James Edmund Caan

James Edmund Caan was born in the Bronx, New York, the son of a kosher meat wholesaler who fled Nazi Germany. Raised in Sunnyside, Queens, he played collegiate football at Michigan State University before studying theater at Hofstra University, where he met future collaborator Francis Ford Coppola, and training at Sanford Meisner's Neighborhood Playhouse.

Caan earned an Emmy nomination in 1971 for his heartbreaking performance as dying Chicago Bears running back Brian Piccolo in Brian's Song. In 1972, Coppola cast him as volatile Sonny Corleone in The Godfather; his visceral, swaggering performance and violent death at the tollbooth earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Caan delivered masterclass performances as a professional safecracker in Michael Mann's neo-noir masterpiece Thief (1981) and as captive novelist Paul Sheldon opposite Kathy Bates in Rob Reiner's thriller Misery (1990). In 2003, he brought warmth to new generations as cynical children's book publisher Walter Hobbs in the holiday classic Elf.