Carlito Brigante Carlito Brigante Carlito Brigante is an eponymous character and the antihero of "Carlito's Way" and "After Hours", novels by Edwin Torres. Torres has stated that Brigante was a combination of several men he knew in his street days, as well as a compilation of several of his own personal characteristics. Born in 1930 in Spanish Harlem, his parents were Puerto Ricans with his father being of Corsican ancestry. His father abandoned his family and returned to Puerto Rico while his mother, a fervent Pentecostal convert, died during Carlito's early teenage years. Carlito starts out as a small-time thief, eventually working
Carlito's Way completed Al read them and liked them, especially the character of Carlito. Inspiration for the novels came from Torres' background, things that were most familiar to him: the East Harlem barrio where he was born and raised in an atmosphere of racial gangs, drugs and poverty. In 1989, Pacino faced a $6 million lawsuit from producer Elliott Kastner. Kastner claimed Pacino had gone back on an agreement to star in his version of a Carlito movie with Marlon Brando as criminal lawyer David Kleinfeld. The suit was dropped and the project was abandoned. Pacino went to producer Martin Bregman with