JAMES CAAN (1940 - 2022)

James Caan, who famously played a variety of short-tempered and volatile characters throughout his career as an actor, has passed away on July 6th at the age of eighty-two. In 1972, he was nominated for an Oscar as Best Supporting Actor for his turn as the aggressive and violent, Sonny Corleone in the Best Picture winner, "The Godfather", the first in the mob-crime saga about the Corleone family based on the book by Mario Puzo.

Born and raised in New York City, Caan attended college at Michigan State University wanting to play football but was unable to make the team. He transferred to Hofstra College back in New York where he became interested in acting, later studying at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theatre. Caan first began his professional career on the stage before getting work in television with his first job in an episode of  the police drama, "Naked City". He went on to make guest-starring appearance in the shows, "Dr; Kildare", "Route 66", "Wagon Train" and "The Untouchables". Caan's first major role in a movie was in "Redline 7000", a 1965 auto-racing drama directed by Howard Hawks. Making an impression on this director who made his name during the early Hollywood era, Hawks hired the young actor for another film, "El Dorado", a western with John Wayne and Robert Mitchum.

The first role that changed the course of his career was playing Brian Piccolo, a promising young football player in "Brian's Song", an ABC television movie-of-the-week. Caan had turned down the role several times, largely because he didn't want to do television anymore, but relented once he actually read the script. Billy Dee Williams co-starred as Gale Sayers, an African-American teammate who befriends Piccolo, forming an unlikely bond before Piccolo is stricken with terminal cancer. This moving sports drama was so popular, becoming the most watched made-for-tv-movie in 1971, that it was also released theatrically. Caan would first met Francis Ford Coppola, a fledgling filmmaker, when he cast him in a supporting role in his fourth feature film, "The Rain People" in 1969. And in 1972, Caan would reunite with Coppola for "The Godfather" which would help him become a major movie star.

Some highlights from the films Caan made during the early part of his career are "Cinderella Liberty", "Freebie & The Bean", "Rollerball"; "A Bridge Too Far"; the semi-autobiographical Neil Simon romantic-comedy, "Chapter Two"; and "Funny Lady", the 1975 sequel to "Funny Girl" with Barbra Streisand.

By the 1980's, Caan's career had cooled due to personal issues (which included problems with substance abuse) and several movie flops (including "Thief", the 1981 Michael Mann directed thriller that has since become a cult classic) with the actor deciding to remove himself from the business for a number of years. It was Coppola who managed to lure Caan back on to the screen with his military drama, "Gardens of Stone" in 1987. And while this film didn't attract much attention at the box-office, Caan still continued with an active return to acting.

He went on to appear in "Alien Nation", "Honeymoon in Vegas"; "Dogville"; "Eraser" with Arnold Schwarzenegger; "For the Boys" with Bette Midler; "Bottle Rocket", the directorial debut of Wes Anderson. But one of his biggest successes was the Rob Reiner adaptation of Stephen King's psychological thriller, "Misery. Caan played a famous writer of a series of romance novels who ends up in an accident in a remote area and rescued by a nurse who also happens to be one of his biggest fans. But the nurse (played by Kathy Bates in her Oscar-winning role) discovers that he is writing his final book, demanding he change his mind or else. Caan also appeared in the popular 2003 Christmas comedy, "Elf" playing the biological father of Buddy the Elf (Will Ferrell).