James Caan Biography

Born on March 26, 1939 in The Bronx, NY, Caan was raised in Sunnyside, Queens one of three children by his father, Arthur, a butcher and his mother, Sophie. Both his parents were Jewish immigrants from Germany who fled the Nazis before the war. James Caan attended P.S. 150 - Christopher Street School in Brooklyn, where he caused untold amounts of trouble and was eventually kicked out, though whether or not dropping a fellow student out of a window on a bet contributed to his departure remained unclear. Caan eventually made his way to the Rhodes Preparatory School, where he continued raising hell while stuffing the ballot box to become president of the student body, as well as playing several sports, including baseball, basketball and football. After graduating a year before his fellow classmates, Caan attended Michigan State University in East Lansing, MI. James Caan majored in economics and continued playing football, but soon found himself homesick. Caan soon transferred to Hofstra University in Hempstead, NY, which is where he discovered acting.

With the prospect of entering the meat delivery business with his father as his one career option, he began taking acting seriously, studying with such esteemed coaches as Wyn Handman at the American Place Theatre and Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse. After spending several years honing his craft in the classroom, he had one of his first parts in "La Ronde," Arthur Schnitzler's examination of early 20th century class division and sexual mores. James Caan made the jump to the small screen with episodes of various popular television shows, including "Naked City" (ABC, 1958-1963), "The Untouchables" (ABC, 1959-1963) and the anthology series "Alcoa Premiere" (ABC, 1961-63), which featured a new one-hour drama every week. Following episodes of "Doctor Kildare" (NBC, 1961-66) and "Ben Casey" (ABC, 1961-66), Caan began his film career with an uncredited walk-on as an anonymous soldier in the Billy Wilder comedy "Irma La Douce" (1963). James Caan made his official film debut in the campy thriller "Lady in a Cage" (1964), playing a ruthless thug who terrorizes a wealthy widow (Olivia de Havilland).

Within just a few years after making his screen debut, Caan landed his first leading role, starring in Howard Hawk's tense race car drama, "Red Line 7000" (1965). James Caan followed with a supporting turn as a young gunslinger opposite John Wayne and Robert Mitchum in Hawks' gritty, but redemptive Western, "El Dorado" (1967). Now determined to carve a career in film, Caan starred in the psychological thriller, "Games" (1967), which he followed with a turn as an American astronaut who journeys to the moon only to discover the Russians beat the United States to the punch in the early Robert Altman feature, "Countdown" (1968). After starring in forgettable movies like "Journey to Shiloh" (1968) and "Perlas Ng Silangan" (1969), Caan was a brain-damaged hitchhiker who encounters a disillusioned housewife (Shirley Knight) trying to escape the trappings of her domestic life in one of Francis Ford Coppola's