Very sad.

I remember seeing him in person when he was filming parts of Cinderella Liberty in my town. I was pregnant at the time & my husband came home & said they were filming a movie downtown. We drove down there & watched from inside one of the restaurants. Caan & Bruce (Bruno) Kirby were doing their shore patrol scene. We didn't know at the beginning who was in or what the film was. Then Caan & Kirby were walking by & I told my hubby that that is James Caan & he said nope, I told him I've seen The Godfather enough times to know who Caan was, I went up to one of the crew & asked to prove to him that he was wrong! The only thing that threw me was the fact that he was so much smaller in person, in The Godfather he seemed so much taller/larger.

“What f—ing transformation? Obviously, I grew up in the neighborhood. I didn’t have to work on an accent or anything,” - James Caan (Vanity Fair, 2009 interview).

With his turn as “Sonny”, Caan became the 'Godfather' of a genre.

There have been generations of imitators; but, none who were ever greater...

RIP