he believed his current bookkeeper was an "arrogant crook."
He added: "There's almost nothing worse for a famous person — there's being dead, and then there's being broke."
Pacino said he'd been far too loose with the pursestrings: "The kind of money I was spending and where it was going was just a crazy montage of loss. The door was wide open, and people who I didn't know were living off me. It was 'Come one, come all! Al's got it and he doesn't care!'"
“Even though I only had two cars, I was somehow paying for 16, along with 23 cell phones I didn't know about," he added. "The landscaper was getting $400,000 a year and, mind you, that was for landscaping at a house I didn't even live in."
"It was all about: let's keep this dumb actor happy, just keep him working, and we will reap."
**Al Pacino was desperate for money and **had to take up roles he couldn't relate to
Having to start over later in life was something the Scent of a Woman actor wasn't sure was possible.
Pacino spent the majority of his career playing characters he could connect with and relate to, with little regard for the paycheck. After losing his money, he accepted almost any job offer. He claims he acted in“some really bad films that will go unmentioned, just for the cash.”
"I wasn’t a young buck, and I was not going to be making the kind of money from acting in films that I had made before. The big paydays that I was used to just weren’t coming around anymore. The pendulum had swung, and I found it harder to find parts for myself," he writes, noting he no longer had the luxury of only doing films in which he "related to the part."
In search of financial stability, Pacino decided to sell one of his homes, reopened the door to commercials (which he previously banned), and enthusiastically signed on for a role in Adam Sandler's adventurous film, Jack and Jill.
"Jack and Jill was the first film 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. So I went out and did it, and it helped. I love Adam, he was wonderful to work with and has become a dear friend. He also just happens to be a great actor and a hell of a guy," he writes.
Pacino also began to conduct seminars to earn a living.
"My seminars were another big find for me. In the past, I used to go to colleges all the time and talk to the kids there, just to get out there and perform for them, in a sense. I’d tell them a little bit about my life and have them ask me questions… I didn’t get paid for it. I just did it. Now that I was broke, I thought, ‘Why don’t we follow this up?’
He continued: “There were more places I could go and do these seminars. Not necessarily universities. I knew there was a wider market for this. So I started traveling around. And I found that they worked. Audiences came because I still had popularity," the star writes in his book.