In GF I & II, Pacino has a higher-pitched voice. By the time III rolled around, Pacino has this gravelly-voiced tone.

I'm guessing that perhaps cigarettes did their damage or perhaps Pacino had throat surgery of some sort. The difference in his voices is very dramatic.

Anybody know what happened...??

Mostly everyone's voice tends to deepen a bit as they get older. But in Pacino's case, I do believe the smoking contributed a great deal to the vast change between the Godfather films and now. In fact it was already much deeper by the time he made GFIII.

I have a cousin in her early 40's to whom the same thing happened. Growing up she always had a pleasant, not high but kind've soft voice, much like her mother. Now, after years of smoking its an incredibly raspy and abhrasive voice; makes her sound more like 60 than 40! Almost hurts your throat just LISTENING to it!

Apple

Yeah the smokes killed his voice. He used to have this funny little NY type soft accent, now it makes your throat hurt to listen to him. Good for playing devils, though

It's interesting how Pacino starred in three GF films, and by the third one, sounded like the original Vito Corleone, his screen father.

The singer Harry Belafonte played a character who was a hilarious charicature of Vito Corleone in the comedy film, "Uptown Saturday Night." Now his voice is shot to hell, just like Pacino's, and he sounds like Vito Corleone without even trying.

Never thought of that, but you're right. Except Brando had to fake the raspy voice and Pacino didn't.

BOO-YAH!!

The raspy voice was probably due to years f smoking. I read he finally quit in 1995

really? i didn't know he quit. but yeah i think too that he's voice changed because of smoking.

I noticed, and I think it is because of all the smoking. Is it true that he's quit?

Well i'm not positive if he still doesn't smoke but I know in 1997 when he made the film Donnie Brasco with Johnny Depp all the smoking he did do was organic and the smoke in the car scenes was pumped in.

In another post, I related how I only saw the Godfather films for the first time within the past 3 years. The first film I saw was Part II. Initially, I had a difficult time believing that was really Al Pacino because his voice was so vastly different than it is today. I had seen more modern Pacino movies before seeing the Godfather Trilogy: Heat, Sea of Love, the Insider, etc. All had Al's (now) trademark raspy voice. But in the GF films, his voice was clear. It wasn't until the GFII credits rolled that I believed it was truly Pacino.

Also in my opinion he had aged drastically by the time part 3 rolled around, but that was mostly due to the white hair making pacino look much older. However if you saw pacino in part 3 it would be hard to believe that was the same person in parts 1 and 2.

I have heard that Pacino likes his Scotch (or maybe whiskey)a lot, which can do bad things to your throat over the years.

Same goes for Neri, Kay and "Enzo da bekar".

Neri looks sooo different from GF 1 AND II.

^^^^^^^^

Was enzo in GF3???

yea, he has just one line though, right after the family photograph in the party.
I think he is played by the same guy in GF 1