Beverly D’Angelo is looking back on the moment she shifted her priorities — and how becoming a mother later in life reshaped everything from her career to her daily rhythm.
According to Fox News, in 2001, D’Angelo welcomed twins Anton and Olivia with her former partner, Al Pacino. She was 49 at the time. Pacino, now 85, and D’Angelo, now 73, were together from 1996 until 2003.
In a recent interview with People magazine, D’Angelo said she has no regrets about putting parenting ahead of professional ambition.
“If I would have been more focused, maybe I would have had a bigger career, but I was focused on my kids, to tell you the truth,” she said.
“I had them so late, and it was like, ‘Well, been there, done that, let’s do this,'” she added.
The couple conceived their twins through IVF, a process they began in 1997. D’Angelo joked about becoming a first-time mom at nearly 50, telling People, “Don’t try it at home.”
She reflected on the unique experience of raising children at an age when most of the other parents were decades younger.
She said the generational gap meant she and other moms at school “didn’t really have the same references.”
D’Angelo’s acting career stretches back decades, beginning with her breakthrough portrayal of country legend Patsy Cline in 1980’s Coal Miner’s Daughter, which earned her a Golden Globe nomination.
She later became a household name as Ellen Griswold in 1983’s National Lampoon’s Vacation, starring opposite Chevy Chase. She reprised the role in multiple sequels, including European Vacation, Christmas Vacation, and Vegas Vacation.
Despite her fame, D’Angelo said she intentionally raised her twins far from Hollywood’s spotlight. She recalled not realizing just how beloved National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation had become until her children, then 10, mentioned that “everybody’s talking about” the movie at school.
“I did not raise my kids in that culture,” she said.
Pacino is also father to two other children, including a daughter born in 1989 and a son born in 2023.
D’Angelo has openly reflected on their relationship, recently sharing a candid video on Instagram describing how she and Pacino met on a flight in 1996. She wrote that they “fell in love,” lived together for seven years, and ultimately moved into a new phase as co-parents with what she called a deeper “intimacy, honesty and acceptance” than their romantic relationship allowed.
In the video, D’Angelo remembered Pacino telling her in 1997, “I want you to be the mother of my children.” Though she said she had long “avoided” playing the role of mother, her love for him convinced her otherwise.
Even after their romantic relationship became “complicated,” she said their shared commitment to their children held everything together. They created “a new history as co-parents,” she said, living separate lives but remaining “intertwined as a family.”
“As for me and Al, it is a unique and profound friendship between two artists that endures to this day,” she said.
