How Martin Sheen supported Al Pacino at his lowest point

The Godfather star spoke of his friendship with Martin Sheen in his memoir Sonny Boy

(Original Caption) New York: Actors Martin Sheen (R) and Al Pacino engage in conversation at a party following the opening of their play Julius Caesar here. The play, with Pacino playing Marcus Antonius and Sheen taking the part of Marcus Brutus, opened the adverse reviews from critics. They came to bury Caesar, not to praise him?
Al Pacino and Martin Sheen pictured in 1988 at the opening of their play Julius Caesar in New York City, in his new memoir Pacino recounts a kind gesture from Sheen that helped him. (Getty)

Al Pacino has revealed the kind gesture Martin Sheen extended to him when he was struggling to get his acting career off the ground in his new memoir Sonny Boy.

The now acclaimed actors became friends as teens when they began studying under Charlie Laughton at the Herbert Berghof Studio in New York City, they shared a flat for a time in the South Bronx and even worked together at The Living Theatre in Greenwich Village. But it was a year after they'd stopped living together that Sheen helped support Pacino in an unexpected way.

Pacino struggled to find regular acting work and, as a result, did not have very much money. One day he was in the New York City subway when Sheen saw him, and noticed how threadbare his clothes were.

"I looked like I was playing a part in a Charlie Chaplin film from the silent era," Pacino wrote. "It had been about a year since we had roomed together, and our career had gone in different directions. He was working regularly, and I was still down and out. My next move was to hold my hand out for somebody to put a coin in it.

Actors Martin Sheen, left, and Al Pacino, right, share a moment at the openig night party for the play
Al Pacino struggled to make it in the early years of his career, and when school friend Martin Sheen saw him he asked if he'd be his understudy in a play, which he accepted. (AP Photo)

"He said, 'Hey, Al, man, how you doing?' I said, 'I'm okay.' And he looked at me in my dusty thrift-store coat, and my shoes that were ripped apart, and my toes poking through the holes, and he knew that maybe that was not the case. But he looked past all of this and 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 an off-Broadway production of The Wicked Cooks, and he asked Pacino if he could be his understudy even if they both knew, according to Pacino, that he was "incapable" of it

Pacino wrote: "I wish I was able to, because it was a way to make some money, but for whatever reason I'm easily distracted watching someone else do a performance that I would have to mimic.

"But 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.' 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."

Al Pacino (Walter Cole) in AMERICAN BUFFALO by David Mamet at the Duke of York's Theatre, London WC2  02/08/1984  set design: Marjorie Bradley Kellogg  costumes: Bill Walker  lighting: Ronald Wallace  director: Arvin Brown
Al Pacino (pictured on stage in 1984) struggled with being an understudy, but said: 'I was doing it for Marty, because he seemed so effusive about me. He loved me, and I was just so enamoured of him.' (PA Images)

The Godfather actor said the director of the play "hated" him, and he struggled to work as a background performer in the play. And when Sheen got sick and lost his voice Pacino felt he couldn't step out on stage, he admitted he didn't remember the lines or anything that Sheen did in character so he refused to understudy, and was ultimately fired from the production.

Pacino later discovered that production was not paying him for being Sheen's understudy: "Marty was paying me himself, out of his own salary. He just wanted me to have the money. I wanted to give it back to him, but he wouldn't take it."

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The two actors continue to be good friends, and Pacino wrote of how when they first studied together he knew Sheen would be "one of the best people [he'd] ever know", and was a phenomenal actor even then.

APOCALYPSE NOW (1979) MARTIN SHEEN  FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA (DIR)  UNITED ARTISTS/MOVIESTORE COLLECTION LTD
The pair have worked on stage together since but haven't worked together onscreen, but Pacino famously turned down Martin Sheen's biggest role in Apocalypse Now. (Moviestore)

The pair have worked on stage together since but haven't worked together onscreen before. Pacino famously turned down the role of Benjamin Willard in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now, a role Sheen was later cast and is widely regarded as one of his best performances to date.

Sheen has spoken fondly of his friendship with Pacino in the past, saying at a talk in Dubai in 2013: "We started out together, he and I are great friends.

"My wife saw him a play before anyone else saw him and told us 'he’s going to be a major star'. We said 'wait a minute, you’re talking about little Al?' We used to call him little Al, and she said 'oh you watch this guy, he’s going to be big'. Sure enough she was right."

Sonny Boy is out now in bookstores.