Last night actor James Caan, known for many outstanding performances throughout his long career in television and especially the big screen, died of undisclosed causes. For some reason, I was thinking about him the other day, and I think it had to do with television series I had seen him in. According to this article, his television debut was in Naked City, a series I really enjoy watching decades after it was made. I liked him in perhaps his most famous television performance, Brian's Song, a biopic in which he played the doomed football player Brian Piccolo.
Caan knew a lot about athletics from the time he was in high school, and he had actually been a pro rodeo performer at one time. He also was an expert in the martial arts.
Caan was also an expert in the marital arts, with four wives and five children. His last marriage was the longest, about 20 years technically, but the last ex-wife had allegedly spent a ton of "his" money forcing him to delay a much-wanted retirement. He continued to make films until last year's Queen Bees. His best years were during the 1970s, with The Godfather being the most important of those films.
From everything I read, nobody had a bad word to say about him. He seemed to be well-liked and respected by everybody. One of the main reasons he didn't make as many films in the 1980s, at the peak of his popularity, is because his beloved sister, Barbara, had died at the age of only 38 of leukemia. The death hit him very hard. He had a self-destructive streak during that time with drug and alcohol problems, which he overcame. He spent much of the decade living in semi-obscurity, spending much time with his young son Scott (from his brief marriage to Sheila Ryan, who herself passed away in 2012, a day after her 60th birthday). As everybody knows, he did come back to films as popular as ever.
Caan was survived by five children and four grandchildren.
NYT obit:
Born on March 26, 1940, in the Bronx, James Edmund Caan grew up in Queens, the son of Arthur Caan, a wholesale dealer of kosher meat, and Sophie (Falkenstein) Caan, a homemaker.
Street life held his interest more than classrooms did. He dropped out of several schools before settling down at Rhodes Preparatory School in Manhattan, where he graduated in 1956 at age 16.
At Michigan State University, he hoped to make the football team but failed. He switched to Hofstra University on Long Island — Mr. Coppola was a classmate — but dropped out before long. Nonetheless, his interest in acting was kindled there. He went on to study for five years at the well-regarded Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theater in Manhattan.
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