James Caan¶

At a glance¶

Born: March 26, 1940, the Bronx, New York
Died: July 6, 2022, Los Angeles, aged 82 — heart attack
Background: Jewish, of German descent; grew up in Queens
Trained: Neighborhood Playhouse, under Sanford Meisner
Godfather role: Sonny Corleone
Oscar: Nominated, Best Supporting Actor (1973)

They called me a wiseguy. I won Italian of the Year twice in New York, and I'm Jewish, not Italian. James Caan

Before¶

A Queens kid — the son of a kosher butcher, a football player at Michigan State, and briefly a rodeo rider, which he kept up for decades and which explains a lot about how he moved.

He trained at the Neighborhood Playhouse under Sanford Meisner, where his classmates included Robert Duvall — a friendship that lasted sixty years — and where the building also contained Gene Hackman and Dustin Hoffman at various points. He worked steadily through the 1960s in television and in Howard Hawks's El Dorado (1966), and then broke through on television in Brian's Song (1971), playing the dying Chicago Bear Brian Piccolo. It got an Emmy nomination and made a large number of American men cry in public, which was not then a common experience.

Sonny¶

He was in the mix for Michael — he screen-tested for it — but both he and Coppola preferred Sonny, and Paramount's approval of Pacino was made contingent on Caan taking the part.

He improvised heavily and Coppola kept most of it. The business with the wedding photographer, much of the volatility, and a good deal of the physical comedy in the family scenes is his. He took the street beating of Carlo Rizzi seriously enough to injure his co-star Gianni Russo — a cracked rib and a chipped elbow, by several accounts.

He was nominated for Best Supporting Actor alongside Pacino and Duvall. The three split the vote; Joel Grey won for Cabaret.

He returned for one scene in Part II — the 1941 flashback — reportedly for a fee equal to what he was paid for the whole of the first film.

The mob thing¶

During and after production, Caan spent time with actual organized crime figures, notably Carmine Persico of the Colombo family, out of what he always described as research and fascination. It attracted federal attention; in 1982 the FBI recorded conversations between Caan and the mobster Anthony Fiato regarding Joe Pesci.

Nothing came of any of it. He also once posted a character reference for a reputed mobster, and spent the rest of his life fielding the same question, which he answered with the same joke.

After¶

A superb and consistently undervalued 1970s: The Gambler (1974) — the film he called his best, and a role built directly on his own compulsive gambling — Rollerball (1975), Funny Lady (1975), A Bridge Too Far (1977), and Michael Mann's Thief (1981), a lean, blue-lit crime film that flopped and is now regarded as one of the best American films of its decade.

Then a five-year disappearance. Caan stopped working entirely after his sister's death from leukemia, and has described the period frankly as depression and cocaine. Coppola brought him back in Gardens of Stone (1987).

The third act was character work, and he was very good at it: Misery (1990), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Bottle Rocket (1996), The Yards (2000), Elf (2003) — which introduced him to an entire generation as Buddy's exasperated father — and the television series Las Vegas (2003–07).

He died on July 6, 2022, four months after the film's fiftieth anniversary, at 82. Pacino, De Niro, Duvall, and Streisand all issued tributes.