James Caan Biography

MARITAL STATUS
Professions Actor , Director
Birth name James Edmund Caan
Nationality American
Birth March 26, 1940 (The Bronx, New York – United States)
Death July 6, 2022

BIOGRAPHY
After spending his youth in Queens, New York, James Caan attended Michigan State University at the age of sixteen to study economics and play American football. He then moved on to legal training at Hofstra University , but an audition allowed him to enter Sanford Meisner ‘s Neighborhood Playhouse . He subsequently obtained a scholarship to study with Wynn Handman, a famous drama teacher, and landed the first four roles for which he was auditioned. James Caan debuted on stage in 1961 in “La Ronde” then played on Broadway “Mandingo” and “Blood, Sweat and Stanley Poole” . After several appearances in TV series ( Naked City , The Incorruptibles , etc.), he appeared for the first time in the cinema in Irma la Douce (1963) by Billy Wilder and after a notable appearance in two feature films by Howard Hawks ( Line Red 7000 (1965) and El Dorado (1967) alongside John Wayne ), he found himself headlining People of the Rain (1969) by Francis Ford Coppola . After his brilliant performance as a trepanned footballer, he turned again under the direction of Coppola in The Godfather , where in the role of the brutal Sonny Corleone he formed an astonishing contrast with the other, more intellectual son, played by Al Pacino . This family fresco established him in Hollywood and allowed him to be nominated in 1972 for the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. Now a leading actor, he plays a university professor prey to the demon of gambling in Le Flambeur (1974) and opposite Barbra Streisand in the musical Funny Lady (1975) by Herbert Ross . In 1975, his past as a great sportsman allowed James Caan to take on particularly physical roles: he performed his own stunts in the futuristic and violent Rollerball by Norman Jewison and practiced martial arts for the needs of Elite Killer , a film by Sam Peckinpah ‘s espionage . The following year, he joined the prestigious cast of A Bridge Too Far (1977) and was directed by Claude Lelouch in Another Man, Another Chance (id.),

western with the United States of the 1870s as a backdrop. The two men collaborated together again on Les Uns et les autres in 1981.

In 1980, James Caan appeared for the first and only time in The Impossible Witness which turned out to be a commercial failure. Despite everything, he continued his film career by playing the burglar ace in The Solitaire (1981) by Michael Mann . After a five-year absence from the screen, he reunited with the director who made him internationally known, Francis Ford Coppola , for Gardens of Stone (1987), a military drama set in the Vietnam War. He continued with the filming of Immediate Future Los Angeles 1991 (1988), where he played a police officer collaborating with an alien, then played the gangster Spaldoni opposite Warren Beatty in the police comedy Dick Tracy (1990).

In the 90s, James Caan showed himself to be more prolific: he was in turn the writer Paul Sheldon held prisoner by Kathy Bates in Misery (1990), the film adaptation of the novel by Stephen King , the great music hall star Eddie Sparks in For the Boys (1991), the murderous father of Dennis Quaid in Flesh and Bone (1993) or the mentor and adversary of Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Eraser (1996).

The broad-shouldered actor also demonstrates remarkable charisma when it comes to playing a disreputable employer in The Yards (2000) or a henchman responsible for dirty work in Way of the gun (id. ). These rather serious roles, however, did not prevent him from playing in lighter films like Mickey Blue Eyes (1999), where he parodied himself as a mafia godfather, and Elf (2003), where he slipped into the skin of a sinister editor father of a funny individual ( Will Ferrell ) raised among elves.

In 2003, James Caan left cinema and returned to his roots by filming for the small screen. In addition to appearing in numerous TV films for American television, he plays the character of Ed Deline, head of security of a large casino, in the series Las Vegas , and also appears in season 2 of Magic City .

He returned to the big screen in 2008 by playing the President of the United States alongside Steve Carell in Max the Menace , as well as by joining the glittery cast of New York, I Love You , led in particular by Natalie Portman , Bradley Cooper and Orlando Bloom again . The following year, the actor tried his hand again at dubbing an animated film for Storm of Giant Meatballs , before returning to the sets in 2012 for Detachment , a “social film” under the direction of Tony Kaye .

At the end of his career, between several minor productions, James Caan collaborated twice with French filmmakers: Guillaume Canet for his thriller Blood Ties (2013), and Amanda Sthers on the drama Les Terres Saintes (2019). He was to appear in the Megalopolis project by Francis Ford Coppola, carried out by the American filmmaker for many years.