How Al Pacino's Lavish Lifestyle Caught Up To Him

Al Pacino is a cinematic icon. The actor has starred in such classics as "The Godfather," "Scarface," and "Heat," and seemingly had it made as one of the biggest movie stars of his time. However, what most people didn't know about Pacino, as he revealed in his 2024 memoir "Sonny Boy," was that his net worth was not nearly as large as everyone suspected it was. When he was in his 70s, he learned he was broke — and not for the first time in his career.

"The Godfather" made Pacino a movie star in 1972, but he wasn't quite making movie star money just yet, with him only raking in $35,000 ($223,844 in today's dollars) for the film. Pacino admitted in his memoir that he had not realized his agents and manager would be entitled to take so much of his earnings from the film. "When I finished making 'The Godfather,' I was broke, not that I had ever had any money, but now I owed money." Pacino had already turned down "Star Wars" and was picky about his movie selection, only choosing to do five films. Pacino was also not keeping close tabs on his financials, leading to him being broke by the mid-80s.

Pacino was earning $10 million per movie by the time the 90s rolled around, but entering the late 2000s, Pacino saw his wealth greatly diminish due to his lifestyle choices. In his memoir, Pacino wrote, "I had about ninety grand in the bank and that was it."

Al Pacino lived a grand lifestyle in "Scarface," and art reflected life when it came to Pacino's spending habits as well. In a 2020 interview on "Jimmy Kimmel Live," Pacino detailed some of his expensive and impulsive purchases. "I spent over $35 million in real estate. First off, I've got a place in Beverly Hills, a beautiful estate that's worth about $20 million ... For reasons I can't really remember, I bought another house in New York in Manhattan, and it's not as grand as my Beverly Hills place, but it's worth $10 million."

Pacino's lifestyle was quite literally costing him a fortune. Pacino wrote in his memoir "Sonny Boy" (via PageSix), "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."

On top of that, Pacino was spending $400,000 a year on a landscaper, who Pacino said "was for landscaping at a house I didn't even live in." He also owned 16 cars and 23 cell phones. To make matters worse, Pacino's accountant stole from him and was eventually imprisoned for a Ponzi scheme. Pacino was nearly tapped out financially until Adam Sandler gave him a lifeline in the form of the movie "Jack and Jill," in which Sandler paid Pacino a large sum of money for his role. By the end of the 2010's Pacino was back on his feet financially, and according to Celebrity Net Worth, he made around $20 million for the Martin Scorsese movie "The Irishman."