Beverly D’Angelo chose kids over career after becoming mother at 49

“National Lampoon” star Beverly D’Angelo reflected on how she likely passed up the chance for a “bigger career” after she became a first-time mother at age 49.

In 2001, the actress welcomed twins Anton and Olivia Pacino with her former partner Al Pacino. D’Angelo, now 73, and Pacino, now 85, were in a relationship from 1996 to 2003. 

During a recent interview with People magazine, D’Angelo opened up about prioritizing parenting over acting. 

“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.

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Beverly D’Angelo reflected on choosing motherhood over career opportunities.  (Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty Images; Beverly D’Angelo Instagram )

“I had them so late, and it was like, ‘Well, been there, done that, let’s do this,'” D’Angelo explained. 

D’Angelo and Pacino conceived Anton and Olivia, now 25, through in vitro fertilization (IVF), a process that they began in 1997. 

“Don’t try it at home,” D’Angelo joked to People of welcoming her children at 49.

D’Angelo and her former partner Al Pacino welcomed their twins in 2001. (Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection )

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The actress also explained that there was a generational divide between herself and the mothers of her children’s classmates, noting that they “didn’t really have the same references.” 

D’Angelo’s made her career breakthrough in 1980, when she played legendary country singer Patsy Cline in the biopic “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” earning a Golden Globe Award nomination for her performance. 

However, she became a household name after starring as Ellen Griswold opposite Chevy Chase’s Clark Griswold in the hit 1983 comedy “National Lampoon’s Vacation.” D’Angelo and Chase returned for the movie’s sequels including 1985’s “National Lampoon’s European Vacation,” 1989’s “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation and 1997’s “Vegas Vacation.”

D’Angelo starred in the “National Lampoon” franchise with Chevy Chase.  (Warner Brothers/Getty Images)

While speaking with People magazine, D’Angelo explained that she chose a quieter upbringing for her children outside the typical celebrity-focused Hollywood lifestyle. 

She recalled that she didn’t realize “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” had become a holiday staple until her then 10-year-old children mentioned that “everybody’s talking about” the movie at school.

“I did not raise my kids in that culture,” D’Angelo said. 

D’Angelo and Pacino split in 2003 after seven years together.  (Instagram)

In addition to Anton and Olivia, Pacino is father to two other children. “The Godfather” star welcomed his first child, daughter Julie Pacino, with ex-girlfriend Jan Tarrant in 1989. At age 83, he became a father for the fourth time when he welcomed son, Roman, with his former partner Noor Alfallah in June 2023.

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In a candid video that she shared on Instagram in May 2023, D’Angelo remembered falling in love with Pacino after they met for the first time on a flight from Los Angeles to New York in 1996. 

“My story with Al began 27 years ago, two artists meeting, falling in love. We lived together for seven years, had two children, broke up, but continued steadily on our journey as co parents – and came to share our lives with a deeper kind of intimacy, honesty and acceptance than a ‘traditional’ relationship would have allowed, (for us at least),” D’Angelo wrote in the caption of her post.

Anton, Olivia Pacino, D’Angelo and the actress’s niece Courtney D’Angelo are pictured in 2022.  (Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty Images)

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D’Angelo continued to reminisce on her and Pacino’s love and said in 1997 he told her, “I want you to be the mother of my children.”

Although D’Angelo pointed out that she “avoided” playing the “role” of mother her whole life, she said she was “deeply in love” with Pacino and was “one hundred percent in.”

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After their relationship got “complicated,” D’Angelo went on to say that the “power” of love for their children was the “basis for resolving any conflicts and creating a new history as co-parents, leading individual lives separately but always intertwined as a family.”

“As for me and Al, it is a unique and profound friendship between two artists that endures to this day, through thick and thin, 27 years now of doing it our way, and there you have it,” she concluded her video.