Claire is...

On This Day…

Al Pacino born on this day in 1940.

Alfredo James "Al" Pacino born April 25, 1940) is an American film and stage actor and director. He is famous for playing mobsters, including Michael Corleone in The Godfather trilogy and Tony Montana in Scarface, though he has also appeared several times on the other side of the law—as a police officer, a detective and a lawyer. For his performance as Frank Slade in Scent of a Woman he won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1992. He had received seven previous Oscar nominations, including one in that same year.

Trivia: October 1997: Ranked #4 in Empire (UK) magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list.

January 1961: Was arrested, charged with carrying a concealed weapon.

Turned down Marlon Brando's role in Apocalypse Now (1979).

Turned down the role of Han Solo in Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977).

Originally asked for $7 million for The Godfather: Part III (1990), a figure that so enraged director Francis Ford Coppola that he threatened to write a new script that opened with Michael Corleone's funeral. Pacino settled for $5 million.

1994: Stopped a two-pack-a-day smoking habit to protect his voice. In the mid-1980s he had been smoking four packs of cigarettes a day. He now only occasionally smokes herbal cigarettes.

Won his first Oscar twenty-one years after his first nomination.

His favorite actress is Julie Christie.

He has been a friend of HRH Prince Charles, The Prince of Wales, for several years, and has stayed as his guest at Highgrove House.

The voice of Moe the Bartender from The Simpsons was based on Pacino in Dog Day Afternoon (1975).

Is one of 9 actors to have won the Triple Crown of Acting (an Oscar, Emmy and Tony); the others in chronological order are Thomas Mitchell, Melvyn Douglas, Paul Scofield, Jack Albertson, Jason Robards, Jeremy Irons, Geoffrey Rush and Christopher Plummer.