After Dinner Speakers: Al Pacino, Simon Cowell,

Al Pacino went from success on the New York stage to almost instant stardom in the movies, thanks to his Oscar-nominated role as Michael Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather (1972, also starring Marlon Brando). Pacino was a critical and popular hit during the '70s, appearing in several gritty dramas, including as real-life cop Serpico (1973, Oscar nomination), The Godfather, Part II (1974, Oscar nomination), and in Dog Day Afternoon, (1975, Oscar nomination) and ...And Justice for All (1979, Oscar nomination). In the 1980s he made only a handful of films, but in the '90s he made more than a dozen movies, including 1992's Scent of a Woman, for which he won an Oscar, and Glengarry Glen Ross (1992, Oscar nomination), Heat (1995, co-starring Robert DeNiro) and The Insider (1999, with Russell Crowe). One of the most celebrated actors in movie history and still going strong, Pacino appeared with Robin Williams in 2002's Insomnia and with Colin Farrell in The Recruit (2003).