Caan was best known for his explosive performances as Sonny Corleone in The Godfather and a dying football player in the made-for-TV movie Brian’s Song (for which he received nominations for an Oscar and an Emmy, respectively).

Caan also contributed an eminently watchable machismo to numerous other movies and television programs. He played a famous author kept hostage by Kathy Bates in the film Misery.

He played a heartbroken Vietnam veteran who was unwillingly manning the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Gardens of Stone. He portrayed an anti-type role in Elf as the father of the main character and a failed children’s book publisher.

Caan entered Hollywood like a comet after beginning in theater and television, making appearances in movies by some of the most well-known auteurs of the time, such as Howard Hawks (El Dorado), Robert Altman (Countdown), and Francis Ford Coppola (The Rain People).

After his early success burst, he experienced a challenging time on both a personal and professional level.

Caan repeatedly got married and divorced, got into fights on the set, and openly suffered from anxiety.

He admitted to The New York Times in 1991 that he had yet to see some of the pictures he had created.

‘When I started creating them, I was sad. What am I doing here in the middle of some of these images, I kept asking myself. It’s as though you’re trapped in a hallway and unable to go.’

Caan continued to work steadily right up until the end of his life, appearing in animated episodes of Family Guy and The Simpsons as colonels, grandparents, and, eventually, as himself.

James Caan was married four times in his life and has five children.