Oscar-Nominated ‘The Godfather’ Actor James Caan Passes Away At 82
08-Jul-2022
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In a year when the world is celebrating the golden jubilee of ‘The Godfather’, James Caan, one of the film’s many actors who’ll never be forgotten, passed away on Wednesday (U.S. Pacific Time), according to an announcement by his family on Twitter. Best remembered for playing Sonny Corleone, the hotheaded, loose-fisted son of the Don, Caan was 82 when he breathed his last.
“It is with great sadness that we inform you of the passing of Jimmy on the evening of July 6,” the brief tweet reads, according to ‘Variety’. “The family appreciates the outpouring of love and heartfelt condolences and asks that you continue to respect their privacy during this difficult time.”
Caan also had substantial roles in other notable films, including ‘Misery’, ‘Elf’, ‘Thief’, ‘Godfather Part II’, ‘Brian’s Song’ and ‘The Gambler’, notes ‘Variety’, adding that Sonny’s violent end in a vendetta killing in Francis Ford Coppola’s iconic movie — “riddled, as he is, with dozens of bullets — is one of the most memorable scenes in a film filled with them”.
Caan, according to ‘Variety’, initially auditioned for the role of Michael, the college-educated war-hero son who would ultimately become Don, and the studio, Paramount, supported this casting for a time, but Al Pacino, as we all know, was cast as Michael and Caan as Sonny “as part of a complex compromise between Paramount and Coppola”.
Coppola and Caan, incidentally, were classmates at Hofstra University, where the Bronx-born James Edmund Caan went after studying at Michigan State University (he played American football for the university team).
Caan, who was working till 2013 and even lent his voice to ‘The Godfather’ video games, would repeatedly essay characters with a penchant for violence, notes ‘Variety’. His most notable decade, though, was the 1970s.
