Despite an up-and-down career that was mired by excess and irrational behavior, actor James Caan was a gifted performer who was as capable of pulling heart strings as he was of breaking someones kneecaps. Caan emerged from the cauldron of New York Citys thriving acting scene in the 1950s to become a noted player on the stage and on television. Though he graduated to films soon after his salad days in New York after swearing off television for the next several years, he had his first big breakthrough on the small screen, playing dying football player Brian Piccolo in Brians Song (ABC, 1971). His performance in what was considered to be one of the best television movies ever made earned Caan considerable acclaim, as well as an Emmy Award nomination. But the following year put Caan on the map permanently, with his energetic portrayal of the hot-headed Sonny Corleone in The Godfather (1972), a role with which he was forever identified most notably in the numerous mobster roles he played in the ensuing decades. While he had several bright spots as a leading man throughout the years, including as a television regular on Las Vegas (NBC, 2003-08) and as the victim of an obsessive fan in the disturbing film, Misery (1990), Caan settled into a niche as character actor more often than not, performing some variation of the mobster role that made him famous.
Born on March 26, 1939 in The Bronx, NY, Caan was raised in Sunnyside, Queens one of three children by his father, Arthur, a butcher and his mother, Sophie. Both his parents were Jewish immigrants from Germany who fled the Nazis before the war. He attended P.S. 150 Christopher Street School in Brooklyn, where he caused untold amounts of trouble and was eventually kicked out, though whether or not dropping a fellow student out of a window on a bet contributed to his departure remained unclear. Caan eventually made his way to the Rhodes Preparatory School, where he continued raising hell while stuffing the ballot box to become president of the student body, as well as playing several sports, including baseball, basketball and football. After graduating a year before his fellow classmates, Caan attended Michigan State University in East Lansing, MI. He majored in economics and continued playing football, but soon found himself homesick. Caan soon transferred to Hofstra University in Hempstead, NY, which is where he discovered acting.
With the prospect of entering the meat delivery business with his father as his one career option, he began taking acting seriously, studying with such esteemed coaches as Wyn Handman at the American Place Theatre and Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse. After spending several years honing his craft in the classroom, he had one of his first parts in La Ronde, Arthur Schnitzlers examination of early 20th century class division and sexual mores. He made the jump to the small screen with episodes of various popular television shows, including Naked City (ABC, 1958-1963), The Untouchables (ABC, 1959-1963) and the anthology series Alcoa Premiere (ABC, 1961-63), which featured a new one-hour drama every week. Following episodes of Doctor Kildare (NBC, 1961-66) and Ben Casey (ABC, 1961-66), Caan began his film career with an uncredited walk-on as an anonymous soldier in the Billy Wilder comedy "Irma La Douce" (1963). He made his official film debut in the campy thriller Lady in a Cage (1964), playing a ruthless thug who terrorizes a wealthy widow (Olivia de Havilland).
Within just a few years after making his screen debut, Caan landed his first leading role, starring in Howard Hawks tense race car drama, Red Line 7000 (1965). He followed with a supporting turn as a young gunslinger opposite John Wayne and Robert Mitchum in Hawks gritty, but redemptive Western, El Dorado (1967). Now determined to carve a career in film, Caan starred in the psychological thriller, Games (1967), which he followed with a turn as an American astronaut who journeys to the moon only to discover the Russians beat the United States to the punch in the early Robert Altman feature, Countdown (1968). After starring in forgettable movies like Journey to Shiloh (1968) and Perlas Ng Silangan (1969), Caan was a brain-damaged hitchhiker who encounters a disillusioned housewife (Shirley Knight) trying to escape the trappings of her domestic life in one of Francis Ford Coppolas first features, The Rain People (1969).
Continuing along in features, he starred as the titular former high school basketball player in the failed adaptation of John Updikes Rabbit, Run (1970). In the long-forgotten romantic comedy T.R. Baskin (1971), he was the short-time beau of a na
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