Al Pachino 1961
Thick Oversized T-Shirt

In the small hours of 7 January 1961, Woonsocket, Rhode Island police stopped a black sedan that kept circling the same block. Inside they found three nervous young men—one of them 20-year-old Alfredo James “Al” Pacino—wearing black masks and gloves. A search of the trunk produced a loaded .38-caliber pistol; all three were booked for carrying a concealed weapon.

Two days later, on 9 January 1961, Pacino posed for the intake camera at the local Adult Correctional Institutions—the slate beneath his chin reading “48634 JAN 9 1961.” Unable to raise the $2,000 bail, he spent three nights in jail before a local theatre patron finally put up the bond.

Pacino told officers the gun was a prop for an upcoming stage production, and prosecutors ultimately dismissed the charges, but the episode left the aspiring actor with a cautionary tale—and an arrest record that would resurface once he became a star.

Today the stark black-and-white photos of the fresh-faced future Godfather are prized collectibles, marking both the rough-and-tumble reality of Pacino’s early years and the unlikely road from a Rhode Island jail cell to Hollywood royalty.