Al Pacino despises being "grey"

He told CBS News in an interview to plug the book about how he hates ageing and still sees himself as the man on the front of his book: "I'm an old fella, you know?

"When I have my hair now, and I go out and someone takes a picture of me, all you see is, like, a white hydrant! A white fire hydrant!

"I don't feel I'm grey yet. I don't want to be grey. I'm that guy in the book cover."

Al's book title comes from the nickname his mother Rose Gerardi gave him growing up.

The actor also relived in the CBS his chat his recent near-death experience with Covid.

Al previously opened up about feeling like he had no pulse when he was stricken with the illness, with medics rushing to his home to give him emergency treatment.

He said about the health scare: "Out of this world. I mean, I was here and then I wasn't.

"The nurse said my pulse stopped. Now, I don't think my pulse stopped.

"(But) it was so real."

Al added about how his fright made him think of one of Shakespeare's most famous lines: "And I didn't see any light. I didn't see anything at all. There's a speech in 'Hamlet' where he says, 'To be or not to be.'

"You know? And then when he talks about leaving the Earth when you die, and he says, 'No more. No more.'

"How about that?"

Al's book traces his life and career from his childhood living with his mum and grandparents in a three-room walk-up in the South Bronx.

His mum Rose kept her 'Sonny Boy' in when his friends tempted him with the streets.

Al said about being barred by his mother from going out with his friends on school nights: "She said, 'No, no.' And I was so upset. So angry at her. I think she was part of what saved my life, and kept me off drugs.

"I couldn't go out. I went to school."