Sonny Boy: A Memoir

“Since I didn’t have playmates in our apartment and we didn’t have television yet, I would have nothing but time to think about the movie I had last seen. I’d go through the characters in my head, and I would bring them to life, one by one, in the apartment. I learned at an early age to make friends with my imagination.”

Pacino reveals that his love of performing and expression began early in his life. By crediting his mother and the movies with instilling this love of storytelling, the author helps the reader understand his early influences. This passage also establishes Pacino’s theme on Performance as an Art and a Career by showing how his love of the art form began when he was only three years old.

“As a kid, it was my relationship with my friends on the street that sustained me and gave me hope. I ran with a crew that included my three best friends, Cliffy, Bruce, and Petey. Every day was a fresh adventure. We were on the prowl, hungry for life. In hindsight I realize I might have had more love from my family than the other three did. I think that might have made all the difference. I made it out alive, and they didn’t.”

Pacino has fond memories of his boyhood playmates. This passage introduces the author’s childhood world of the Bronx in the 1940s and 1950s, emphasizing the importance of his friends as an emotional support and an escape from the pressures of poverty and family life. This quotation also adds to the author’s theme on Overcoming Loss and Hardship, as he reveals that he lost all three of his childhood friends in their youth.

“I would walk the streets of Manhattan, bellowing out the monologues as I rambled. I’d do it by the factories, at the edges of town, where no one was around. What else was I going to do? Where could I emote? That’s what you do when you’re obsessed.”

After dropping out of high school, Pacino struggled to make ends meet. In his free time he practiced Shakespearean monologues while walking around New York. By revealing how he became “obsessed” with reading and reciting books and plays, Pacino adds to his theme on Performance as an Art and a Career. This quotation suggests that being in character gave Pacino an opportunity to “emote” and express himself, which was a much-needed personal refuge long before it became a paying career.