A Conversation with James Caan

A CONVERSATION WITH

James Caan

By Brennen Matthews Photographs by Iconic Images

This is not the intro that I envisioned writing for this conversation. I expected to speak about James Caan’s iconic stature in film — he’s done over 130 films and been a soughtafter star for much of his fabled career. He’s worked with many of the biggest names in entertainment — at their request — yet has a personal journey that many will relate to. His humble beginnings and “average Joe” attitude and outlook on life had always allowed audiences to root for him. James and I started this conversation back in 2021, but I sensed that there was still more to his story than what we had managed to dive into that lovely afternoon together, so we planned to reconnect later and continue our discussion. Neither of us could have known that that was the last time we would speak. Sadly, James Caan passed away unexpectedly on July 6, 2022. This conversation is also a tribute to the man, father, actor, friend, and the larger than life individual that was James Caan. I will remember him as being funny and sarcastic, at times uncomfortably straightforward, and always respectful. He was, without a doubt, one of the last great leading men in Hollywood.

You are New York born and bred and got into theater before finding your way onto the Big Screen. What was your journey into the arts like?

Well, I grew up in a neighborhood that wasn’t very conducive to the arts. Sunnyside is particularly clean, but there are not too many singers and dancers or whatnot. So, I played a lot of ball, you know. Other than that, it was just going to the movies, sneaking into the movies on a Saturday. One guy would open the back door and we’d all sneak into the matinees, all that stuff. A lot of fighting and a lot of growing up in a real New York neighborhood. It was kind of great.

I went to P.S. 150 [Queens], where I remained a terror for a while, then I left, went out to Jackson Heights, and into a school called Rhodes [Preparatory School] in New York. It’s on 54th Street between 5th and 6th Avenue. But I became the student body president as a sophomore.

I had my gang already stuffing mailboxes and then I played baseball and basketball for them, and then I went to Michigan State when I was 16. Now, most people think that’s because I was smart, but that is not the case at all. I was not smart. I mean, I wasn’t dumb, but I wasn’t smart. They wanted me out of there. [Rhodes Preparatory School] wanted me out. I was a little too much trouble. So, I went [to Michigan State] and lied about my age. I got homesick — I missed my girlfriend — so I transferred out of there to go to Hofstra College at 18.

Great school. What did you study?

I didn’t know what I wanted; I changed my major every three minutes. Hofstra was an ROTC [Reserve Officer’s Training Corps] school, so Tuesdays and Thursdays you had to get the uniform on, I was a 2nd lieutenant. About two weeks before graduation I was on my way to class in my uniform, looking spiffy, but I didn’t have my name tag on one day. I was stopped and asked, “Soldier, where’s your name tag?” I didn’t know, I had lost it or something. I said, “You have got to be kidding me!” Suddenly I was in a fist fight with two of them and that was the end of my ROTC

What did your dad have you doing at the meat markets?

My dad was a butcher and serviced restaurants in Manhattan, so he’d go pick up the meat, he’d go deliver the meat, and take the orders. I don’t know how many restaurants he had, maybe ten. And then my uncle, who had a big freezer down there, put me to work. My job was unloading hindquarters of beef from like 4:30 in the morning right out by the Hudson River. I knew that I didn’t want to do that for the rest of my life. It was brutal, taking them out of those freezer trucks and carrying them into the freezer to get warm, by the way, they were warm at 32, so I knew that wasn’t it for me.

When did it connect for you that you wanted to be an actor?

Looking back, I really enjoyed making people laugh. I liked to be a clown and make them laugh. I don’t know if that has something to do with it or not, but it’s a performance, anyway, and I enjoyed it. I think deep down inside we all have these horrible things inside of us that make us feel rotten and I like to kinda conjure them out of there. I loved hanging out, I liked people. As far as acting is concerned, I did a play, a showman’s play, when I was about 15 or 16, and I kind of liked it.

One day I stopped at the Neighborhood Playhouse [School of the Theatre] and just decided, “Let me try this.” And you had to have three separate readings over the course of a year. One in September, one in December, and one later in June or whatever, and then you’d find out if you got admitted or not. They take 30 boys and girls a year from across the country.

I walked in there about ten days before school started and said, “I’d like to go here.” And they said, “Next year?” “No, no, I mean now.” It’s ten days before school starts. “Well, we’re filled up for this date.” And I said, “Well, do you mind if I just sit outside your door?” He said, “What for?” “Well, if somebody’s late or if they leave early you know, I’ll just pop my head inside and be done with it.” So, I did that, and after about twenty minutes, someone was late, so I walked in, and Mr. Pressman — the head of the school — I went in with him and we had a great time, and he took me right away. He said, ‘this guy must be nuts,’ and he liked that, so he accepted my application.

What was your father’s reaction to you heading in the performing arts direction?

I wasn’t sure how I was going to tell my father. So, I was going to work with him [the next day], I’m in the truck and everything, and I said, “Hey pop, pull over here.” We were in front of a ballet school. He asked me what I needed to get for school. I needed to get leotards, the belt and slippers… the whole thing. They handed it to me in a plastic bag with a button on it. I looked at it and asked, “Do you have a brown bag?” So, I went back to the truck and my dad asked me what’s in the bag. I said, “Dad, it’s something for school. It’s nothing.” “I’m gonna ask you again, what’s in the bag?” I showed him and he never said a word all the way home. He just whistled. (Laughs)

My dad had to pay the $800 for the tuition and he used to tell me, “C’mon, do that little thing where you turn around,

the pirouette, whatever you call that, show me what cost me $800.” (Laughs)

I was at the playhouse for one year.

At that point, were you still living at home?

Yeah, for a while, and then I got married real quick, and I got this off-Broadway show. That was right after I finished [school]. I lived on 67th Street in a very fancy building, but we only had an “L” apartment, you know, one of those little L’s. The doormen, they’d say, “Hello Mr. Caan and Mrs. Caan.” It was great, $69 or something like that. I went to the pool room and played poker on Friday nights, and I had this offBroadway show that I did for about 8-9 months, which got me $45 a week; $38.50 take home. I had a good poker game, and we did okay. My wife was a lead dancer for the Mitch Miller show, so we lived pretty good.

You went on to do an episode, “And the Cat Jumped Over the Moon,” on the TV show Route 66 on CBS.

At the time there were three television shows that hit New York; there was Naked City, and then Route 66 when they came east, and Playhouse 90 or Play of the Week as it was called.

On Route 66, my co-star was Martin Sheen. He played opposite — I was a gang member, I was the leader of the gang, and we used to have these, you know, where you pass the exam to get into the gang? We used to hang out in Philadelphia; we were on the twenty-fourth story of the telephone company building and hanging on a post with one arm on the outside of a step, and I was holding his arm in my [hand], that was scary. I did that, I wouldn’t have done that if there weren’t any girls, but there were girls around there, so I did it. (Laughs)

What was it like being on television for the first time?

Well, I mean, the Playhouse 90… it was live, we literally did it live, and that was a little frightening, but we did it. The other was just like a film, so we weren’t really being seen until they were ready to show you, but the live show, you better be ready, it was amazing. Pretty scary, though.

Your first film was Lady in a Cage in 1964 with Olivia de Havilland. You were 23. Then you went on to star in El Dorado in 1966 with John Wayne and Robert Mitchum. What was it like working with such legends?

I had to get lifts about this high to stand between those two guys. It was pretty wild. I mean, I just became a ball buster like they did. I had a lot of fun. I have fun when I work, usually.

Another big movie for you was The Godfather in 1972 where you played Sonny Corleone in an Academy Award–nominated performance. When you first got the part, was there any sense at that point that The Godfather was going to be such an iconic movie?

I don’t think to that degree, no. But I did know that it was gonna be a good movie, because Francis [Ford Coppola] was great. Francis was not a Brooklyn Italian; he was a Mediterranean Italian. His father was a lead florist for Tuscany, and he knew about wine and music, everything was for the sake of family. You know what I mean? Right away Francis got me and Bobby [Duvall], [but he wanted Marlon] Brando, too. The studio said, “if you mention Brando’s name again, you’re fired,” but Francis insisted on him. But he had a problem with Al [Pacino] for a while.

What was the problem with Pacino?

Well, Al was a little self-destructive and he had his idea of how he wanted to play it, you know? And then they tested me, they wanted me to play Michael, but I knew Francis — he was my friend — and he wanted Al to be the Italian looking version of Michael, and Sonny the Americanized version of him. Little fairer there, a little bigger… and so Al came in like that. When they tested, Francis called me one night, he was in New York preparing, he called me and he said, “Jimmy,” it was like 12AM, had to be like 2-3:00AM in New York, “They want you to test.” I said, “Test what? They got a Porsche; you

want me to drive around the f*cking block? What are you talking about?” “No, no, they want you to play Michael.” I go, “What?” I knew that wasn’t at all Francis, he knew what he wanted. Mario wrote in the book Making the Godfather, he wrote about doing the test, he said, “If Caan had tits, he’d have played Kay.” (Laughs)

Francis was the best. There’s a lot of great directors that I’ve worked with on 133 movies, but Francis was the most rounded. When he put The Godfather together, he had Gordon Willis, who’s the best cinematographer, he had Walter Murch, the best sound guy, he had Dean Tavoularis, who was the best set decorator, every one of these guys that he picked, they were all the best in the department. But that’s Francis. Francis put that group together. Same with the actors. He was great. I just trusted him so much. I always wanted to work with Martin Scorsese, but I didn’t get to work with him because I was a punk, I was stupid. I just do stupid things. I think they’re funny and they’re stupid. Anyway, but Francis, he studied acting, he studied music, he studied all these things… cinematography. Georgie Lucas used to come around with a 16 mm camera when I did The Rain People. It was never in doubt that we were in good hands with him.

What was the atmosphere on set like working on The Godfather?

I mean, here’s what I’ve learned. The best people I’ve worked with, the people I thought were the best actors, the Brandos, the Bobbys, for some reason, they’re always the nicest. It’s the people that haven’t got shit to offer that make themselves, “Oh my hair, my thing, my makeup.” The good ones, you want to be around them because they’re good, you want to be associated with them. We had great actors. That was all Francis, too. We had one or two that were a little iffy, but Francis straightened that out.

Brando would laugh and he thought I was the funniest guy in the world. He would laugh with me all the time. We had a great time. It was serious, but we had a great time. I used to watch Brando. Everyone tried to conquer Brando. All he wanted was to be talked to. That was the simplest thing of all.

Do you remember the first real big-ticket item you bought when you first started making some real money?

I remember buying my parents a brand-new car.

Well, my father, I always told him when I was younger, I’d say, “Someday, I’ll drive a Cadillac down the street here, 44th Street.” I sent him to Florida, [while] I was doing The Gambler; a man had stolen his car out of the garage in Sunnyside, so I bought him a brand new white Buick with a red pinstripe on it, and put his license plate on it. I found a parking spot, on 68th Street, where my sister lived, and it was right under a streetlight. I picked him up from the airport and went back to my sister’s. After dinner I said, “C’mon, let’s take a walk.” So, we took a walk, and as luck would have it, my father stops and looks at it, you couldn’t help it, this car was shining like you couldn’t believe. Red stripe, maroon interior, and my mother stopped too, and my father walked over and said, “C’mon Sophie.” I said, “What are you doing, Ma?” She said, “Oh that’s a beauty, isn’t it?” “Yeah,” I said, “Sure is.” So, I walked a little ways, and she said, “Wait a minute, you like that car?” “What’s not to like? Of course. You like that car?” I asked. “Yeah!” It was so great. I couldn’t have written it better. I said, “Well, okay.” I reached in my pocket; I gave her the key. She said, “Come on you idiot, stop fooling around.” My father looks, you know, he knows me, he walks to the car, I said, “Put it in the door, Ma.” And they open it, and it was so cool. He squealed away. It was so great. It was the greatest night ever.

Your performance in Michael Mann’s directorial debut Thief (1981) was also quite riveting. The movie is now a cult classic. But after that film, you took a self-imposed sabbatical from Hollywood. What made you decide to step away?

You know, I continued playing ball and doing the things I liked. I think it was right around the time I lost my sister [to Leukemia]. She was like, 38? She had two girls. She was like my best friend. I wasn’t afraid of any living human in the world, okay? Believe me. I mean, they kill me, that’s one thing.

Were you concerned at all whether stepping away at the height of your career would have a negative impact?

It was just something I had to do. I don’t know. I didn’t think I was stepping away; I had enough faith in myself. I never let anybody down, too much. I mean, people were pleased with most of my performances, the people who I worked for. I wasn’t too big a pain in the ass.

Probably my favorite movie you’ve ever done is Misery (1990) with Kathy Bates. There were some really intense scenes in that movie.

You make everything as real for you as possible, so in the beginning, Kathy, God bless her, she’s great, she loves to rehearse a lot. So, Kathy wants to go outside, and I go, “I don’t want to rehearse.” Rob Reiner (Director) would go, “What?” It’s just me and her, right? “Why?” I said, “What do you mean?” I don’t know if she’s gonna kill me or screw me when she comes in through the door, why would I want to rehearse that? It’s that, don’t tell me what it’s gonna be. I’ll figure it out. Anyway, you got a sort of sense for that, so he would rehearse with her all the time, and she would come in and do, you know, work with me. That’s why, to be as open as possible, I never get ahead of myself. I never allow myself to think of what might happen, what might not. We got along like that, and Rob was good enough to acquiesce. That was, see, I blame Rob. I said, you get the most neurotic guy in Hollywood and put him in bed for fifteen weeks, it’s like [viewers] knew that I wanted out of there so bad every day.

Then you did the movie Elf [2003] with Will Ferrell, which was a departure from the tough guy roles. What drew you to that role?

I get put in those roles, you know, I had quite a few. I did Cinderella Liberty which was really kind of a Billy Budd kinda character, and even The Gambler wasn’t so much of a tough guy role, it was more of a complex guy one.

But Elf, it was so funny. When Will called me, he goes, “Hey Jimmy, I want you to do this picture called Elf with me.” I said “Elf? I ain’t doing no f*cking picture called Elf. Get out of here.” He said, “We’ll have a lot of fun!” So, I looked at it, and it was kind of a fun thing, and I go, “Listen, I’ll tell you what Will, I’ll do it if you put on the title page, if you put a K where the F is. I’ll do Elk, I will not do Elf.” So, he said, “Okay, I’ll put Elk.” But I had a great time with that film. Will’s a really good guy. I had fun. I’d walk around New York City, in the middle of Christmas, too, a 6 foot 4 elf running around, and we’re stealing shots of New York. You know, in New York, nobody gives a shit, that’s normal, some elf walking around. I wish we would’ve done part two, because I wouldn’t have had to work anymore. Paid my hospital bills. (Laughs)

Many people don’t know that you are passionate about rodeo.

Every weekend I was on some route or another, traveling all over. We went as far as Texas, and I did that for nine years. I used to say that there was something about the dirt that made me feel clean. You know, from Hollywood. So, I’d go with my buddy Walter Scott and have a relish sandwich and drive twelve hours, have my horse step on my foot while I saddled him in the morning, it was fun. (Laughs)

What drew you to rodeo, specifically?

I really liked the guys in it. They were real guys, and if they liked you, you knew it, and if they didn’t like you, you knew it right away too. There was that camaraderie, you know, there was only the cowboys.

What was the transition like for you going from Hollywood actor to rodeo?

I could change my personality in a minute. As a matter of fact, I hated when the announcer used to go on, “And now from Beverly Hills,” I went up to him one day and said “Tallman,” his name was Bob Tallman, I said, “Don’t you ever announce me as being from Beverly Hills again. Say Selma, say some funky name.” And he’d laugh. “From Beverly Hills.” There weren’t too many of us from New York.

Do you feel that there are a lot of good roles for older men these days in film?

I don’t know, but I’m going to find out in a hurry! I’ve got to work. You know, I don’t feel that old. I think that I can pretty much duplicate what I did when I was 60. We’ll see.

James Caan passed away from a heart attack and coronary artery disease before we could find the time to get back together again and continue our conversation. He was 82. In his memory, below we share other tributes from those who knew him best:

“It’s hard to believe that he won’t be in the world anymore, because he was so alive and daring. A great actor, a brilliant director, and my dear friend. I’m gonna miss him.” – Al Pacino

“One of the great gifts in being part of The Godfather family was becoming friends with James Caan. Rest In Peace, Jimmy.” – Joe Mantegna

“Jimmy was not just a great actor with total commitment and a venturesome spirit, but he had a vitality in the core of his being that drove everything from his art and friendship to athletics and very good times.” – Director Michael Mann

“James Caan was an icon — a legend. He inspired everyone who has ever been in front of a camera. I was lucky to work with him and see his talent and his fantastic sense of humor firsthand.” – Arnold Schwarzenegger

“James Caan. Loved him very much. Always wanted to be like him. So happy I got to know him. Never ever stopped laughing when I was around that man. His movies were best of the best. We all will miss him terribly. ” – Adam Sandler