James Edmund Caan 1940-2022 was an American actor. He came to prominence playing Sonny Corleone in The Godfather – a performance that earned him Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for Best Supporting Actor. He received a motion-picture star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1978. After early roles in Howard Hawks' El Dorado (1966), Robert Altman's Countdown (1967) and Francis Ford Coppola's The Rain People (1969), Caan gained acclaim for his portrayal of Brian Piccolo in the 1971 television movie Brian's Song, for which he received a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie nomination. Caan began appearing off-Broadway in plays such as Arthur Schnitzler's La Ronde before making his 1961 Broadway debut in Blood, Sweat and Stanley Poole. Golden Globe Award . Caan received Golden Globe Award nominations for his performances in the drama The Gambler (1974), and the musical Funny Lady (1975). He continued to receive significant roles in feature films such as Cinderella Liberty (1973), Rollerball (1975), A Bridge Too Far (1977), Comes a Horseman (1978), Chapter Two (1979) and Thief (1981). After a five-year break from acting, he returned with roles in Gardens of Stone (1987), Misery (1990), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Eraser (1996), Mickey Blue Eyes (1999), The Yards (2000), City of Ghosts (2002), Elf (2003) and Get Smart (2008). Caan was planning to make an action film in Italy, but then heard Rob Reiner was looking for a leading man in his adaptation of Stephen King's Misery (1990). Since the script for Misery called for the male lead, Paul Sheldon, to spend most of his time lying in bed tormented by his nurse, the role was turned down by many of Hollywood's leading actors before Caan accepted. Caan had a small role in The Dark Backward (1991) and co-starred with Bette Midler in the expensive For the Boys (1991), directed by Rydell who called Caan "one of the four or five best actors in America". Dogville (2003) and Elf (2003), in which Caan had key supporting roles, were big successes on the art house and commercial circuit respectively. The same year, Caan played Will Ferrell's estranged book publisher father in the enormously successful family Christmas comedy Elf, and auditioned for, and won, the role of Montecito Hotel/Casino president "Big Ed" Deline in Las Vegas. On July 6, 2022, Caan died at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, at the age of 82, from a heart attack caused by coronary artery disease. At the time of his death, he also had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and congestive heart failure. He was buried at Eden Memorial Park Cemetery. - @famouslygraving