The son of German-Jewish immigrants, James Edmund Caan was an active youngster from the Bronx who grew up to play rough cinema characters such as sailors, football players, and gangsters. He was one of the most well-known performers of his day.
According to a tweet from his official Twitter account, he passed away on July 6. No other information was available.
Caan, who received Oscar and Emmy nods for his powerful performances as Sonny Corleone in The Godfather and as a dying professional football player in the made-for-TV movie, Brian’s Song brought a compelling machismo to hundreds of movies and television programs. He played a famous author kept hostage by Kathy Bates in the film Misery. He played a heartbroken Vietnam veteran who was grudgingly manning the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Gardens of Stone. He portrayed an anti-type role in Elf as the father of the main character and a failed children’s book publisher.
Caan entered Hollywood like a comet after beginning in theatre and television, making appearances in movies by some of the most well-known auteurs of the time, such as Howard Hawks (El Dorado), and Robert Altman (Countdown), and Francis Ford Coppola (The Rain People). After his early success burst, he experienced a challenging time on both a personal and professional level. Caan repeatedly got married and divorced, got into fights on the set, and openly battled depression and substance misuse.
Kramer vs. Kramer, Apocalypse Now, M*A*S*H, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest were just a few of the movies he turned down in favor of ideas that ended up being box office duds.
He admitted to The New York Times in 1991 that he had yet to see some of the photographs he had created. “When I started creating them, I was depressed. What am I doing here in the middle of some of these photographs, I kept asking myself. It’s as though you’re trapped in a hallway and unable to go.”
Desperation changed the course of events. The former athlete was bound to a bed for the majority of the 1990 film. Caan also served as the film’s emotional center. He appeared in comedies like Funny Lady and For The Boys as well as gloomy, somber movies like Danish director Lars von Trier’s Dogville, demonstrating his wide range as an actor.
Caan continued to work steadily right up until the end of his life, appearing in animated episodes of Family Guy and The Simpsons as colonels, grandparents, and, eventually, as himself.