Actor James Caan, star of The Godfather and Misery, is dead – Le Figaro

The interpreter of Sonny, in The Godfather, died at the age of 82, announced his manager on Thursday. He had played one of the Corleone sons in the mythical Godfather, and a sequestered writer in the distressing Misery: the American actor James Caan died at 82 after a long career where he played for the greatest directors. “It is with great sadness that we inform you of Jimmy’s passing on the evening of (Wednesday) July 6th,” his family said in a tweet posted on Caan’s account. His manager, Matt DelPiano, confirmed the news to AFP. Born in New York, in the Bronx district, in 1940, into a family of Jewish immigrants from Germany, James Caan had started his career with small roles in Hollywood in the 1960s, notably in Irma La Douce by Billy Wilder (1963), or People in the Rain, by Francis Ford Coppola (1969). A “funny, loyal and caring” actor Three years later, the great American director will give him one of his most famous roles, in the first part of The Godfather trilogy, an epic saga about the Italian-American mafia which marked the history of cinema and celebrated its 50th anniversary this year. James Caan plays Sonny Corleone, the eldest son of “don” Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando), and his brutal assassination in a hail of bullets at a toll booth became one of the film’s most defining moments. The role earned him an Oscar nomination. “I still think if I had the change that day I could have gotten a lot richer,” he joked years later, referring to his death at the toll while waiting for his change. “If I had known they were going to shoot ‘The Godfather 2’ (in which he had a small role for a flashback), I would have refused to die,” he quipped, judging that this film had been a “blessing” to him. “Jimmy was someone who was part of my life longer and more closely than any other cinematic figure I have ever known,” reacted Francis Ford Coppola, welcoming in a statement to AFP his “old friend and “one of the funniest people I’ve ever known.” As an echo of this role in The Godfather, James Caan had been called for the first time as a witness in 1985 at a mobster trial in New York, because he had known one of the defendants, a member of the Colombo family, in his childhood. Then, he testified, still in New York, in 1992 in another trial, where he presented himself as the best friend of a reputable member of the Bonanno mafia family still in the dock. After The Godfather, his career continued with roles in other classic films, such as Rollerball (1975), named after this violent sport practiced in a futuristic society, or Michael Mann’s Solitaire (1981). To read also The mansion of the film The Godfather put on sale for (only) 89 million dollars One of his other great roles is offered to him in Misery (1990), a grueling camera, adapted from the novel by Stephen King. He masterfully embodies the writer Paul Sheldon, kidnapped in the mountains of Colorado by an evil fan played by Kathy Bates. “His movies were the best of the best,” New York actor and screenwriter Adam Sandler tweeted. “I loved him so much. I always wanted to be like him. I am so happy to have known him. I never stopped laughing when I was with this man,” he added. A prolific actor, who had acted in dozens of films over six decades, including James Gray’s The Yards (2000), Matt Dillon’s City of Ghosts (2002), or who lent his voice in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009), James Caan had been married four times and had five children. “Jimmy was one of the greatest. Not only was he one of the best actors our industry has ever seen, but he was funny, loyal, caring and loved,” said manager Matt DelPiano.