Caan was born on March 26, 1940, inThe Bronx, New York City, to Sophie (née Falkenstein; 1915–2016)[3] and Arthur Caan (1909–1986),Jewish immigrants fromBingen am Rhein, Rhineland, Germany.[4][5][6] His father sold a wide variety of meats, according to James Caan in an interview withCharlie Rose as well askosher meats.[7] James grew up a lively boy and often participated in street fights. At that time, he enjoyedboxing,rodeo andmotorcycle riding.[8] One of three siblings,[9][10] Caan grew up inSunnyside, Queens.[11][12] His sister, Barbara Emily Caan Licker, died of leukemia in 1981, aged 38.[4]
While studying at Hofstra University, Caan became intrigued with acting. He enrolled in New York City'sNeighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre,[16] where he studied for five years. One of his instructors wasSanford Meisner.[17] "I just fell in love with acting," he later recalled. "Of course all my improvs ended in violence."[18]
His first film wasIrma la Douce (1963), in which he had an uncreditedbit part as a U.S. soldier with a transistor radio more interested in a baseball game than the girl.[26] According to critic Stephen Vagg inFilmink magazine:
People thought Caan was going to be a star pretty much from the get-go. And it's not hard to see why. Watch him in his early movies and TV appearances, and he's simply got "it": he was handsome, virile-looking, and could act (New York trained, Broadway broken). Most of all, he had X factor: a nervous energy and intensity that you can feel off the screen. A lot of stars take a while to warm up – Caan was good from the beginning.[27]
Caan's first substantial film role was as a punk hoodlum who gets his eyes poked out in the 1964thrillerLady in a Cage, which starredOlivia de Havilland, who praised Caan's performance.[28] He had roles inThe Alfred Hitchcock Hour andWagon Train.[29] He was fourth-billed in a Western feature,The Glory Guys (1965).[30] He turned down the starring role in a TV series around this time, saying, "I want to be an actor not a millionaire."[31]
Caan returned to television with a guest role inThe F.B.I.. He had an uncredited spot on the spy sitcomGet Smart as a favor to starDon Adams, playing Rupert of Rathskeller in the episode "To Sire with Love".[38]
None of these films, apart fromEl Dorado, was particularly successful at the box office, includingRabbit, Run (1970), based on theJohn Updike novel of the same name, in which Caan had the lead. He said it "was a film I really wanted to do, really wanted to be involved with."[41] "No one would put me in a movie", he later recalled. "They all said, 'His pictures never make money'."[42]
Caan returned to the small screen with the TV movieBrian's Song (1971), playing dying football playerBrian Piccolo, oppositeBilly Dee Williams.[43] Caan did not want to return to television and turned down the role several times,[44] but changed his mind after reading the script. The film was a huge critical success and Caan's performance earned him an Emmy nomination.[42] He got a deal to make a film and agreed to be inT.R. Baskin.[45]
James Caan and Al Pacino in 1972
The following year, Coppola cast him as the short-temperedSonny Corleone inThe Godfather. Originally, Caan was cast asMichael Corleone (Sonny's youngest brother); both Coppola and Caan demanded that this role be played byAl Pacino, so Caan could play Sonny instead.Robert De Niro was also considered to play Sonny. Although another actor,Carmine Caridi, was already signed to play Sonny, the studio eventually insisted on having Caan,[46] so he remained in the production.[47] Caan was nominated for anAcademy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the film,[48] along with co-starsRobert Duvall and Pacino.[49] Caan was closely identified with the role for years afterward: "They called me a wiseguy. I won Italian of the Year twice in New York, and I'm Jewish, not Italian.... I was denied in a country club once. Oh yeah, the guy sat in front of the board, and he says, 'No, no, he's a wiseguy, been downtown. He's amade guy.' I thought, What? Are you out of your mind?"[50]
Back in the United States, Caan made a modern-day Western,Comes a Horseman (1978), withJane Fonda for directorAlan J. Pakula.[67] He was reunited with Marsha Mason in the film adaptation ofNeil Simon's autobiographicalChapter Two (1979).[68] Caan later said he only did the film for the money as he was trying to raise money for his directorial debut, but it was a success at the box office.[69]
In 1978, Caan directedHide in Plain Sight, a film about a father searching for his children, who were lost in theWitness Protection Program.[70] Despite critical praise, the film was only moderately successful with the public.[71]
During Caan's peak years of stardom, he rejected a series of starring roles that proved to be successes for other actors, in films includingM*A*S*H,The French Connection,One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,Close Encounters of the Third Kind,Kramer vs. Kramer ("it was such middle class bourgeois baloney"[72]),Apocalypse Now (because Coppola "mentioned something about 16 weeks in the Philippine jungles"[66]),Blade Runner,Love Story, andSuperman ("I didn't want to wear the cape".[66]).[72][73] In 1977, Caan rated several of his movies out of ten –The Godfather (10),Freebie and the Bean (4),Cinderella Liberty (8),The Gambler (8),Funny Lady (9),Rollerball (8),The Killer Elite (5),Harry and Walter Go to New York (0),Slither (4),A Bridge Too Far (7), andAnother Man Another Chance (10).[62] He also liked his performances inThe Rain People andThief.[74]
Caan had a role in Claude Lelouch'sLes Uns et les Autres (1981), which was popular in France,[75] and won the Technical Grand Prize at the1984 Cannes Film Festival.[76] InHollywood, Caan appeared in theneo-noir filmThief (1981), directed byMichael Mann, in which he played a professionalsafe cracker.[77] Although the film was not successful at the time, Caan's performance was widely lauded and the movie has acquired something of a cult following.[78] Caan always praised Mann's script and direction and often said that, next toThe Godfather,Thief was the movie of which he was proudest.[79]
From 1982 to 1987, Caan suffered from depression over his sister's death fromleukemia, a growing problem withcocaine, and what he described as "Hollywood burnout"[72] and did not act in any films.
In a 1992 interview, Caan said that this was a time when "a lot of mediocrity was produced. Because I think that directors got to the point where they made themselves too important. They didn't want anything or anybody to distract from their directorial prowess. There were actors who were good and capable, but they would distract from the special effects. It was a period of time when I said, 'I'm not going to work again.'"[80]
He walked off the set ofThe Holcroft Covenant and was replaced byMichael Caine. Caan devoted much of his time during these years to coaching children's sports.[18] In 1985, he was in a car crash.[81] Caan considered retiring for good but instead of being "set for life", as he believed, he found out one day that "I was flat-ass broke... I didn't want to work. But then when the dogs got hungry and I saw their ribs, I decided that maybe now it's a good idea."[82]
Caan returned to acting in 1987, when Coppola cast him as an army platoon sergeant for the3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard) inGardens of Stone, a movie that dealt with the effect of theVietnam War on the United States homefront.[83] He only received a quarter of his pre-hiatus salary, and then had to kick in tens of thousands more to the completion bond company because ofHolcroft. "I don't know what it is, but, boy, when you're down, they like to stomp on you", he said.[82] The movie was not a popular success butAlien Nation (1988), where Caan played a cop who partnered with an alien, did well. The film received atelevision spinoff.[84] He had a support role as Spaldoni, under much make up, inWarren Beatty'sDick Tracy.[85]
Caan was planning to make an action film in Italy, but then heardRob Reiner was looking for a leading man in his adaptation ofStephen King'sMisery (1990). Since the script forMisery called for the male lead, Paul Sheldon, to spend most of his time lying in bed tormented by his nurse, the role was turned down by many of Hollywood's leading actors before Caan accepted.[82] Caan had a small role inThe Dark Backward (1991) and co-starred withBette Midler in the expensiveFor the Boys (1991), directed by Rydell who called Caan "one of the four or five best actors in America".[72]
In 2003, Caan portrayed Jimmy the Con in the filmThis Thing of Ours, whose associate producer wasSonny Franzese, longtime mobster andunderboss of theColombo crime family.[100] The same year, Caan playedWill Ferrell's estranged book publisher father in the enormously successful family Christmas comedyElf, and auditioned for, and won, the role of Montecito Hotel/Casino president "Big Ed" Deline inLas Vegas.[101] On February 27, 2007, Caan announced that he would not return to the show for its fifth season to return to film work; he was replaced byTom Selleck.[102]
Caan married four times. In 1961,[116] he married Dee Jay Mathis; they divorced in 1966. They had a daughter, Tara (born 1964). Caan's second marriage to Sheila Marie Ryan (a former girlfriend ofElvis Presley) in 1976 was short-lived; they divorced the following year.[117] Their son,Scott Caan, also an actor, was born August 23, 1976.
Caan was married to Ingrid Hajek from September 1990 to March 1994; they had a son, Alexander James Caan, born 1991. In a 1994 interview withVanity Fair, Hollywood madamHeidi Fleiss claimed to be in a relationship with Caan during his marriage to Hajek in 1992, visiting him on the set ofFlesh and Bone in Texas.[118] Caan said his relationship with Fleiss was platonic.[119]
Caan married Linda Stokes on October 7, 1995, they had two sons, James Arthur Caan (born 1995) and Jacob Nicholas Caan (born 1998). Caan filed for divorce in 2017, citing irreconcilable differences.[120]
In 1994, Caan was arrested and released after being accused by a Los Angeles rap artist of pulling a gun on him.[121]
He also took part insteer wrestling atrodeos and referred to himself as the "only Jewishcowboy from New York on the professional rodeo cowboy circuit."[123]
During production ofThe Godfather in 1971, Caan was known to hang out withCarmine Persico, also known as "The Snake",[124] a notorious mafioso and later head of theColombo crime family. Government agents briefly mistook Caan, who was relatively unknown at the time, as an aspiring mobster.[125][126] Caan was also a friend of Colombo Family mobster Andrew Russo who is the godfather of Caan's son Scott Caan.[127]
In 1982, according to a conversation intercepted by the FBI between Caan and mobsterAnthony Fiato, Caan requested that Fiato beat up actorJoe Pesci over Pesci failing to pay an $8,000 bill to a hotel.[128][129]
In 2021, Caan was announced to be a member of the cast of Coppola's longtime passion projectMegalopolis.[135] Caan petitioned Coppola for acameo appearance as he saw this film as his potentialswan song, leading Coppola to create Nush "The Fixer" Berman for Caan. After Caan's death,Dustin Hoffman offered to take over the role and was cast.[136]: 3
^abcdBernard Weinraub (November 17, 1991). "James Caan Rises From the Ashes of His Career".The New York Times. p. H13.It wasn't that I did bad pictures. I just banished myself for a while.
^Siskel, Gene (May 11, 1980). "Movies: James Caan: Frustrated star talks tough about his career Tough talk from a frustrated star".Chicago Tribune. p. D2.
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