5 Bizarre And Curious Facts From The Career And Life Of James Caan

5 bizarre and curious facts from the career and life of James Caan, who died at the age of 82.

Fighting drug addiction and staying at the Playboy Mansion with young son to get over divorce: stories abound from the legendary ‘The Godfather’ actor.

James Caan, from ‘The Godfather’ (1972), passed away on Wednesday (6) at the age of 82. The information was confirmed on the actor’s official Twitter profile; the cause of death was not disclosed.

James Caan

Far beyond his iconic role as Sonny Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola’s classic, the star marked Hollywood with more than 100 works and, off camera, lived a busy life, full of marriages, addictions and adventures with his children, including staying in famous Playboy Mansion.

As a way of honoring him, we list 5 Facts about the professional and, especially, personal life of the legendary American star.

1. He was nominated for an Oscar and acted in more than 130 productions

For his role as Sonny in the first film of the trilogy ‘The Godfather’, James Caan was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in 1973. He lost to actor Joel Grey, who took the award for ‘Cabaret’.

At the Oscars that year, however, Francis Coppola’s classic won three golden statuettes: Best Picture, Best Actor (Marlon Brando) and Best Adapted Screenplay.

James Caan also has more than 130 acting credits in series and movies. ‘Rollerball: Gladiators’ (1975), ‘Profession: Thief’ (1981) and ‘Crazy Obsession’ (1990) are some of the highlights.

Recently, he was in ‘The Stranger’ (2014), ‘The Good Neighbor’ (2016) and ‘Mysteries of the Universe’ (2018). Scheduled for 2023, the star worked on the long ‘Gun Monkeys’, with Pierce Brosnan and Morena Baccarin in the cast.

2. He was married four times and had five children

James Caan had four wives throughout his life and with all of them he shared a son. With Dee Jay Mathis, he was married between 1961 and 1966 and had the firstborn Tara, his only daughter, now 57 years old.

Afterwards, James married actress Sheila Ryan (1952-2012), with whom he stayed between 1976 and 1977; the two had son Scott, who pursued an acting career and is 45 years old.

The actor’s third wife was Ingrid Hajek; they were married from 1990 to 1995 and had 31-year-old Alexander James Caan.

Designer Linda Stokes was the last wife of James Caan, with whom he stayed the longest (from 1995 to 2009) and the only one with whom he had two children: Jacob (23 years old) and James (26 years old). James and Linda still reconciled and broke up again later.

“I have four ex-wives and five kids. Apparently I don’t know the difference [between sex and love],” James joked in a 2003 interview with Esquire magazine.

3. Fan and practitioner of martial arts

James Caan was an accomplished practitioner and worshiper of martial arts. He trained for decades with the living legend Takayuki Kubota, a Japanese karate master, now 87 years old.

4. Paused his career for 5 years in the midst of fighting drug addiction

In the 1980s, James Caan decided to put his career on hold for 5 years after his hits from previous decades, such as ‘El Dorado’ (1966) and ‘The Godfather’ (1972).

In an interview with The Independent last year, he recalled his cocaine addiction and said it was like “a death sentence” that “lasted for a while”. His chemical dependency began after the death of his younger sister Barbara in 1981 from leukemia. “When I lost her, I couldn’t deal with it. I did not know what to do."

On hiatus and while recovering, he took the opportunity to coach children’s baseball teams, with his son Scott as one of his charges. The actor returned with full force for his work in ‘Gardens of Stone’ (1987), a feature that was also directed by Francis Ford Coppola. “That’s when I came back! Hungry and thirsty!” he recalled.

5. He lived in the Playboy Mansion with his young son to get over his divorce

This is definitely the most unusual. “To get over my divorce, I got a prescription to live in the Playboy Mansion for a while,” he joked in an interview with Esquire magazine in 2003 about his split with Sheila Ryan.

It was Scott, now an actor, who spent a childhood period with his father at the iconic Playboy Mansion owned by businessman Hugh Hefner (1926-2017). In 2010, to People, James said, laughing, that he had “Scott bringing me girls”. Scott echoed: “Nobody could say no to a cute little boy.”