The iconic actor who paid Al Pacino to be his understudy before being fired on the spot: “Out of his own salary”
In his early days as a struggling theatre actor in New York City, Al Pacino admits he often had to depend on the kindness of friends and family to get by. At this point, Pacino was barely out of acting school and hadn’t made the jump into movies yet, but he was doing his best to forge a career in New York’s thriving theatrical underground. Naturally, Off-Broadway theatre – or Off-Off-Broadway, as Pacino took part in on many occasions – didn’t pay much, so he rarely had any money.
This is why, when one of the pals he studied with at acting school saw he was in need, the future icon concocted a scheme to throw Pacino some work – even if the money was coming out of his own pocket.
Pacino’s first taste of acting school came when he spent four years at the Herbert Berghof Studio in New York’s Greenwich Village. This non-profit studio was taught by Charlie Laughton, a local acting teacher—not to be confused with Charles Laughton, the British-American actor and director of The Night of the Hunter.
While studying at HB Studio, Pacino met fellow acting hopeful Ramón Estévez, who would become better known by his stage name, Martin Sheen. The two future acting titans lived together in a tiny, cramped apartment for a time during this period, and also worked together at the Village’s Living Theatre, all while trying to kickstart their acting careers.
When they stopped living together and went their separate ways, though, Sheen’s path was a lot smoother than Pacino’s. Around a year later, Sheen was working regularly Off-Broadway, but Pacino hadn’t managed to pull off a similar feat. In his memoir Sonny Boy, he recalled a chance meeting in the New York Subway, where Sheen was shocked at his old pal’s state.
Pacino wrote, “I looked like I was playing a part in a Charlie Chaplin film from the silent era…I was still down and out. My next move was to hold my hand out for somebody to put a coin in it.” Sheen politely asked Pacino how it was going, but Pacino could see him looking at his “dusty thrift-store coat” and “shoes that were ripped apart, and my toes poking through the holes.” Pacino told his friend he was doing OK, but admitted, “He knew that maybe that was not the case.”
What Sheen did next meant the world to Pacino – even if he didn’t know it yet. Pacino recalled, “He said to me, ‘Al, would you do me the honour’ —he actually said that, ‘honour’—’of understudying me in this part that I’m doing?”
Sheen was starring in The Wicked Cooks and said Pacino could make a few bucks working as his understudy. The future Godfather star reasoned, “This play was at the Orpheum on Second Avenue, which was practically like being on Broadway. And it was money in my pocket. So I thanked him and said, ‘Of course, Marty, I’ll do it.'” Beautifully, Sheen had sold the idea to Pacino in such a way that he thought he was doing his old friend a favour – not the other way around. Pacino chuckled, “I thought I was doing it for Marty because he seemed so effusive about me. He loved me, and I was just so enamoured of him.”
Unfortunately for Sheen’s heartwarming plan, at that time, Pacino was an admittedly awkward, self-conscious, easily distracted artiste, and he didn’t really like the idea of understudying. So, when Sheen got laryngitis, and Pacino was needed to step in, he had to admit he’d been paying no attention to Sheen’s role. Hell, he didn’t even remember any of the lines. Naturally, he was fired on the spot and only later found out the true extent of Sheen’s kindness.
“Marty was paying me himself, out of his own salary,” a humbled Pacino wrote. “He just wanted me to have the money.” Pacino even said he tried to pay Sheen back when he finally had some money in the bank, but the West Wing star wouldn’t accept it. What a guy.
