James Caan Dies: ‘The Godfather’ Oscar Nominee, ‘Brian’s Song’ & ‘Elf’ Star Was 82
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James Caan, the tough-guy actor who scored an Oscar nom as mafioso Sonny Corleone in The Godfather and an Emmy nom for playing NFL running back Brian Piccolo in Brian’s Song, among a host of big film and TV roles including Elf and Las Vegas, died Wednesday night in Los Angeles. He was 82. His family confirmed the news on Caan’s Twitter page but gave no other details.
“It is with great sadness that we inform you of the passing of Jimmy on the evening of July 6,” the tweet reads. “The family appreciates the outpouring of love and heartfelt condolences and asks that you continue to respect their privacy during this difficult time.”
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“Jimmy was one of the greatest,” his rep Matt DelPiano said today. “Not only was he one of the best actors our business has ever seen, he was funny, loyal, caring and beloved. Our relationship was always friendship before business. I will miss him dearly and am proud to have worked with him all these years. My thoughts and prayers are with his entire family during this difficult time.”
James Caan: A Career In Pictures
Everett Collection
After a decade in the business, Caan shot to fame in the early 1970s with back-to-back signature roles. He earned an Emmy nom as the real-life cancer-stricken Chicago Bears running back Brian Piccolo in ABC’s Brian’s Song, alongside Billy Dee Williams as fellow Bears running back Gale Sayers. The heart-rending tale of the hard-forged friendship among the NFL’s first interracial roommates was the most-watched TV movie ever at that point, with a 32.9 rating/48 share and went on to win five Emmys including Outstanding Single Program – Drama or Comedy.
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In a 2011 interview with the Television Academy Foundation (watch it here), Emmy-winning Brian’s Song screenwriter William Blinn said: “Jimmy’s Jimmy. He always had a cockiness, a confidence. Very competitive. Edgy, in the best sense of the word. But he’s a guy with all the pluses and minuses you can have.”
Caan followed that success with his best-known role: the hotheaded, violent and vengeful Sonny Corleone, eldest son of Don Corleone (Marlon Brando), in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather. The film based on Mario Puzo’s bestseller won the Best Picture Oscar and is considered among the greatest movies of all time. Caan’s onscreen death amid a hail of bullets also is considered among cinema’s best.
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Caan was Oscar-nominated for Best Supporting Actor, as were his co-stars Al Pacino and Robert De Niro (Joel Grey won for Cabaret.) He later would reprise the Sonny character for a slew of Godfather-based video games in the mid-2000s.
“Caan had a great sense of humor but also was a serious student of his craft,” said Deadline’s Editor-at-Large Peter Bart, who was VP Production at Paramount Pictures when The Godfather was made. “On The Godfather, he made a point on spending time with real mafiosa, who were introduced to him by colleagues. He would have drinks and dinners, ask questions, study their reactions to his comments, even foment arguments so he could study their reactions. He also solicited advice on weapons and wanted insights into hit jobs. All this epitomized his complete professionalism as a consummate actor.”
The Corleone and Piccolo roles sent Caan into Hollywood’s stratosphere, and he followed up with star turns in such films as Slither, Freebie and the Bean, Funny Lady, Rollerball, A Bridge Too Far, Chapter Two, Harry and Walter Go to New York, Comes a Horseman, Hide in Plain Sight — also his lone directing credit — Misery, Honeymoon in Vegas, Mickey Blue Eyes, For the Boys Elf and many more. He also appeared voiced a role in the Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs films; appeared in Mel Brooks’ Silent Movie and Warren Beatty’s Dick Tracy; and was unbilled extra in Steven Spielberg’s 1941, taking part in the wild fight sequence during a USO dance contest.
Caan also toplined Michael Mann’s 1981 thriller Thief, playing an ace safecracker who takes on one last gig for the mob before retiring. Tuesday Weld and Willie Nelson also starred in the pic, which was a Palme d’Or nominee at Cannes that year.
Caan was in production on several films at the time of his death including hitman thriller Fast Charlie, directed by Philip Noyce; Tom Burruss’ Redemption; and André Gordon’s Acre Beyond the Rye.
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Born on March 26, 1940 in The Bronx, Caan got his acting start guesting on such popular 1960s TV series as Route 66, The Untouchables, Dr. Kildare, Ben Casey, Wagon, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, The F.B.I., Death Valley Days and Get Smart! Amid all his big-screen success, he would return to TV often during his 60-year career. He toplined the 2003-08 NBC drama Las Vegas, playing a hard-driving ex-CIA agent who runs security at a glamorous casino resort. Josh Duhamel and Nikki Cox also starred.
He also was a regular guest on The Mike Douglas Show, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and subsequent late-night talkers hosted by David Letterman, Jay Leno, Conan O’Brien and Jimmy Kimmel.
More recently, Caan recurred as a Chicago mob boss in Starz’s 2012-13 crime drama Magic City, opposite Jeffrey Dean Morgan. He followed that up with the ABC sitcom Back in the Game, starring as Terry “The Cannon” Gannon,” a beer-soaked ex-Big League baseball player whose daughter (Maggie Lawson) and grandson (Griffin Gluck) move in with him after her divorce. It lasted 13 episodes.
He also appeared opposite his son, Scott Caan, in CBS’ Hawaii Five-O reboot and voiced a character on Family Guy.
Everett Collection
Among Caan’s most popular 21st century roles was in Elf, the 2003 Christmas movie starring Will Ferrell as Buddy, an orphan who is raised by elves at the North Pole and experiences culture shock — and romance — when he ventures to New York City to find his biological parents. Caan played Walter Hobbs, the father Buddy never knew who worked at a children’s book publisher in Manhattan. A tale of family love and redemption ensues, after many comic, often manic, episodes. Zooey Deschanel and Bob Newhart memorably co-starred.
Caan had another signature film role in the 1990 Stephen King adaptation Misery. He starred opposite Kathy Bates, who won the Best Actress Oscar for her role as a fanatical reader of the novels by Caan’s Paul Sheldon. After he crashes his car during a blizzard, breaking his legs and injuring his shoulder, Sheldon awakens to find himself in the care of Annie, his “No. 1 fan.” But when she learns that the lead character in Sheldon’s books, Misery Chastain, dies in his latest novel, Annie becomes enraged. The scene where she hobbles the bedridden author by using a sledgehammer on his ankles remains a wince-inducing classic. “Trust me,” she says before doing the deed. “It’s for the best.”
His other post-2000 films include The Yards, Luckytown, The Way of the Gun, Henry’s Crime, Detachment, Small Apartments, For the Love of Money, Blood Ties and That’s My Boy with Adam Sandler. His most recent film was last year’s Queen Bees,starring opposite Ellen Burstyn, Jane Curtin, Ann-Margret and Loretta Devine. Read Deadline’s review here.
Caan was married four times between 1960 and 2017, all ending in divorce, and had five children: daughter Tara and sons Scott, Alexander, James and Jacob.
It is with great sadness that we inform you of the passing of Jimmy on the evening of July 6.
The family appreciates the outpouring of love and heartfelt condolences and asks that you continue to respect their privacy during this difficult time.
End of tweet
— James Caan (@James_Caan) July 7, 2022
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