What is Al Pacino’s connection to Michael Corleone in ‘The Godfather’ series and the town Corleone, Sicily?

Al Pacino (born 1940) is an American actor and filmmaker. His film career has spanned 5 decades including his 1967 breakthrough role as Michael Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘The Godfather’ film (1972), resulting in his nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He would reprise the role in the sequels, ‘The Godfather Part II’ (1974) and ‘The Godfather Part III (1990).

He is considered a method actor, defined as a person who was trained to seek the sincere and expressive performances through identification, understanding, and experiencing a character’s inner motivation and emotions.

Corleone, Italy is an Italian town of roughly 11,158 inhabitants in the Metropolitan City of Palermo, in Sicily. Several Mafia bosses have come from Corleone. It is also the birthplace of several fictional characters in Mario Puzo’s 1969 novel ‘The Godfather’, including the eponymous Vito Corleone.

The local mafia clan, the Corleonesi, led the Mafia in the 1980s and 1990s, and were the most violent and ruthless group ever to take control of the organization.

Pacino was born in the East Harlem neighborhood of New York City the son of Italian-American parents, Rose Gerardi and Salvatore Pacino. His father was from San Fratello, Sicily.

His parents divorced when he was only two years old and Pacino then moved with his mother to the Bronx to live with her parents, Kate and James Geradi. They were immigrants from Corleone, Sicily- the connection.