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  • The Glamorous History of The Pierre: Manhattan’s Iconic Hotel Turns 95

    When The Pierre Hotel opened its doors in 1930, it instantly became a playground for Manhattan’s elite. Over the past 95 years, this iconic hotel has witnessed everything from the repeal of Prohibition to jewel heists and Hollywood scandals, all while maintaining its reputation as one of New York’s most glamorous destinations. From its $15 million debut to hosting Hollywood royalty and surviving the Great Depression, The Pierre has remained a beacon of glamour in the heart of New York City since 1930.

    A Complete History of The Pierre Hotel

    Image by Nextrecord Archives / G

    The Early Days: A Playground for Manhattan’s Elite

    When The Pierre Hotel opened on October 1, 1930, casting its 714-room shadow over Central Park, it instantly became the playground for Manhattan’s elite. Merely four months later, E.B. White’s Ballad of the Hotel Pierre was published in the New Yorker, describing it as home to “The little band that nothing daunts/this year’s most popular debutantes.” This was true. Prospective debutantes had started booking the ballroom for their November entrances in June, months before the luxury hotel opened. 

    Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel posing in her suite at The Pierre during her first visit to New York City, on March 10, 1931.
    Getty Images

    Within a year, the film and stage star Ina Claire was sinking into a club chair at the hotel as she discussed with journalists whether she would be divorcing John Gilbert. (She claimed she would not. She would.) In 1932, Coco Chanel called The Pierre home during her first visit to New York. And that same year, the famed “Tobacco King” Arthur Mower refused to leave his Pierre bed for his stepdaughter’s early morning wedding . 

    Little wonder no one wanted to leave. Every inch of the 41-story hotel offered an almost otherworldly spectacle. The 60-by-100-foot ballroom where those debutantes waltzed was paneled in mirrors flanked by rose marble columns imported from French quarries. The chandeliers above sparkled with traces of ruby crystals from the room that would become known for the “swankest presentation balls” given for the city’s “spoiled darlings.” Attendees might make their way to the Grill Room, which was decorated to resemble an “undersea garden.” Wall panels and ceiling murals replicated ocean foliage, and the carpet was woven with images of seashells and sea urchins. In the upstairs dining room, paneled in hand-carved French walnut, interspersed with gold brocade hangings, Auguste Escoffier, the father of French cooking, prepared the hotel’s first meal.

    Bettmann Archive Miss Elizabeth R. G. Duval, a prominent member of New York society, and Sidney Wood, a well-known tennis star, sit on the steps inside The Pierre in 1933.

    From Waiter to Hotelier: The Story of Charles Pierre

    But The Pierre didn’t begin in those gilded rooms. It began in a kitchen, with a Corsican waiter named Charles Pierre Casalasco, who learned the trade from his father. When Louis Sherry dined at the Savoy Hotel in London in 1903, the American restaurateur noted a young waiter watching him with eager attention. Casalasco was “awed by this former waiter who had become proprietor of a smart dining room in New York.” Sherry was so impressed with the waiter’s desire to learn more about the hospitality business that, when he returned to New York, he made Casalasco his assistant. There, the waiter quickly dropped his surname in favor of being known simply as Charles Pierre. At that time, it was almost a forgone conclusion that New York’s debutantes were introduced at Sherry’s ballroom. Charles Pierre, tasked with organizing these splendid events, became “the favorite of the younger set, married matrons and the dowagers.” 

    Smart set, Mrs. Robert Goddard and Mrs. Roland Hazzard, in front of The Pierre.
    Bettmann Archive

    When Charles Pierre opened his own Park Avenue restaurant in 1920, his devoted group followed him. In 1930, their social set husbands, like Walter Chrysler, Edward Hutton, and C.K.G. Billings, helped finance his dream, The Pierre Hotel, which reputedly cost a staggering $15 million to build. In retrospect, too much may have been spent on those underwater-themed murals. By 1932, during the Great Depression, a petition of bankruptcy was filed—but Charles Pierre was kept on as managing director to run the hotel. 

    Disciplined and knowledgeable with a European flair, Charles Pierre ran the hotel with aplomb.

    Penske Media via Getty Images

    The Return of the ‘High-Class Hotel’

    When the repeal of Prohibition came in 1933, he rejoiced. No hotel man was more excited by the prospect of liquor coming back on the menu again. He declared that Prohibition had destroyed American appreciation for wine—and really any liquor that did not come from a bathtub. Now, a “new generation will have to learn all over again how to drink.” He intended to outfit The Pierre with a wonderful cellar to teach them. He planned gala celebrations. People could now gather for cocktails at his newly opened supper club, the Corinthian Room. He promised, “The next few years will see the rejuvenation of the high-class hotel.” 

    A young woman enjoys the luxuries of room service at The Pierre in 1943.
    Getty Images

    He was correct. But sadly, Charles Pierre would never see the heights to which his hotel would climb. He passed away in 1934 at the age of 55 from appendicitis. He was too weak from an abdominal infection to be saved by medicine flown in from Florida in what was described as a “13-hour airplane race against death.”  

    But his legacy lived on in The Pierre Hotel.

    Bettmann Archive Joan Crawford at The Pierre on January 22, 1959.

    Celebrities like Joan Crawford and Claudette Colbert would flock there, as well as younger disciples. By 1938, following her father’s death, the 13-year-old heiress Lucetta Cotton Thomas was spending $1,416 a month (approximately $32,000 today) to live at the hotel. Eloise at The Plaza had nothing on her. By that time, the hotel belonged to oilman John Paul Getty, who quipped that it was his “only above-ground asset.” 

    In 1944, the hotel—and the room prices—were the subject of scandal. It was found that munitions manufacturer Murray Garsson had housed and paid the hotel bills for key personnel in the army’s Chemical Warfare Service in what was known as “Operation Pierre.” In 1942, the decorator Samuel Marx had redone the hotel’s dining room in red, white and blue, and commissioned murals of early American life for the Grill Room, so it was certainly a patriotic wartime pick. However, officers knew that, when traveling to New York City, they had a $6 daily stipend. As even young Lucetta Cotton Thomas could have told them, rooms at the Pierre cost somewhat more. Garsson may have received $78 million in government contracts, but was imprisoned for bribery in 1949. Still, no one at the trials said that they did not like staying at The Pierre.   

    Bettmann Archive Ginger Rogers gets her Daiquiri-toned French lace dress fitted by its designer, Richard Meril, in preparation for the “Prestige Award from France” fashion show at The Pierre Pierre.

    1950s Glamour and The Birdcage Bar

    By the 1950s, the hotel had reached new heights of glamour. Chief among the novelties was The Birdcage, a plexiglass bar suspended above the rotunda. It was splashily advertised as “a rendezvous for cocktails.” Charles Pierre, who once prophesied that people would flock to his hotel for drinks, would have been pleased.  

    In the coming years, the hotel would not only be home to the city’s toniest citizens, but Hollywood royalty. Joan Blondell noted that, when her dog “gave birth to seven puppies, the manager of the Pierre hotel assisted the vet in delivery.” Audrey Hepburn stayed there throughout the filming of that quintessential New York movie, Breakfast at Tiffany’s. During those years, she was feted at the hotel with a gala hosted by Countess Alexandra Tolstoy. The meeting would inspire one of her future roles in War and Peace.  

    Audrey Hepburn, who won Hollywood’s Academy Award for her performance in the film “Roman Holiday,” is ecstatic after finally receiving her Oscar at a special ceremony in at The Pierre. Sharing her enthusiasm is fellow winner William Holden
    Bettmann Archive via Getty Images

    The fact that in 1958 the hotel became a co-op, where guests could buy apartments, only added to its appeal. Especially as those apartment owners included Aristotle Onassis and Elizabeth Taylor, the thought of visiting New York from Middle America may have been exciting on its own. The thought of running into Elizabeth Taylor in the lobby of the hotel you were staying at was almost overwhelming.

    Penske Media via Getty Images Bill Buckley and Nan Kempner at an annual gala held at The Pierre.

    Jewel Heists and Fashion Royalty

    By 1967, the hotel underwent a transformation also fit for royalty. The new owner, Peter Dowling, commissioned Edward Melcarth to paint the rotunda’s iconic trompe l’oeil mural. Inspired by 17th-century palaces, Melcarth claimed that he wanted to “make people feel very special and important when they walk into this room. The figures are heroic in scale because I want to rehumanize man as an individual. We’re not digits on a computer card.” The people in the mural, accordingly, were not confined to the past. The painting features columns and Greek gods in recline, alongside “a hippie boy and mini-skirted girl” meant to depict a modern Adam and Eve. Rather to her surprise, Melcarth’s mural also boasted a depiction of former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. (Kennedy asked to be removed from the picture. Melcarth accommodated by partially disguising her, but a discerning visitor can still spot her image.)

    Pat Nixon leaving The Pierre to go shopping.
    Penske Media via Getty Images

    Visitors would get a less agreeable thrill when burglars broke into the hotel on January 2, 1972. On that day, four reportedly well-dressed gunmen pulled up to the hotel in a limousine. They handcuffed a variety of employees and guests. After, they proceeded to clean out 47 safe deposit boxes containing approximately $3 million in jewels, before departing, again, in a limousine. The men were arrested within a week, and the jewels recovered, though police recalled it as being one of “the biggest and slickest hotel robberies ever.”

    Penske Media via Getty Images Karl Lagerfeld at The Pierre in the 1970s.

    The flurry of reportage around the jewel theft only increased the hotel’s allure to the fashionable set. In 1970, the designer Karl Lagerfeld, a habitué of the hotel, would say, “I discovered New York from The Pierre . . . Distances in the city were measured only by how far they were from The Pierre.” He did not have to go far to see his friends. Givency, Yves Saint Laurent and Valentino were all regulars—Valentino even bought St. Laurent’s Pierre apartment in 2007. 

    Getty Images Andy Warhol outside of The Pierre in 1985.

    Pat Nixon, not to be outdone by Jackie, had designers bring their creations to her while staying in a suite at the hotel. In 1975, Betty Ford went to see the first Chanel Fashion show in the country, held, predictably, at the hotel Coco herself had loved. By 1976, Jackie Kennedy was on the premises once more, this time with Valentino for his show benefiting the Special Olympics. Television Dynasty star Joan Collins showcased her hats at the hotel in 1985, with Andy Warhol in attendance. The hats were lovely, but did prompt a reporter to wonder, “When, besides for lunch at the Pierre, would someone wear a large straw hat?” This seemed as much an inducement for many to lunch at The Pierre as it was for them to do away with hats.

    Getty Images Richard Nixon at The Pierre in January 1969.

    The Pierre on the Silver Screen

    By the 1990s, the hotel again found itself connected to Hollywood, although this time in front of the scenes. Al Pacino twirled in The Pierre ballroom for the famed tango scene in 1995’s Scent of a Woman. The penthouse served as the Anthony Hopkins character’s home in 1998’s Meet Joe Black. And, following the $100 million renovation The Pierre underwent in 2013, it was featured in the heist movie Ocean’s 8. Considering its legacy, there could certainly be no more fitting hotel for a film about a group of well-dressed female jewel thieves. 

    Jacqueline Kennedy with American diplomat/businessman Sol Linowitz outside of The Pierre.
    Penske Media via Getty Images

    Ron Galella Collection via Getty Dionne Warwick and Burt Bacharach at The Pierre.

    Today, the hotel is celebrating 95 years, an admirable accomplishment in a city where new establishments seem to pop up nightly. Perhaps part of its success has to do with the respect its owners have shown towards its storied legacy. Right now, the restaurant offers a tribute to Auguste Escoffier, and the mural, lovingly repainted in 2016, ensures that the rotunda is considered one of the most romantic rooms in New York. The details and owners may have changed, but The Pierre remains as glamorous and beloved as it was by those long-ago debutantes and Charles Pierre Casalasco himself. 

    Getty Images A view from Central Park of the Pierre (left) and Sherry Netherland hotels on Fifth Avenue, Manhattan, New York City. Both buildings were designed by Schultze and Weaver.

    Jennifer Ashley Wright

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  • Diane Keaton Was a Genre Unto Herself

    By the time I reached the fourth grade, Diane Keaton had already cemented herself as my preferred romantic heroine. Snow White and The Sound of Music’s Maria von Trapp paled in comparison to Erica Barry, the 50-something divorced playwright at the center of Nancy Meyers’s Something’s Gotta Give (2003)—coincidentally, one of the four DVDs my now 80-year-old grammy owned in the pre-streaming era.

    Even in my prepubescent state (or perhaps because of it), something about Keaton’s version of falling in love in the movies resonated. Maybe it was the way she so openly resented Jack Nicholson’s aging playboy, Harry. While laid up in her Hamptons home after a heart attack, Harry asks Erica, “What’s with the turtlenecks?” She curtly replies: “I like ’em. I’ve always liked ’em, and I’m just a turtleneck kind of gal,” flippantly waving her hands in a way that’s always stuck with me. He then wants to know if she ever gets hot—and all that implies. “No,” Keaton’s character snaps, dismissively adding, “Not lately.” But there is also a hint of possibility—something Erica allows herself to express in the play she’s writing, but not the life she’s living.

    Later in the film, the shedding of that same article of clothing signifies Erica’s sexual reawakening. “Cut it off,” she tells Harry, handing him a pair of scissors so he can slice open the beige turtleneck from navel to neck. With each inch of skin revealed, she breathes a little easier. “Erica, you are a woman to love,” Nicholson’s character rasps. And so was the woman who played her. “Diane Keaton, arguably the most covered up person in the history of clothes, is also a transparent woman,” as Meryl Streep once put it. “There’s nobody who stands more exposed, more undefended, and just willing to show herself inside and out than Diane.”

    Savannah Walsh

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  • Al Pacino’s 1 Devastating Regret After ‘Love of His Life’ Diane Keaton’s Tragic Death: It’s ‘Too Late’

    Al Pacino and Diane Keaton played one of Hollywood’s most infamous—and deadly—couples in The Godfather series, but did they date in real life?

    Pacino and Keaton starred as Michael Corleone and Kay Adams-Corleone, respectively, in The Godfather and The Godfather II. (Kay was Michael’s girlfriend and later, second wife.)

    The movies premiered decades before Keaton’s sudden death on October 11, 2025. She was 79 years old. Keaton passed away in Los Angeles, California, at around 8:08 a.m. PT on October 11, 2025, after the Los Angeles Fire Department responded to a call at her home. While her cause of death hasn’t been confirmed, at the time of writing, songwriter Carole Bayer Sager, a close friend of Keaton’s, told People that the actress looked noticeably “thin” in the weeks leading up to her passing. recalled seeing Keaton looking noticeably thin less than a month before her death. “I saw her two or three weeks ago, and she was very thin,” Sager said in an interview with People. “She had lost so much weight.”

    Did Diane Keaton and Al Pacino date?

    Al Pacino & Diane Keaton

    As for Pacino, a friend of the actor told The Daily Mail that Pacino viewed Keaton as the “love of his life.” “Looking back, Al admits the love of his life was Diane who he’s always called, ‘an amazing woman,’” the source said. “I know he will forever regret he didn’t make his move when he had the chance. For years after he and Diane split, Al used to say, if it’s meant to be, it’s never too late for a do-over.’ But sadly, now it is.”

    As for why Keaton and Pacino never made it work, the insider claimed it’s because of Pacino’s family, including his four children, who grew up on the east coast. “Al adores all his kids,’ the source said. ‘And although he preferred living in New York, he also purchased a home in Los Angeles just so he could spend more time on the West Coast with his children who lived there,” the source said. “Though he and Diane both lived in Beverly Hills, only a few miles from each other for years, they never spoke.”

    The insider continued, “I once asked him why, and he told me, ‘There’s no need to talk with each other. We said everything that needed to be said at the time.’”

    Keaton and Pacino dated secretly while filming The Godfather Part II. While they never married, the Daily Mail’s source claimed that the actress would’ve tied the knot with the actor had he proposed. “Diane’s parents were together, but her father was always away on business,” the insider said. “So, he might as well not have been there at all. She loved her mother, who managed the home and raised her four children on her own, and Diane admired her strength and independence.”

    Jason Pham

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  • Al Pacino’s Biggest Regret Was Never Marrying Diane Keaton

    Al Pacino and the late Diane Keaton famously played married couple Michael Corleone and his long-suffering wife Kay Adams in Francis Ford Coppola’s iconic Godfather trilogy. Off-screen, their relationship mirrored that of their characters, with Pacino and Keaton engaging in an on-and-off affair from 1971 to 1987. Now, in the wake of Keaton’s death at age 79, the Daily Mail reports that Pacino may have wished things went a little differently with his co-star.

    A friend of Pacino’s reportedly told the British paper that Pacino’s biggest  regret was not marrying Keaton when he had the chance. “Looking back, Al admits the love of his life was Diane who he’s always called, ‘an amazing woman,’” the source told the Daily Mail. “I know he will forever regret he didn’t make his move when he had the chance.” (Vanity Fair reached out to Pacino for comment.)

    According to the Daily Mail, at one point Keaton gave Pacino an ultimatum: marry me or it’s over. Pacino reportedly chose to end the relationship.  “For years after he and Diane split, Al used to say, ‘if it’s meant to be, it’s never too late for a do-over,’” added the source. “But sadly, now it is.’”

    Keaton and Pacino met on the set of The Godfather in 1971 and reportedly didn’t become romantically involved until after filming wrapped. “I was mad for him. Charming, hilarious, a nonstop talker,” Keaton told People of her co-star in 2017. “There was an aspect of him that was like a lost orphan, like this kind of crazy idiot savant. And oh, gorgeous!”

    Keaton dated a number of stars, including Woody Allen and Warren Beaty—but famously never married. “I remember one day in high school, this guy came up to me and said, ‘One day you’re going to make a good wife,’” she told People in 2019. “And I thought, ‘I don’t want to be a wife. No.’” While she never married, Keaton did have two children, daughter Dexter, 29, and son Duke, 25, via adoption when she was in her 50s.

    Monica Coviello

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  • Legendary Actress Diane Keaton Dies at 79 in California

    A family spokesperson confirmed that the legendary actress passed away in California on October 11, 2025

    Diane Keaton, the Oscar-winning actress who starred in films like “Annie Hall” and “The Godfather,” has died. She was 79. A family spokesperson confirmed Keaton’s death in California on Saturday, October 11, 2025. Details were not immediately available, and loved ones requested privacy during their time of grief. Keaton’s IMDB account showed that she had five projects in the works.

    Keaton, born Diane Hall in Los Angeles on January 5, 1946, emerged as a talent in the 1970s, becoming one of Hollywood’s most sought-after leading ladies. The eldest of four children to civil engineer John Hall and homemaker Dorothy, she discovered her passion for acting in high school plays before dropping out of college to chase her theater dreams in New York City.  She eventually took her mother’s maiden name and made her screen debut in 1970’s film “Lovers and Other Strangers.”  Her breakthrough role, however, was as Kay Adams, the wife to Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone, in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1972 film “The Godfather.” Keaton later reprised the role in the Oscar-winning 1974 sequel and 1990’s trilogy closer.

    In 1977, her work with director Woody Allen in “Annie Hall,” which was loosely a semi-autobiographical film based on their real life romance, earned her the Academy Award for best actress. This also made her a fashion icon, with Keaton bringing the “menswear” look to life for women. She went onto do other popular films, such as “Father of the Bride,” “The First Wives Club,” “The Family Stone,” “Maybe I Do,” “Because I Said So,” and so many more.

    Keaton had an incredible sense of humor and was said to be a joy to work with. During a 2023 interview, Keaton joked around with the interviewer while promoting the romantic comedy, “Maybe I Do.” She was asked which of her co-stars she’d “run away” with, Richard Gere or William H. Macy. Keaton gave a kind and genuine answer, noting that she’d run away with both men, one on each side of her. 

    She never married, but had been romantically linked once to Warren Beatty, Al Pacino, and Woody Allen.

    Keaton is survived by her two children, daughter Dexter and son Duke, whom she adopted in 1996 and 2001.

    Lauren Conlin

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  • Michelle Pfeiffer Recalls Bloody Incident With Al Pacino That Landed Her ‘Scarface’ Role

    Michelle Pfeiffer is revealing the bloody moment that Al Pacino was convinced she was perfect for the role of Elvira in 1983’s Scarface.

    The Oscar-nominated actress recently went on the SmartLess podcast, hosted by Will Arnett, Jason Bateman and Sean Hayes, to recall her lengthy audition process for the Brian De Palma-directed film. She said that while the filmmaker wanted her for the part, Pacino didn’t feel the same way at first.

    “Al will admit this,” she said, “[but] he didn’t really want me for the part.”

    The Age of Innocence actress recounted meeting De Palma and the casting director and crushing her first audition for the movie. However, “over the course of two months, I just [got] worse and worse and worse, because I’m just afraid. And by the end, I’m bad.”

    Pfeiffer admitted she didn’t “blame” Pacino for his initial reaction. “He just was like, ‘[She’s] bad.’ And Brian finally comes to me and says, ‘You know, doll, it’s just not gonna work out. I’m like, ‘I know, man. I’m sorry.’ Because Brian really wanted me,” she explained.

    “As disappointed as I was,” the Batman Returns star continued, “I was so happy to be done with it. So, like, at least a month goes by and I get a call, they want to bring me in to screen test. So I show up and I don’t even give a shit, ’cause I know I’m not getting this part.”

    But to Pfeiffer’s surprise, the screen test, which she recalled was the “restaurant scene where I explode at the end,” ended up being “my best work of the film.”

    Though it was a bloody accident during the audition that ultimately scored her the role. “I swipe the table of the dishes and glasses break, the dishes break, cut. There’s blood everywhere. They all run over to me, to see where I’ve cut myself. Well, I didn’t cut me. I cut Al,” she recalled, adding that she “cut him in the finger or something.”

    “I thought, ‘Well, there goes that part.’ [But] actually I think that was the day [Pacino] was like, ‘Yeah, yeah. I think, yeah, she’s not bad,’” Pfeiffer added.

    The 1983 crime classic follows determined, criminal-minded Cuban immigrant Tony Montana (Pacino), who becomes the biggest drug smuggler in Miami and is eventually undone by his own drug addiction. Elvira was Tony’s troubled wife, a drug-addicted socialite, who was the former lover of his boss, Frank Lopez (Robert Loggia).

    Carly Thomas

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  • Screening at Venice: Gus Van Sant’s ‘Dead Man’s Wire’

    A rushed follow-through leaves the film’s mere 105 minutes feeling somewhat purposeless in the grand scheme of things. Courtesy Venice Film Festival

    There’s something to be said about movies that are just good enough, especially those that refashion real events into cinematic junk food. It is, however, hard not to be disappointed when one such work comes from Gus Van Sant, which makes Dead Man’s Wire a frustrating experience despite its climactic vigor. The tale of a disgruntled Hoosier who takes a rich man hostage in 1977, the film re-creates the lengthy standoff in immense visual detail but rarely probes beneath the surface of its colorful characters and relegates any sense of tension or intrigue to its climactic scenes.

    Van Sant has made several biopics (or pseudo-biopics) involving American gun violence, from the Palme d’Or-winning school shooter drama Elephant (2003) to the Oscar-winning gay rights drama Milk (2008). After decades of doing so, any artist is likely to lose their fascination with the subject, given how it’s ground to a standstill politically. And yet, the director presses on despite this, crafting a film where the threat of pulling a trigger is rarely riveting and even verges on doltish at times, as troubled Indianapolis resident Tony Kiritsis (Bill Skarsgård) tethers a wire to himself, his shotgun, and his wealthy would-be victim Richard Hall (Dacre Montgomery), in a kind of janky proto-Saw trap set to go off if the police intervene. But while the drama seldom feels zealous or threatening, it’s underscored by disappointment and disillusionment, the kind that has driven the weary Kiritsis to hold Hall at gunpoint.

    DEAD MAN’S WIRE ★★1/2 (2.5/4 stars)
    Directed by: Gus Van Sant
    Written by:  Austin Kolodney
    Starring:
    Bill Skarsgård, Dacre Montgomery, Colman Domingo, Al Pacino, Cary Elwes, Myha’la
    Running time: 105 mins.

    Whatever Van Sant’s feelings about this kind of subject matter may have once been, he appears to now translate them through a lens of sheer exhaustion. “Here,” the movie gestures wearily. “Another one of these. Pew pew.” It is, on one hand, fascinating to watch a film whose director seems fed up with his own characters and with the very premise of being driven to gun violence while fashioning oneself into a martyr. And yet, Van Sant’s Taxi Driver-esque tale (by way of Fargo; his delusional anti-hero is surprisingly polite) lives in the body of a based-on-real-events saga without embodying the reality from which it draws.

    Kiritsis, like Van Sant, is methodical, and the character responds to each of his plans going awry with a scrappy backup ploy (and a backup to each backup). This results in him kidnapping Hall from the fancy offices of his family mortgage company instead of his elderly father (an underutilized Al Pacino), who happens to be on vacation, and taking Hall to his cramped apartment as a number of policemen—with whom he happens to be friends—roll their eyes while in pursuit. Kiritsis’ motives are gradually revealed, and his demands involve apologies and restitution. His public declarations over the TV and radio establish how heroically he sees himself, so it’s no surprise that he foolishly believes the world to be entirely on his side, to the point that he thinks he’s in no danger of being arrested once things are all said and done.

    It’s all very interesting on paper. The oddball case makes you wonder whether a crime so idiosyncratic really transpired, and the performances do a great job of selling the oddity of it all. Skarsgård, although he taps into Kiritsis’ wounded-animal nature and occasional snappiness, is a treat to watch in the moments he dials back and acts completely casually, as though trying to convince Hall he’s approachable despite holding a 12-gauge Winchester to his neck. Montgomery, meanwhile, eschews the usual charisma for which he’s cast and makes himself physically meek and small, embodying a sniveling desperation that, on occasion, makes Kiritsis’ grievances seem worth considering.

    However, Van Sant never pushes Dead Man’s Wire in either of these two directions and instead lets it wallow in a casual middle ground. The unfolding action is never farcical enough to make the film satirical or outright funny, but it’s also never imbued with enough historical gravity to truly matter. Snapshot re-creations of known photos and news footage, and the presence of locally popular field reporters and radio hosts (played by Myha’la and Colman Domingo, respectively) seek to clarify the film’s reality, but these characters end up bit players in its opaque dramatic fabric rather than becoming living, breathing people crossing paths with an extraordinary, potentially violent scenario. The bigger picture, the moving pieces, and the various plans and strategies to save Hall never fade into view.

    When it comes time for the standoff to end, the questions of how it’ll wrap up, who’ll survive, and which somewhat personable character will be forced to pull the trigger grant Dead Man’s Wire a temporary intensity. This last hurrah isn’t quite “too little too late,” but its rushed follow-through leaves the film’s mere 105 minutes feeling somewhat purposeless in the grand scheme of things. It’s a tale with no purpose beyond letting viewers know, with a bemused cadence, that something quirky once happened in Indianapolis and that it could’ve been much more destructive—and perhaps much more enrapturing—than it really was.

    More from Venice:

    Screening at Venice: Gus Van Sant’s ‘Dead Man’s Wire’

    Siddhant Adlakha

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  • ‘Easy’s Waltz’ Review: Lounge Singer Vince Vaughn Gets A Break From Al Pacino In Fine Old School Vegas Movie – Toronto Film Festival

    Looking like it was a script plucked straight out of the 70’s , maybe even the 50’s, the richly entertaining mid-range drama, Easy’s Waltz goes down easy indeed as an engrossing character study of the kind of Vegas lounge singer that ought to be in that museum on the strip that is full of salvaged signs of the Las Vegas that has been torn down and replaced by much glitzier new age models. That is probably an apt description of Easy (Vince Vaughn) himself, a guy just trying to make ends meet running a restaurant on the outskirts and performing nightly, a Vic Damone-ish style singer, really talented with the phrasing of a lyric and dedicated to delivering for the few faithfuls who actually come to see him perform.

    It is his night job, as he also has to look out for the staff, the waitresses, and make sure ends meet. Into his life comes mover and shaker Mickey Albano (Al Pacino) who sees something in Easy that he can exploit and so convinces him he belongs instead at the Wynn Hotel on the strip and he can make it happen. He becomes a mentor and soon Easy is getting the bigger break he never thought would happen. Easy is the kind of Vegas fixture who could see the big time happening just “over there” in the glitzy distance of the world’s most famous gambling town, but the Sinatra era is dead. This is now a place where stars do “residencies”, but there are still lounges and Easy fits right in.

    The complication for him is devotion to his younger, troubled brother Sam (Simon Rex) who acts as his “manager” but is generally a screw-up. It doesn’t change and Sam’s stupid moves affect his relationship with Mickey, landing him in increasing trouble. Mickey is a smooth old-style operator but don’t cross him or he will show up with his goon squad for some beating-up time. Easy also has to deal with his mother (Mary Steenburgen), a tough cookie he is paying to keep her above water. His visit to her is the kind of single scene where an Oscar winner like Steenburgen knocks it out of the park. We instantly know this woman, and it isn’t pretty.

    Easy’s Waltz, and that title is one that instantly suggests this is going to be the kind of character-based movie Hollywood studios used to thrive on but now barely touch. This independently made film which had it World Premiere as a Special Presentation at the Toronto Film Festival tonight, marks the feature writing/directing debut of Nic Pizzolatto who proved in the first season of True Detective he has the chops for this sort of thing, and proves it again here with a richly entertaining Vegas-y movie that feels decades older that the era of The Hangover and Leaving Las Vegas.

    It is an actors dream. Vaughn has one of his best roles here, a guy who can interpret everything from “Little Drummer Boy” to classics like “Edge Of Seventeen” to Darin and Anka in their prime, and get to the essence, but for is own good perhaps he shouldn’t drift from his longtime comfort zone by playing a game he doesn’t know so well. And it is nice to see Pacino get a decent part here. I have seen him in basically throwaway or smallish role in other films this Fall season including Julian Schnabel’s In The Hand Of Dante and Gus Van Sant’s Dead Man’s Wire, but here his Mickey Albano may be Michael Corleone-light, but nonetheless lethal when he has to turn on a dime. At 85 he still has it. However, in a sadly poignant role as the down-on-his-luck Sam, Simon Rex really shows he has the dramatic chops to nearly steal the picture from a couple of ol pros like Vaughn and Pacino. He is terrific.

    Most of the female parts, other than Steenburgen’s memorable if brief turn, including Kate Mara, Cobie Smulders, and Vegas veteran singer Shania Twain don’t have as much to do to make much of an impression, a distinctive problem the 1960 Ocean’s 11 also felt. This waltz is for the boys.

    Producers are : Christopher Lemole, Tim Zajaros, Margot Hand, and Pizzolatto. It is looking for distribution.

    Title: Easy’s Waltz

    Festival: Toronto Film Festival – Special Presentations

    Sales Agent: CAA

    Director/Screenplay: Nic Pizzolatto

    Cast: Vince Vaughn, Simon Rex, Kate Mara, Cobie Smulders, Shania Twain, Tim Simons, Fred
    Melamed, Sophia Ali, Mary Steenburgen, and Al Pacino.

    Running Time: 1 hour and 43 minutes

    Pete Hammond

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  • Extended interview: Al Pacino

    Extended interview: Al Pacino

    Extended interview: Al Pacino – CBS News


    Watch CBS News



    In this web exclusive, Turner Classic Movies host Ben Mankiewicz sits down with Al Pacino to discuss the Oscar-winning actor’s memoir, “Sonny Boy.” They also explore Pacino’s early years in New York City’s South Bronx and the influence of his family and friends; the encouragement he received from appearing on stage, and his friendship with fellow actors like Martin Sheen; winning roles in “Panic in Needle Park” and “The Godfather,” and filming “Dog Day Afternoon”; his troubles dealing with success and fame; and how he nearly died from COVID.

    Be the first to know

    Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.


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  • Lear Rex Movie Cast Adds Rachel Brosnahan, LaKeith Stanfield, Peter Dinklage, & More

    Lear Rex Movie Cast Adds Rachel Brosnahan, LaKeith Stanfield, Peter Dinklage, & More

    Lear Rex, an upcoming King Lear movie adaptation starring Al Pacino and Jessica Chastain, has added Rachel Brosnahan, LaKeith Stanfield, Peter Dinklage, and more to the cast.

    Lear Rex is a forthcoming film adaptation of William Shakespeare’s King Lear. Bernard Rose wrote and directed the film, which Barry Navidi is producing.

    The newly announced cast members of Lear Rex include Ariana DeBose (West Side Story) as Cordelia, Brosnahan (Superman) as Regan, Dinklage (Game of Thrones) as the Fool, Danny Huston (The Crow) as Albany, Chris Messina (The Boogeyman) as Cornwall, Stanfield (Judas and the Black Messiah) as Edmund, Ted Levine (The Silence of the Lambs) as Kent, Matthew Jacobs (Vice) as Gloucester, Rhys Coiro (Entourage) as Oswald, and Stephen Dorff (Blade) as Poor Tom.

    Pacino, meanwhile, is playing King Lear, while Chastain is playing Goneril.

    What else do we know about Lear Rex?

    “In Lear Rex, an aging King divides his land between his three daughters to prevent future conflict,” the synopsis for the movie reads. “But he rejects the young daughter who loves him and places his trust in her malevolent sisters, who strip him of his power and condemn him to a wretched wasteland of horror and insanity.”

    “It is enormously exciting to get the opportunity to work with this extraordinary cast that Al, Barry, and Sharon have put together to tackle this radical, but accessible adaptation of Shakespeare’s greatest play,” Rose said in a statement.

    Navidi added, “I am delighted to have the opportunity to collaborate with Bernard Rose. His artistic vision, combined with a talented ensemble cast of players led by Al Pacino, promises to take us on a remarkable and unforgettable cinematic experience. We are merging the worlds of Shakespeare and Hollywood. This marks the commencement of an exciting new chapter, one that Al has poured his heart and soul into. It is a privilege for me to join forces with my dear friend once more, and to contribute to his enduring legacy.”

    Lear Rex will begin filming on August 12, 2024, in Los Angeles. A release date has not yet been announced.

    Source: DDA Global

    Brandon Schreur

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  • Michael Keaton Proves He’s Forgotten Nothing in ‘Knox Goes Away’

    Michael Keaton Proves He’s Forgotten Nothing in ‘Knox Goes Away’

    ‘Knox Goes Away’ proves Michael Keaton still has everything it takes. Courtesy of Saban Films

    Agreeable, multifaceted Michael Keaton has been away from the screen for a while, but as both star and director of Knox Goes Away, his fresh and sophisticated new crime thriller, he proves he’s forgotten nothing about how to invest an offbeat film with his own unique sensibility and control it with precision and power.

    KNOX GOES AWAY ★★★(3/4 stars)
    Directed by: Michael Keaton
    Written by: Gregory Poirier
    Starring: Michael Keaton, Al Pacino, Marcia Gay Harden, Ray McKinnon
    Running time: 114 mins.

    In a smart script about crime and psychology by Gregory Poirier, Keaton irons out more twists than a scenic railway as John Knox, a sophisticated and highly educated hit man diagnosed with a rare neurological condition that prolongs mental collapse and hastens a fast-moving form of dementia. He has one last job before retirement, but with this toxic new condition and a prognosis of only a few months to live, everything goes south and he mistakenly kills three victims instead of one, including his partner and best friend (Ray McKinnon). Then, during months of decline, while he’s trying to re-organize his game plan, regain his old self-confidence, adjust to the knowledge that his career as a contract killer is over, and arrange his assets to cash in on the money he’s saved, his problems are further exacerbated when his estranged son Miles (James Marsden), whom he hasn’t seen in years, shows up at his door in the midnight hours, bloody and desperately in need of help. He’s just killed his 16-year-old daughter’s boyfriend and begs Knox to help cover up the violent crime. All he wants is to end a tense, regretful life in peace, but before Knox “goes away,” there are several loose ends he must tie together. It doesn’t matter how many more bodies he adds to the growing crime scene. He’s going away for good, so will anyone care?

    While Knox devises an elaborate plan to take care of the people who survive him, it’s interesting to watch Keaton go through the motions of his life—disposing of evidence, opening locked doors, eating spare ribs with great relish. In and out of his struggles parades an imposing cast of supporting players who fill every role with the kind of substance that keeps an uncommon thriller thrilling: Marcia Gay Harden as his ex-wife, Al Pacino as the gangster boss who offers advice when the cops close in, Joanna Kulik as the call girl who betrays him. Knox is not an easy man to warm up to—and the movie doesn’t ask us to—but as he begins to correct the mistakes he’s made and act like the father and grandfather he’s never been as his last act of reconciliation (and because of Keaton’s charisma), a sense of compassion begins to surface. The star directs this forlorn neo-noir with a solid and unwavering strength, portraying both Knox’s decline from the cold, calculating professional criminal and the lost, confused father searching for ways to make a fresh start at the end of the game. Knox Goes Away is an exemplary crime drama that looks at old cliches with a fresh slant and gives a reliable but still surprising star a chance to demonstrate the range and depth of character he rarely gets the chance to explore.

    Michael Keaton Proves He’s Forgotten Nothing in ‘Knox Goes Away’

    Rex Reed

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  • Let Me Dress You For The Game Awards 2023

    Let Me Dress You For The Game Awards 2023

    Hey, remember me? I’m the girl who, right before the 2022 Game Awards, said Xbox head Phil Spencer dresses like my dad when he goes on a Sunday morning bagel run. (We squashed the beef at Summer Game Fest, don’t worry.) Though I was being playful and pointed with my fashion critiques, I wasn’t just speaking to the style (or lack thereof) on display at gaming’s biggest night, but how it’s indicative of a larger identity crisis within the industry. On nights like The Game Awards, this multi-billion-dollar industry tries its hardest to ape Hollywood, with a glitzy production, A-list actors, and, bizarrely, men in sweatshirts.

    It begs the question: Who are we? Are we all wealthy industry leaders wearing denim jackets in an attempt to look more approachable, more pedestrian? Or are we wannabe fashionistas from Long Island leaning too hard into living in Brooklyn? Or schleppy gamers who throw on whatever is on top of their clothes chair in the morning? The answer is simple: We’re all of it. This is an increasingly diverse industry (despite its inability to name women), and the more that diversity is reflected in the people who attend these events, the better the fashion will be by default—because we’ll get more variety, more personality, and more cultural backgrounds on display.

    Read More: The Best Fits At The Game Awards 2022

    This year, I’ll be attending The Game Awards (no, you can’t see my outfit yet). Since I was so passionate about fashion last year, and now I’ll be there in person, I feel it is my civic duty to provide unsolicited advice on how to look good for gaming’s Oscars.

    Let me be clear: You don’t have to spend a lot of money to look good. There are tons of ways to ball out on a budget, from renting the runway, to borrowing from friends or family, to combing through thrift stores for long-lost treasures (which is how we found my fiance a 1970s-era Yves Saint Laurent military trench for $150 in Italy). Whether you’re attending The Game Awards or you just have a semi-formal event in your future, here are some tips to ensure you don’t draw the gaze of my fashionable Eye of Sauron.

    Also, I’m offering personalized fashion advice, so reach out in the comments, via e-mail, or my DMs.

    Alyssa Mercante

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  • She’s The Man!

    She’s The Man!

    They’d say I hustled, put in the work

    They wouldn’t shake their heads and question how much of this I deserve

    What I was wearing, if I was rude

    Could all be separated from my good ideas and power moves

    Taylor Swift, “The Man”

    When
    Barbie premiered in July, women felt seen in the cinema — perhaps for the first time in a long time. Greta Gerwig’s Barbie was more than a beginner’s feminist manifesto, but also a meditation on what it means to be both a woman and mother in today’s world. It was a gentle reminder that maybe we’re all just trying our best — and that our best is enough.

    It also encouraged women celebrate each other more.
    The Barbie effect had us all wearing pink, emulating Margot Robbie’s cowboy-chic style, and referring to men as our “Kens.” And with help from Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, her friendship bracelets, and sense of community, women were winning. It’s the first year in history that women dominated the Billboard Hot 100 twice (thanks to Swift and her Midnights and 1989 (Taylor’s Version) album). Like I said, it’s a good year to be a woman.

    This celebration of women and our successes is long overdue, but the promising news is that it isn’t slowing down.
    Barbie’s feminist wave has shifted how we are accepting ourselves (and others) as women.

    So it’s no surprise that women are raking in awards this year too, dominating the Grammy nominations and more. We hail celebrities for all sorts of achievements: Patrick Dempsey is
    People’s Sexiest Man Alive (deserved), Taylor Swift is the world leader (they literally projected her welcome onto Christ the Redeemer), and Austin Butler is Best Elvis (because somehow we have multiple).

    And one of the buzziest celeb awards is run by
    GQ (short for Gentlemen’s Quarterly), whose “Men Of The Year” award is a highlight of every fall/winter. Similar to TIME’s 100 list, GQ likes to celebrate those who have taken the world by storm annually.

    This year, the recipient of the Man of the Year award is none other than
    Kim Kardashian…and they’re not wrong.

    Kim has been taking her empire to new heights in 2023: building on the 2022 launch of her
    SKKN-care line, breaking ground with Skims’ Men’s campaign, the Nipple Bra, and becoming the official partner of the NBA/WNBA, working on prison reform, filming The Kardashians on Hulu, starring alongside Emma Roberts in Ryan Murphy’s American Horror Story as Siobhan Corbyn, I could go on.

    Calling someone “the man” has now become synonymous with “a winner.” Saying “you’re the man” is a sign of their success. And though this might have problematic roots, women are reclaiming the term — like the Taylor Swift song.
    And in the grand scheme of things: Kim Kardashian is the man.

    Some hard working men get the title alongside Kim in the
    GQ issue. The other MOTY honorees include Jacob Elordi (AKA Elvis #2, who’s starring in blockbusters like Sofia Coppolla’s Priscilla and Saltburn alongside Barry Keoghan), Buffalo Bills’ safety Damar Hamlin, designer-turned-filmmaker Tom Ford, and Travis Scott. But you have to admit that Kim hasn’t come up for air this year.

    It’s right there for us to see in episodes of
    The Kardashians: Kim flying from country to country for another event on her booked and busy schedule. She’s literally everywhere at once, officiating recently divorced Chris Appleton and Lukas Gage’s wedding, shooting countless magazine covers and promo shoots for her growing enterprise, opening a Skims popup here, and shooting an episode of AHS there.

    Is there anything she can’t do?

    Meet The Previous Recipients Of GQ’s Men of the Year

    Kim Kardashian is one of the few women to grace the cover of
    GQ’s Man of the Year edition. Technically dubbed “Tycoon of the Year”, acknowledging her business successes over the past few years (and for the gender neutrality of it all)- Kardashian joins a host of some of the most famous men in the world. Let’s take a look at the past five years:

    2022: Brendan Fraser, Andrew Garfield


    2021: Lil Nas X, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Tom Holland


    2020: Megan Thee Stallion, George Clooney, Trevor Noah


    2019: Jennifer Lopez, Tyler, The Creator, Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino


    2018: Michael B. Jordan, Henry Golding, Jonah Hill

    Women are normally recognized during the Men of the Year ceremonies, as it is a celebration of all people who emulated pop culture that year…however, no year has celebrated women quite like 2023.

    The Men of the Year Awards 2023 were held on November 15 at London’s Royal Opera House where cover stars like Jeremy Allen White, boygenius, and Kardashian were in attendance.

    Other female recipients included Megan Thee Stallion and Rihanna, who have paved their own paths in both the music and fashion industry. Rihanna with her Savage x Fenty inclusive lingerie line and Fenty Beauty has been changing the makeup and underwear game for a while now. Megan Thee Stallion is coming off a high-profile trial that she won against Tory Lanez, under immense public scrutiny, has become a figure for mental health and domestic violence while still creating hit records.

    It’s one of the most female-dominated
    GQ events we’ve seen, which is a pattern. The GRAMMY Award nominations just rolled out with so many female artists nominated, you’d think it’s a record. In the top three categories, female acts make up seven out of eight nominees.

    This year, women are the man. It’s an exciting, uplifting time where we get to celebrate with each other instead of tearing one another down. Kim K is just another example of the
    Barbie effect.

    Jai Phillips

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  • Shannon Wilcox, Actress in ‘Songwriter,’ ‘Six Weeks’ and ‘Dallas,’ Dies at 80

    Shannon Wilcox, Actress in ‘Songwriter,’ ‘Six Weeks’ and ‘Dallas,’ Dies at 80

    Shannon Wilcox, a character actress who appeared alongside Willie Nelson in Songwriter, with Dudley Moore in Six Weeks and opposite Al Pacino in Frankie and Johnny, has died. She was 80.

    Wilcox died Sept. 2 in Los Angeles, her daughter, actress-director Kelli Williams — she played attorney Lindsay Dole on The Practice — told The Hollywood Reporter.

    A life member of The Actors Studio, Wilcox also portrayed the mother of Elisabeth Shue’s Ali Mills in John G. Avildsen’s The Karate Kid (1994) and worked in many other notable films, among them Tony Richardson’s The Border (1982), Ivan Reitman’s Legal Eagles (1986), Mark Rydell’s For the Boys (1991) and David Fincher’s Seven (1995).

    Wilcox was the resigned ex-wife of Nelson’s Doc Jenkins in Alan Rudolph’s Songwriter (1984) and the wife of a California politician (Moore) caught up with a woman (Mary Tyler Moore) and her sickly child (Katherine Healy) in Tony Bill’s Six Weeks (1982). And in Garry Marshall’s Frankie and Johnny (1991), she played a prostitute hired by Pacino’s lonely character to spend the night.

    Marshall would keep her busy over the years, also putting her in Exit to Eden (1994), Dear God (1996), The Other Sister (1999), Runaway Bride (1999), The Princess Diaries (2001) and its 2004 sequel and Raising Helen (2004).

    Born Mary Kay Wilcox in Ohio, she was raised on a farm in Indiana with her siblings, Bob, Caudie and Janny. She attended high school and college in Boulder, Colorado, before moving to Paris to become a dancer. She ultimately settled in Los Angeles and started her career as an actress.

    Wilcox made her onscreen debut on a 1976 episode of Starsky & Hutch and appeared on such other shows as Kaz, Hawaii Five-O, Family and Hart to Hart before landing her first movie, the Mac Davis-starring Cheaper to Keep Her (1980).

    In 1981, she was among the inaugural group of actors and filmmakers invited by Sydney Pollack to study at the Sundance Institute.

    She portrayed the ex-wife of a Texas surgeon played by Dennis Weaver — she still loves him but had to leave him because he was just too focused on his work — on the 1987-88 ABC drama Buck James, but that show lasted just 19 episodes.

    Shannon Wilcox with Willie Nelson in the 1984 film ‘Songwriter’

    TriStar Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection

    On Dallas in 1990, she recurred on the two-part finale of the 13th season and on the first three episodes of the 14th season in a continuing story arc that had J.R. Ewing (Larry Hagman) stuck in a psychiatric hospital.

    Wilcox also appeared on episodes of Remington Steele, Cagney & Lacey, Magnum, P.I., L.A. Law, NCIS: Los Angeles and Grey’s Anatomy and in films including Hollywood Harry (1986) and There Goes My Baby (1994).

    She and Williams played mother and daughter on the 2004 Hallmark Channel telefilm A Boyfriend for Christmas.

    Wilcox “was quick to laugh, lit up every room she entered and loved traveling and making friends all over the world,” her daughter said. “She spoke French, Spanish and Italian. One of her greatest passions was dancing tango and salsa, which she continued to do beautifully well into her 70s. Her dance card was always full.”

    Wilcox was married to plastic surgeon John Williams from 1965 until their 1984 divorce and to Godfather actor and Emmy winner Alex Rocco from 2005 until his July 2015 death at age 79.

    In addition to her daughter and brother, survivors include her son, Sean Doyle, a writer and producer, and grandchildren Kiran, Sarame and Ravi. A private celebration of life is being held in her honor this month.

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  • Al Pacino to Pay Girlfriend $30K Monthly in Child Support

    Al Pacino to Pay Girlfriend $30K Monthly in Child Support

    Al Pacino will be required to pay Noor Alfallah $30,000 a month in child support to provide for the couple’s five-month-old son, according to documents reportedly obtained by Page Six.

    Though a representative for Pacino, 83, confirmed to Vanity Fair that the actor and Alfallah, a 29-year-old producer at Sony, are still a couple, Alfallah was granted primary physical custody of baby Roman in September, and she and Pacino share legal custody. According to Page Six, a Los Angeles judge signed off on some hefty payouts from Pacino: He was ordered to pay $110,000 to Alfallah upfront, in addition to the monthly payment, as well as $13,000 for a night nurse. The Scarface actor will also be responsible for any medical bills not covered by insurance, and will put aside $15,000 annually for baby Roman’s future education.

    Pacino and Alfallah reportedly became a couple during the COVID-19 pandemic, and in May 2023 revealed that Alfallah was eight months pregnant.

    Pacino has three other children from previous relationships: 34-year-old Julie Pacino, and 22-year-old twins Anton Pacino and Olivia Pacino.

    Alfallah previously dated Mick Jagger. When they got together in 2017, she was 22, and he was 74. After their breakup, she told Hello! Magazine that the age difference wasn’t an issue in her relationship with the rocker. “The heart doesn’t know what it sees, it only knows what it feels. It was my first serious relationship, but it was a happy time for me.”

    Kase Wickman

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  • Diane Keaton Asks Francis Ford Coppola a Question 50+ Years in the Making

    Diane Keaton Asks Francis Ford Coppola a Question 50+ Years in the Making

    At the end of the 1972 masterpiece The Godfather, Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone tells his wife Kay, played by Diane Keaton, never to ask him about his business. After some pushback, he sighs and allows that “this one time … this one time I’ll let you ask me about my affairs.” 

    The 77-year-old Oscar-winner Keaton maybe had this in mind when she caught wind of Godfather auteur Francis Ford Coppola holding an “as me anything” session on Instagram Stories. The 84-year-old vintner, five-time Oscar-winner, and two-time Palme d’Or-winner, who recently wrapped production on his long-in-development Megapolis, got on the social media app to encourage fans to hit him with questions.

    When one person asked if he’d be interested in making a fourth Godfather picture, Coppola said that he considered the first two movies to be “1 film” and that his new edit of part three, The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone, to be an epilogue. (This doesn’t precisely answer the question, though.) He also said he could never pick a favorite one of his movies, but gave a special shout-out to Rumble Fish.

    After some additional queries, something unexpected happened—Diane Keaton raised her gloved hand.

    “Why on Earth,” she wondered, “did you choose me for The Godfather?!”

    Coppola wrote back, “I chose you, because although you were to play the more straight/vanilla wife, there was something more about you, deeper, funnier, and very interesting. (I was right).” He added, “I was invited by Fred Astaire to accompany him to see Hair, which he couldn’t make ‘hide nor hair’ out of. You were in it, and I remember your beautiful singing voice.”

    Instagram Stories, as we know, are ephemeral, but New York Magazine film critic Bilge Ebiri grabbed this one for posterity and put it on Twitter.

    Twitter content

    This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.

    Prior to her role in The Godfather, which she continued in Part II and, much later, in Part III, Keaton had very few roles in film and television. The most notable was as part of the ensemble Joseph Bologna-Renée Taylor romp Lovers and Other Strangers. When The Godfather wrapped production in 1971, she went directly to co-star in Play It Again, Sam, reprising her role from Woody Allen’s hit play. She continued to work with Allen, culminating in her Oscar-win for 1977’s Annie Hall. (Indeed, there’s a weird moment in Annie Hall when Allen’s lead character, surrounded by a bunch of Luca Brasi-esque tough guys, later complains to Keaton that she stranded him with “the cast from The Godfather.” So believable is Keaton as the bubbly-and-stylish modern New Yorker, you kinda forget that she is the cast of The Godfather.)

    Clips of Diane Keaton in Hair aren’t too easy to come by, but you can see her in the background of this video from a 1968 taping of The Dick Cavett Show. She’s the one blowing someone’s hair at the 2:30 mark. 

    Jordan Hoffman

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  • Al Pacino, 83, welcomes baby boy with girlfriend Noor Alfallah – National | Globalnews.ca

    Al Pacino, 83, welcomes baby boy with girlfriend Noor Alfallah – National | Globalnews.ca

    Al Pacino has welcomed his newest child into the world.

    The 83-year-old actor’s girlfriend, Noor Alfallah, 29, gave birth to a baby boy named Roman Pacino this month, according to a statement from the couple’s representatives.

    Roman is Pacino’s fourth child, and his first with Alfallah.

    A representative for Pacino confirmed the news of Alfallah’s pregnancy last month.

    The Oscar winner already has three adult children. His oldest daughter, 33-year-old Julie Pacino, is from his previous relationship with acting coach Jan Tarrant. His other two children, 22-year-old twins Olivia and Anton Pacino, are from his relationship with actor Beverly D’Angelo.

    Pacino and Alfallah, who works as a film producer, have been publicly linked since April 2022. TMZ reported she’s also previously dated Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger — who, in 2016, became an eight-time father at age 73.

    Story continues below advertisement

    Pacino is best known for starring in The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, Scarface and The Irishman. 

    He’s not the only Hollywood actor above retirement age to recently announce becoming a father.

    Robert De Niro, also Pacino’s close friend, told ET Canada this month that he just had his seventh child at 79 years old.

    Trending Now

    The new children of both high-profile actors have sparked fierce online debate about the acceptability of having children so late in life.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbPILds45s4

    &copy 2023 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

    Sarah Do Couto

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  • Al Pacino, girlfriend Noor Alfallah welcome new baby

    Al Pacino, girlfriend Noor Alfallah welcome new baby

    Extra: Al Pacino on acting and the Actors Studio


    Extra: Al Pacino on acting and the Actors Studio

    31:07

    Al Pacino and his girlfriend Noor Alfallah have welcomed their son, Roman, into the world, the actor’s representative tells CBS News.

    The 83-year-old actor and star of movies such as “Heat,” “The Godfather,” and “Dog Day Afternoon” is a father of four. Alfallah, 29, is listed as a producer for two short films “Le Petit Mort” and “Brosa Nostra” and was previously the vice president of Lynda Obst Productions at Sony. 

    Pacino has been romantically linked with Alfallah, a producer, since April 2022, according to Entertainment Tonight.

    Roman is Pacino’s fourth child. The Oscar winner has adult children 33-year-old Julie Marie, and 22-year-old twins, Anton James and Olivia Rose.

    Christopher Brito contributed to this report.

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  • Battle For the Most Powerful Geriatric Seed: On Robert De Niro and Al Pacino’s Late-in-Life Fatherhoods

    Battle For the Most Powerful Geriatric Seed: On Robert De Niro and Al Pacino’s Late-in-Life Fatherhoods

    Forget about Al Pacino and Robert De Niro’s history of de facto acting rivalry because they happen to be two Italian Americans who often vie for the same types of (usually damaging to Italian culture) roles. The new unspoken “duel” between them is: Who Can Produce Children at the Oldest Age? Whether or not those children might have some overt genetic mutations is neither here nor there, apparently. And the answer to the question, at this moment, is Al Pacino, who has beaten out De Niro’s recent confirmation of becoming a father at the age of seventy-nine. For, while he might be the patriarch of what is now a whopping seven spawns, it still didn’t usurp Pacino’s news of expecting his fourth child at the age of eighty-three. Mind you, unlike De Niro, Pacino has been “clever” enough to never actually get married.

    And so, the baby mama he’s expecting his fourth with is twenty-nine-year-old Noor Alfallah, who will undeniably be left with the task of raising their child (when the nanny isn’t). Not just because Pacino is subject to be one of the reaper’s next victims sooner rather than later, but because, well, men of Pacino’s “era” simply aren’t wont to parent anyway. To them kids are like self-raising Chia pets. Maybe that’s why it seems so easy to have one this late in the game. And Pacino’s is due real soon, with news of the imminent “bundle of joy” announced eight months into Alfallah’s pregnancy. And maybe Pacino should consider “trapping” her (as opposed to the inverse cliché about how women do that to men) with a baby to be a coup. For it’s not as though she’s any stranger to dating high-profile elderly men. This included making Mick Jagger her boyfriend when she was twenty-two and he was seventy-four (circa 2017). Now twenty-nine, her fifty-four-year age difference from Pacino will undeniably reveal some markedly different parenting styles. As for De Niro, his baby mama is slightly more age-appropriate, reported to be somewhere in her forties. Of course, that still leaves a roughly thirty-plus year age difference. But that seems tame compared to what Pacino’s got going on with Alfallah. While someone of Chen’s age is prone to get the same commentary about being with a man in De Niro’s demographic that Enid Frick (Candace Bergen) gave Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) at the party in “Splat!,” Alfallah is more likely to be met with outright contempt from “normal” women and “feminist” women alike who view her as some kind of perverse opportunist in the style of Anna Nicole Smith.

    With regard to Enid’s speech about Carrie being in her “wading pool” for dating Aleksandr Petrovsky (Mikhail Baryshnikov) it bears repeating: “He’s my age, and you’ve got him. And I am in no-man’s-land, literally. No man anywhere. Men can date anyone, any age, but let’s be frank, most of them prefer the bimbos. So if you’re a successful fifty-something woman, there’s a very small pool. It’s very small. It’s a wading pool, really. So why are you swimming in my wading pool?” Chen might have had to go up against this type of venom from various Enids at various New York dinner parties before having De Niro’s baby, but now, she’s “legitimate,” “untouchable,” etc. No mere “flash in the pan” taking up space in the wading pool of available men for women over fifty. Alfallah, however, is playing a different game altogether. Not just the one that entails having an Electra complex (though there should be another name for a complex that finds women being more sexually attracted to their grandfather than their father), but also, to be blunt, fucking for clout. Talk about securing a nepo baby, after all. And yes, Alfallah also happens to be a producer in the making, with a movie called Billy Knight starring (who else) Pacino being her first major feature. So yeah, why not get a little bit permanently closer to a movie industry titan? Never mind the incredible risks to the health of their child.

    And yet, because our society still reiterates that age only matters for a woman—not just for her looks, but for her ability to “bear healthy children”—old fathers continue to get a pretty big pass for the selfish part they play in procreating at an age when it is very unsafe to do so. Especially actors who have the luxury of always putting their careers first. Barring the “less severe” effects Old Daddy sperm, like telomere (a compound structure at the end of a chromosome, and also a favorite topic of Lana Del Rey’s lately) length inheritance, there’s also an increased risk for both physical and mental health issues in children born to fathers over the age of forty. Never mind over the age of seventy à la De Niro and Pacino. According to a 2019 article in The New York Times, “…fathers older than 45 ha[ve] a 14 percent greater chance than fathers in their 20s and 30s of their babies being born prematurely and at low birth weight. The mothers too faced a 28 percent increased risk of gestational diabetes.” The article continued, “As the fathers’ ages rose, their babies were more likely to need help with breathing and require admission to the neonatal intensive care unit. The risks associated with older fathers go beyond those obvious at birth. An earlier review of studies published by Dr. Eisenberg and Dr. Simon L. Conti, clinical assistant professor of urology at Stanford, linked paternal aging to an increased risk of babies born with congenital diseases like dwarfism or developing psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and developmental ones like autism.”

    But maybe that’s a small price to pay for the hard-on a man gives himself from knowing he’s “still got it” well beyond the “healthy” age to procreate. Plus, men in the entertainment industry have never been too much taken to task for being “Late Daddies.” Richard Gere became a father at fifty and seventy; Cary Grant at sixty-two; Steve Martin at sixty-seven; David Letterman at fifty-six; Quentin Tarantino at fifty-seven and fifty-nine. The list wears on. And it’s one that points out a very glaring fact about men: they’re fucking selfish pricks with no business allowing their literal prick to reproduce so late. Not just because women are subjected to such “limiting” (read: natural order-abiding) standards, but because they’re so willing to dismiss the harm it causes to the children they bear. Nevertheless, our culture continues to normalize Old Daddies—especially if they are in positions of power. Take, for example, the plot point on the recently “deceased” series that is Succession. In season three, Logan Roy (Brian Cox), the eighty-something (like Pacino) media magnate that anchors the show, is trying to have a “do-over” baby with his latest “young piece,” Kerry Castellabate (Zoë Winters). This being evidenced, according to his eldest son, Connor (Alan Ruck), by Kerry packing his smoothies with maca root. Known to improve fertility and increase sperm count in men. Because why shouldn’t Logan get a chance to potentially create an heir more suited to running Waystar Royco?

    Although the fan speculations about Logan eventually spawning out of spite toward his quartet of other good-for-nothing children didn’t pan out, in the end, the point was that it would have been an entirely plausible plot development. Just like the real life Old Daddy fatherhoods of Pacino and De Niro. And maybe we should all be asking ourselves why this still feels so “huh, that’s kinda gross, isn’t it?” as opposed to “that is fucking foul, selfish and all manner of problematic.”

    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Al Pacino, 83, is expecting a baby with girlfriend Noor Alfallah

    Al Pacino, 83, is expecting a baby with girlfriend Noor Alfallah

    Extra: Al Pacino on acting and the Actors Studio


    Extra: Al Pacino on acting and the Actors Studio

    31:07

    Al Pacino is going to be a father again at 83 years old. The legendary actor is expecting a baby with girlfriend Noor Alfallah, who is eight months pregnant, his representative confirmed to CBS News on Wednesday. 

    Pacino has been romantically linked with Alfallah, a producer, since April 2022, according to Entertainment Tonight. TMZ first reported the news of the pregnancy. 

    Al Pacino In Conversation With David Rubenstein
    Al Pacino will now be a father for the fourth time. 

    / Getty Images


    Alfallah, 29, is listed as a producer for two short films “Le Petit Mort” and “Brosa Nostra” and was previously the vice president of Lynda Obst Productions at Sony. In the upcoming indie film, “Billy Knight,” Alfallah is named as an executive producer and Pacino will star in it. Alfallah also reportedly dated Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger.

    As for Pacino, the Oscar winner will now be a father for the fourth time. His adult children include 33-year-old Julie Marie, and 22-year-old twins, Anton James and Olivia Rose. Pacino has never been married. 

    The news comes weeks after Pacino’s “Heat” and “The Irishman” co-star Robert De Niro announced he welcomed his seventh child with partner Tiffany Chen. De Niro shared the baby’s name and a photo of her with “CBS Mornings” co-host Gayle King. 

    Christopher Brito


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    Christopher Brito is a social media manager and trending content writer for CBS News.

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