"Without sounding too corny, it gives you a reason to get up in the morning," Pacino said about fatherhood.
Olivia Pacino, Al Pacino's daughter, celebrated her 22nd birthday in January of this year and shared a number of images on Instagram of herself in front of black and gold balloons. "Season 22 episode 1," the daughter of the Godfather star captioned the post.
Olivia also loves her father a lot, who fought tooth and nail for her and her twin brother.
In the 1990s, Al Pacino and Beverly D'Angelo started dating. By 2001, the couple had given birth to their twins, Anton and Olivia. When the twins were born, he already had a daughter named Julie Marie who was 12 years old from a prior relationship. Pacino was so happy after welcoming the kids that he said in an interview, "Without sounding too corny, it gives you a reason to get up in the morning." He added of fatherhood at age 62 while talking to Sydney Morning Herald in 2002, "It gives you this weird kind of energy that I had almost forgotten about."
However, the couple's relationship started to sour and they filed for a divorce which led to a very public, protracted custody battle. The offsprings of D'Angelo and Pacino were only two when this custody dispute started. The father of the kids, according to D'Angelo, was overbearing and never showed enough interest in them to even change their nappies. D'Angelo allegedly used Pacino's kids as captives, according to the Academy Award-winning actor. Pacino said his main complaint was that he didn't spend as much one-on-one time with his children as he would have preferred, even though he made it clear that he didn't want to fight with his ex, per PEOPLE.
But for Pacino, it wasn't just about the children. For Pacino, this was a longer battle that stemmed from his own neglectful childhood. His father left when he was very young, and he always felt alone. “It’s the missing link, so to speak,” he said to New Yorker.
“Having children has helped a lot. I consciously knew that I didn’t want to be like my dad. I wanted to be there. I have three children. I’m responsible to them. I’m a part of their life. When I’m not, it’s upsetting to me and to them. So that’s part of the gestalt. And I get a lot from it. It takes you out of yourself. When I do a movie, and I come back, I’m stunned for the first twenty minutes. These people are asking me to do things for them? Huh? I’m not being waited on? Wait a minute. Uh-oh, it’s about them! That action satisfies. I like it,” he explained.
Pacino has bigger dreams though, as he shared that even though the family hasn't “been in a grocery store or ridden the subway in fifty years” because the children “have a difficult time going out with me publicly.”
But he dreams, one day, to have rented “a small house on a lake. It’s my dream—I don’t know how to get to it yet, but I’ll give it another year.”
References:
https://people.com/celebrity/pacino-child-custody-battle-heats-up/
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/09/15/caught-act
Cover Image Source: (L) Instagram | olivia.pacino; (R) Getty Images | Amy Sussman
