Throughout Beverly D'Angelo's career, she has appeared in a long list of shows and movies. Despite that, there is no doubt that D'Angelo is best known for starring in the Easter egg-filled National Lampoon's movies with her onscreen husband played by Chevy Chase.
While D'Angelo will always be associated with Chase in the movies, in real life she notably played a major role in Al Pacino's complicated love life. In fact, of all the women that Pacino has dated, D'Angelo is his most notable romantic partner for several reasons.
While Pacino and D'Angelo's relationship is very noteworthy, it almost didn't happen at all. The reason for that is when Pacino and D'Angelo met and fell in love, her personal life was complicated by the fact she was married to another man.
How Did Al Pacino And Beverly D'Angelo Meet?
During the early '80s, Beverly D'Angelo's career was taking off thanks to her roles in movies like Coal Miner's Daughter and National Lampoon's Vacation. At that same time, D'Angelo's personal life went through a watershed moment as well.
In 1981, D'Angelo married a man named Don Lorenzo Salviati, a duke from Italy who also has a few acting credits. D'Angelo and Salviati would go on to be married for more than a decade, but that didn't mean that either of them was monogamous.
In 2022, D'Angelo was interviewed by People, and she spoke about her marriage to Salviati. As D'Angelo explained, she and her husband had an arrangement that allowed both of them to get involved with others and stay married at the same time.
As a result of that arrangement with her husband at the time, D'Angelo and Al Pacino quickly got involved after they met. According to what D'Angelo explained to People, she believed men would love freely being able to date her while she was married but Pacino felt differently.
"I always thought the guys that I was with thought it was great that I was married because they knew 'no responsibility here!' But when I met Al Pacino and told him about my little deal, he said, 'Well, that's crazy,'"
In a separate interview with Closer Weekly from 2017, D'Angelo revealed the moment she knew that she had to commit herself to Pacino.
“I had a fantasy that when you have kids, you do it in a family setting. After we’d known each other for three months, [Al] looked me in the eyes and said, ‘I want you to be the mother of my children.’ That’s all I had to hear.”
During the aforementioned People interview, D'Angelo explained what happened when she told her husband Salviati that she was leaving him for Pacino.
"I said, 'I'm in love.' He goes, [D'Angelo affects an Italian accent] 'Oh, Beverly, who is it this time?' And I said, 'Well, it's an actor.' He went, 'An actor? No, no, not an actor.' And I said, 'I really love him and we're talking about having kids and he thinks it's crazy that I'm married and now I'm thinking it is too.'"
Based on that quote, it seems clear that it wasn't the first time D'Angelo had strong feelings for another man during her marriage. With that in mind, it makes sense that Salviati had a few questions for D'Angelo including wanting to know about the person his wife had fallen for.
"He went, 'Oh, that's ridiculous. Who thinks this is crazy, this perfect relationship? Who is this actor?'" According to how D'Angelo, Salviati's attitude about the situation completely changed once he found out she was involved with the star of movies fans love to learn more about like The Godfather. "I said, 'Well, it's Al Pacino.' He goes, 'Al Pacino, he's fantastic. I love him. We divorce!'"
Once D'Angelo and Salviati agreed to divorce, things went very smoothly according to her. In fact, D'Angelo told People that it was the first time her ex-mother-in-law grew to like her. "We just signed these papers. That's when my mother-in-law started to love me, I think. It took her 15 years to understand that I wasn't in [the marriage] for a title of wealth or for privilege."
Why Did Al Pacino And Beverly D'Angelo Break Up?
After Al Pacino and Beverly D'Angelo became a couple, the two of them seemed very happy together from the outside looking in. Several years into their relationship, what Pacino once told D'Angelo became true when she got pregnant with his twin children.
During D'Angelo's aforementioned Closer Weekly interview, she described how quickly things went wrong in her relationship with Pacino after their twins were born. “I got pregnant at 48, delivered six weeks after I was 49, and by 51, I was looking at a landscape as a single parent.”
According to a 2010 Vanity Fair article, money played a big role in D'Angelo and Pacino's relationship ending.
Since Pacino and D'Angelo never got married, their finances remained separate after their twins were born. When D'Angelo found herself struggling financially to provide for the twins, Pacino offered to pay for everything their children needed.
According to the article, Pacino asked D'Angelo to pay for everything up front and then submit her receipts to his accountant, a man named Kenneth Starr. As the article described, things went awry when D'Angelo started to follow that process with Starr, who isn't the famous lawyer and judge who investigated the Clintons during the '90s.
"The actress was down to her last $350,000, so Pacino agreed to pay for all baby-related expenses. All D’Angelo had to do was pay up front and submit the receipts to Starr. D’Angelo says some of the reimbursements came late. The rest came not at all."
The article continued, "When she complained to Starr, she says, he told her she was spending too much. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” D’Angelo recalls telling him." Sadly, when D'Angelo tried to talk to Pacino about the situation multiple times, that led to their relationship ending according to Vanity Fair.
"As tensions deepened, D’Angelo says, she warned Pacino that Starr might be mishandling his finances, too. Why not have his account audited? Pacino refused. After several of these back-and-forths, the couple broke up. To friends D’Angelo said she blamed Starr. He’d wanted her out of Pacino’s life, she felt, and at last he’d had his way."
Years later, Starr was put on trial and convicted of running a $35 million Ponzi scheme. While running his scheme, Starr defrauded several clients including Al Pacino, Natalie Portman, Martin Scorsese, Carly Simon, Wesley Snipes, Sylvester Stallone, and Uma Thurman.
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