'I had $50 million and then I had nothing': Al Pacino on his early-career spending habits

After losing his money, Al Pacino said he began to take up whichever acting roles he could get to make more money.

Earlier in his career, Oscar-winning actor Al Pacino had lost control over his finances. He was amassing millions from his roles in noteworthy films like The Godfather and Scarface, and spending it on his landscaper who charged $400,000 a year to maintain a home he didn’t live in, paying for 16 cars and 23 cellphones, he wrote in his new memoir, Sonny Boy.

“I didn’t understand how money worked, any more than I understood how a career worked,” the 84-year-old wrote. “It was a language I just didn’t speak. 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.”

Pacino, however, was not responsible for his financial problems. He was in his seventies when he learned his accountant had mismanaged his funds leaving him almost broke. “I had $50 million and then I had nothing,” CNBC quoted him as saying in the book.

By that point, Pacino didn’t think he would be able to earn the kind of money from acting he did during the height of his career. So, he began taking whichever acting roles he could get even though he did not connect with them.

″‘Jack and Jill’ was the first film I made after I lost my money,” Pacino said. “To be honest, I did it because I didn’t have anything else.” He also starred in “some really bad films that will go unmentioned, just for the cash.”