73 Facts About James Caan

1.

James Caan reprised his role in The Godfather Part II.

2.

James Caan received a motion pictures star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1978.

3.

James Caan received Golden Globe Award nominations for his performances in the drama The Gambler, and the musical Funny Lady.

4.

James Caan continued to receive significant roles in feature films such as Cinderella Liberty, Rollerball, A Bridge Too Far, Comes a Horseman, Chapter Two and Thief.

5.

James Caan was born on March 26,1940, in The Bronx, New York City, to Sophie and Arthur James Caan, Jewish immigrants from Germany.

6.

One of three siblings, James Caan grew up in Sunnyside, Queens.

7.

James Caan was educated in New York City, and later attended Michigan State University.

8.

James Caan was a member of the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity during his two years at Michigan State.

9.

James Caan later transferred to Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, but did not graduate.

10.

James Caan began appearing off-Broadway in plays such as Arthur Schnitzler's La Ronde before making his 1961 Broadway debut in Blood, Sweat and Stanley Poole, his first significant acting role.

11.

James Caan guest starred on Ben Casey and Kraft Suspense Theatre.

12.

People thought James Caan was going to be a star pretty much from the get-go.

13.

James Caan had roles in The Alfred Hitchcock Hour and Wagon Train.

14.

James Caan was fourth-billed in a Western feature, The Glory Guys.

15.

In 1965, James Caan landed his first starring role, in Howard Hawks' auto-racing drama Red Line 7000.

16.

James Caan then had the starring role in Robert Altman's second feature film, Countdown and was second billed in the Curtis Harrington thriller Games.

17.

James Caan went to Britain to star in a war film, Submarine X-1, then played the lead in a Western, Journey to Shiloh.

18.

James Caan won praise for his role as a brain-damaged football player in The Rain People, directed by Francis Ford Coppola.

19.

James Caan starred with Stefanie Powers in a Western called Gone with the West filmed in 1969 that was not released until 1975.

20.

None of these films, apart from El Dorado, were particularly successful at the box office, including Rabbit, Run, based on the John Updike novel, in which James Caan had the lead.

21.

James Caan returned to the small screen with the TV movie Brian's Song, playing dying football player Brian Piccolo, opposite Billy Dee Williams.

22.

James Caan did not want to return to television and turned down the role several times, but changed his mind after reading the script.

23.

The film was a huge critical success and James Caan's performance earned him an Emmy nomination.

24.

Government agents briefly mistook James Caan, who was relatively unknown at the time, as an aspiring mobster.

25.

James Caan was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the film, along with co-stars Robert Duvall and Pacino.

26.

James Caan was in a road movie, Slither, based on a script by W D Richter, and a romantic comedy with Marsha Mason, Cinderella Liberty, directed by Mark Rydell.

27.

James Caan received good reviews for playing the title role in The Gambler, based on a script by James Toback originally written for Robert De Niro, and directed by Karel Reisz.

28.

James Caan reprised his role as Sonny Corleone for a flashback scene in The Godfather Part II.

29.

James Caan had a hit with Funny Lady playing Billy Rose opposite Barbra Streisand's Fanny Brice.

30.

James Caan made a cameo in Mel Brooks' Silent Movie, and tried comedy with Rydell's Harry and Walter Go to New York.

31.

James Caan was so unhappy with the latter he sacked his management.

32.

James Caan was one of many stars in the war film A Bridge Too Far.

33.

James Caan had a change of pace when he went to France to make Another Man, Another Chance for director Claude Lelouch alongside Genevieve Bujold, which Caan did for "peanuts" and "loved" the experience.

34.

Back in the United States, Caan made a modern-day Western, Comes a Horseman, with Jane Fonda for director Alan J Pakula.

35.

James Caan was reunited with Marsha Mason in the film adaptation of Neil Simon's autobiographical Chapter Two.

36.

James 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.

37.

In 1978, James Caan directed Hide in Plain Sight, a film about a father searching for his children, who were lost in the Witness Protection Program.

38.

James Caan liked his performances in The Rain People and Thief.

39.

James Caan had a role in Claude Lelouch's Les Uns et les Autres, which was popular in France, and won the Technical Grand Prize at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival.

40.

In Hollywood, James Caan appeared in the neo-noir film Thief, directed by Michael Mann, in which he played a professional safe cracker.

41.

James Caan always praised Mann's script and direction and often said that, next to The Godfather, Thief was the movie of which he was proudest.

42.

James Caan walked off the set of The Holcroft Covenant and was replaced by Michael Caine.

43.

James Caan devoted much of his time during these years to coaching children's sports.

44.

James Caan returned to acting in 1987, when Coppola cast him as an army platoon sergeant for the 3rd US Infantry Regiment in Gardens of Stone, a movie that dealt with the effect of the Vietnam War on the United States homefront.

45.

James Caan 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 of Holcroft.

46.

The movie was not a popular success but Alien Nation, where James Caan played a cop who partnered with an alien, did well.

47.

James Caan was planning to make an action film in Italy, but then heard Rob Reiner was looking for a leading man in his adaptation of Stephen King's Misery.

48.

James Caan had a small role in The Dark Backward and co-starred with Bette Midler in the expensive For the Boys, directed by Rydell who called James Caan "one of the four or five best actors in America".

49.

James Caan was a gangster in the comedy Honeymoon in Vegas and played Coach Winters in The Program.

50.

James Caan had supporting roles in Flesh and Bone and A Boy Called Hate, the latter starring his son Scott Caan.

51.

In 1998, James Caan portrayed Philip Marlowe in the HBO film Poodle Springs.

52.

James Caan was a gangster for comedy in Mickey Blue Eyes, with Hugh Grant.

53.

James Caan starred in TV movies like Warden of Red Rock and A Glimpse of Hell, and was in some thrillers: Viva Las Nowhere, In the Shadows, and Night at the Golden Eagle.

54.

James Caan was in Lathe of Heaven with Lukas Haas, City of Ghosts with Matt Dillon, Blood Crime, The Incredible Mrs Ritchie, and Jericho Mansions.

55.

In 2003, James Caan portrayed Jimmy the Con in the film This Thing of Ours, whose associate producer was Sonny Franzese, longtime mobster and underboss of the Colombo crime family.

56.

On February 27,2007,27 days before his 67th birthday, James Caan announced that he would not return to the show for its fifth season to return to film work; he was replaced by Tom Selleck.

57.

James Caan had a role in the TV movie Wisegal, played the President of the United States in the 2008 film Get Smart, and had a part in the movie Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.

58.

James Caan was one of many stars in New York, I Love You and had a support role in Middle Men.

59.

James Caan did Mercy, starring and written by his son Scott.

60.

James Caan appeared in Henry's Crime, Detachment, Small Apartments, That's My Boy with Adam Sandler, For the Love of Money, and Blood Ties.

61.

In 2012, James Caan was a guest star on the re-imagined Hawaii Five-0 TV series, playing opposite his son, Scott James Caan who played Danny "Danno" Williams.

62.

In 2013, James Caan portrayed Chicago mob kingpin Sy Berman in the Starz TV drama Magic City.

63.

James Caan tried another regular series, the sitcom Back in the Game with Maggie Lawson.

64.

James Caan returned to film work with A Fighting Man and The Outsider.

65.

In 2014, James Caan appeared in the dramatic comedy Preggoland, playing a father who is disappointed with his daughter's lack of ambition, but who becomes overjoyed when she announces that she is pregnant.

66.

James Caan had the lead in The Good Neighbor, The Red Maple Leaf, and Undercover Grandpa.

67.

Caan was married to Ingrid Hajek from September 1990 to March 1994; they had a son, Alexander James Caan, born 1991.

68.

In 1994, James Caan was arrested and released after being accused by a Los Angeles rap artist of pulling a gun on him.

69.

James Caan trained with Takayuki Kubota for nearly 30 years, earning various ranks.

70.

James Caan was a Master of Gosoku-ryu Karate and was granted the title of Soke Dai by the International Karate Association.

71.

James Caan supported Donald Trump during the 2016 United States presidential election.

72.

On July 6,2022, James Caan died at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles from a heart attack caused by coronary artery disease; he was 82.

73.

Tributes to James Caan were paid by Rob Reiner, Francis Ford Coppola, Barbra Streisand, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Talia Shire, Robert Duvall, and Will Ferrell among others.