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James Caan
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Trivia
Sons, James (b. 1996) and Jacob (b. 1998)
Played football for Michigan State University.
Born at 10:31pm-EST
Father of actor Scott Caan
Was offered the role of McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975).
In the 1990s, Caan kicked a cocaine habit of some 20 years.
States that Thief (1981) is one of his favorite films he's made.
Biography from Leonard Maltin's Movie Encyclopedia:
Caan has turned in a number of varied, excellent performances over the years, but his career has had more than its share of ups and downs. He studied at Sanford Meisner's Neighborhood Playhouse and then with acting coach Wynn Handman. Numerous stage and TV ap- pearances followed, along with a bit in Billy Wilder's Irma la Douce (1963) and his first major role as one of Olivia de Havilland's tormentors in Lady in a Cage (1964). He impressed as a stock-car racer in Red Line 7000 (1965) and a gambler who can't shoot in El Dorado (1967, both directed by Howard Hawks) and had leading roles in Games (1967), Submarine X-1, Countdown (directed by Robert Altman), and Journey to Shiloh (all 1968). He showed great sensitivity as a braindamaged football hero in Francis Ford Coppola's early film The Rain People (1969) and continued to display versatility in Rabbit, Run (1970) and T. R. Baskin (1971).
A one-two combination finally shot him to stardom: as the doomed football player Brian Piccolo in the hugely popular TV movie Brian's Song (1970) and a hotheaded Sonny Corleone in Coppola's epic gangster saga The Godfather (1972, a role he briefly reprised in the 1974 sequel). Caan earned a Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for The Godfather and then starred in a number of very different projects: Slither, Cinderella Liberty (both 1973), Freebie and the Bean (1974), and The Gambler (1974, one of his best performances), Funny Lady (as producersongwriter Billy Rose), The Killer Elite and Rollerball (all 1975). He even parodied himself in Mel Brooks' Silent Movie (1976).
Unfortunately, Caan was in a few too many misfires: Harry and Walter Go to New York (1976), A Bridge Too Far Claude Lelouch's Another Man, Another Chance (both 1977), Comes a Horseman (1978) and Chapter Two (1979). He made an impressive directorial debut with Hide in Plain Sight (1980), a drama-in which he also starred-about the witness protection program, but almost no one saw it. He then had one of his best roles in years as a master burglar in Thief (1981), but neither this nor the romantic fantasy Kiss Me Goodbye (1982) put him back on the A-list. He was sidelined by personal problems, and walked off the movie The Holcroft Covenant (1985). When he returned to films, after five years, as a tough Army sergeant in Coppola's Vietnam War-era Gardens of Stone (1987), Caan received some of the best reviews of his career. He was well cast as a cop in Alien Nation (1988), but his big break came when Warren Beatty dropped out of a project called Misery (1990). Caan stepped in, playing an author held hostage by a psycho fan. The movie was a hit, and though Kathy Bates' Oscar-winning performance got most of the attention, it was Caan's subtle work (confined to a bed and wheelchair for most of the proceedings) that made the movie work. Back in top form, Caan contributed a cameo to Dick Tracy (1990), played an egotistical showbiz star opposite Bette Midler in For the Boys (1991), a gangster who sets his sights on Sarah Jessica Parker (and won't take no for an answer) in Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), and a college football coach in The Program (1993). He also played Dennis Quaid's vicious father in Flesh and Bone (1993). |  |
