Yahoo News James Caan Was Always the Coolest Guy in the Room
One look at James Caan was all it took to know that he was always the coolest guy in the room, and part of that came from the fact that he didn’t seem to give a damn what anyone else thought about him. Nonetheless, moviegoers of all ages are today mourning his passing at the age of 82 on Wednesday evening, given that it robs the world of a distinctive New Hollywood star whose charisma, attitude, and dexterity resulted in a six-decade career marked by a raft of beloved classics.
Any appreciation of Caan must begin, invariably, with Francis Ford Coppola’s 1972 masterpiece The Godfather and the actor’s legendary turn as Sonny Corleone, the hotheaded eldest son of Marlon Brando’s Don Vito, and a guided-by-passion macho character who came to indelibly define Caan’s big-screen presence (he was the son of a Jewish butcher who grew up in Sunnyside, Queens, after all). Sonny’s tough-guy bluster and take-no-shit cockiness felt like organic extensions of the real Caan, and his performance’s magnetism was so intense that it not only earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor but instantly rocketed him into the industry’s highest echelon. Even in a film filled with established and up-and-coming luminaries, and in a role that didn’t survive to make it to The Godfather: Part II (save for a brief cameo), Caan was an undeniable powerhouse. While he’d already partnered with Howard Hawks (Red Line 7000, El Dorado), Robert Altman (Countdown), and Coppola (The Rain People)—as well as starred in the hit 1971 TV movie Brian’s Song as dying Chicago Bears running back Brian Piccolo, opposite Billy Dee Williams—Sonny forever changed his professional trajectory.
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The Godfather made Caan an undisputed star, and his '70s run ably confirmed that status, with the actor headlining a diverse collection of projects that often hinged on his manly-man allure. The 1974 Dostoevsky adaptation The Gambler (which netted him a Golden Globe nod for Best Actor), playing a New York City English professor with a destructive gambling addiction, was precisely the sort of part fit for his unique energy: confident yet frantic, desperate yet self-assured. Seven years later, he’d channel that electricity to even more dazzling effect in Michael Mann’s 1981 feature debut Thief, arguably the crowning achievement of his career, embodying an expert jewel thief looking to escape his criminal trade for a quieter life with Tuesday Weld’s cashier. The film’s diner scene—dominated by his minutes-long monologue—is his absolute apex, with Caan radiating both self-possession and a degree of intimacy that makes Frank the epitome of neo-noir badassery. It’s no surprise that he considered it to be among his very best.
There were plenty of other creative triumphs during Caan’s '70s heyday, including Sam Peckinpah’s The Killer Elite, the Barbra Streisand musical comedy Funny Girl, Norman Jewison’s sci-fi sports actioner Rollerball, and Mark Rydell’s period comedy Harry and Walter Go to New York (alongside Elliott Gould, Michael Caine, and Diane Keaton). Due to a variety of personal issues—as well as the general ups and downs of the business—the '80s were a far less productive and rewarding stretch. However, he began his ascent back to the proverbial mountaintop in 1988 with Alien Nation, in which he played a human detective paired with one of the many extraterrestrials (Mandy Patinkin) intent on integrating themselves into human society. The film itself may not be much, but it spawned something of a franchise, and moreover, it reestablished Caan’s leading-man bona fides. He’d subsequently demonstrate those again in Misery, Rob Reiner’s smash 1990 adaptation of Stephen King’s novel about a genre author who finds himself the prisoner of a crazed fan, and who ultimately suffers an unforgettable leg-related nightmare courtesy of his zealous captor (played by Kathy Bates in her own Oscar-winning tour de force).
Misery was a commercial and critical success, and it kickstarted the second fruitful phase of Caan’s cinematic tenure, highlighted by his performances as an amusing bad guy in Honeymoon in Vegas, an even funnier karate-obsessed landscaper/criminal bigwig in Wes Anderson’s directorial debut Bottle Rocket (Caan himself was a real-life karate master), a football coach dealing with a dysfunctional Division I squad in The Program, and a villainous government agent in the 1996 Arnold Schwarzenegger blockbuster Eraser. In all those endeavors, Caan exuded his highly particular and inimitable force of personality, proving capable of segueing at a moment’s notice between rugged intimidation and compassionate understanding. Furthermore, you always got the sense that he was never bullshitting you—a fact underscored by the less-than-nice things he had to say about Bette Midler following 1991’s middling For The Boys, which remains the type of blunt, shooting-from-the-hip candidness one came to expect from the A-lister.
Over the next twenty years, Caan lent his formidable talents to a handful of celebrated ventures, be it James Gray’s The Yards, Christopher McQuarrie’s The Way of the Gun, or Lars von Trier’s Dogville. Yet the film that most endeared him to millennial and Gen-Z viewers was unquestionably Will Ferrell’s 2003 holiday comedy Elf, starring as a Grinch-like children’s book publisher whose corporate Manhattan life is turned upside-down by the unexpected appearance of his blissfully naïve and cheery son, who’s grown up in the North Pole and believes himself to be one of Santa’s helpers. It’s a part that plays to Caan’s brusque, imposing brashness and his underlying sweetness, and is as responsible as Ferrell’s good-natured goofiness for that yuletide saga’s enduring popularity.
Caan was additionally well-known for the many famous roles he passed on (The French Connection, Superman, Apocalypse Now, and numerous others), as well as for recounting stories about the Hollywood in which he operated and for bristling (to put it mildly) at the more press-related requirements of his job. Those anecdotes are as intrinsic to his persona as his screen performances, and will undoubtedly be shared far and wide in the news and on social media in the days and weeks to come. That will be somewhat fitting, since Caan also recently made a name for himself on Twitter, via hilarious and charming posts—primarily about his past films and collaborators—that were famous for closing with “End of Tweet.” Still, though he may be gone, there’ll never be a true end to his legacy so long as there are cinephiles curious and eager enough to seek out his legitimately great body of work.
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