James Caan, Oscar nominee for 'The Godfather,' dies at 82
msn.comGallery: 20 actors who will always be associated with one character (Espresso)But by the early 1980s he began to sour on films, though Michael Mann's 1981 neo-noir heist film “Thief," in which he played a professional safecracker looking for a way out, is among his most admired films. “The fun of it was taken away,” he told an interviewer in 1981. “I’ve done pictures where I’d rather do time.
I just walked out of a picture at Paramount. I said you haven’t got enough money to make me go to work every day with a director I don’t like. ”He had begun to struggle with drug use and was devastated by the 1981 leukemia death of his sister, Barbara, who until then had been a guiding force in his career.
For much of the 1980s he made no films, telling people he preferred to coach his son Scott’s Little League games. Scott Caan also grew up to be an actor.
Short on cash, Caan was hired by Coppola for the leading role in the 1987 film “Gardens of Stone. ” The movie, about life at Arlington National Cemetery, proved too grim for most audiences, but it renewed Caan’s acting career.
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