Al Pacino donated his entire salary from an “exploitative” gay film to charity.
The 84-year-old Hollywood icon wrote in his new memoir ‘Sonny Boy’ that his donations were anonymous and had never revealed the fact until now, following his role in the 1980 crime thriller ‘Cruising’, which sees a serial killer targeting gay men.
He claims the producers of the William Friedkin film begged him to defend the movie, writing: “After all, they had paid me a lot of money, and I wasn’t going to just abandon them.
“But I wanted to go somewhere far away from the madness. I’d had enough.”
Despite giving his paycheque to a good cause, Pacino admitted he’s still not sure if it “eased his conscience”.
He added: “I never accepted the paycheque for ‘Cruising’. I took the money, and it was a lot, and I put it in an irrevocable trust fund, meaning once I gave it, there was no taking it back.
“I don’t know if it eased my conscience, but at least the money did some good.
“I didn’t want to make it a PR stunt, I just wanted one positive thing to come out of that experience.”
The ‘Godfather’ star played detective Steve Burns, who finds himself immersed in New York’s gay S+M subculture in a bid to hunt down a serial killer.
During filming, the flick was hit with backlash, with gay rights advocates protesting due to its “exploitative” nature.
However, he admits he “didn’t see it as that when I was doing it”, and was not “as sensitive” as he could have been back then.
Even though it initially received bad reviews, ‘Cruising’ went on to become a classic.
In his tell-all, Pacino penned: “To this day, it’s still the biggest film I ever did.
“The residuals still support me. I can live on it. I mean, if I lived like a normal person. But, it does contribute, let’s put it that way.”
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