John Cazale
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John Frank Charles Cazale (August 12, 1935 – March 12 1978) was a distinguished American film actor whose career was tragically brief. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts and died at age 42 from bone cancer.
Biography
An Italian American, Cazale studied drama at Oberlin College and Boston University, and was friends with Al Pacino when he was a teenager. He moved to New York City and worked as a messenger for an oil company, while working as an Off-Broadway actor and auditioning for film and television projects. He is remembered not only for the roles he played, but also for helping discover his childhood friend Pacino, fellow theater actor Robert De Niro, and his fiancée at the time of his death, Meryl Streep.
Cazale's was cited as a "Distinguished Performance" by the Off-Broadway Obie Awards for the 1967-68 season for his performance in Israel Horovitz's play "The Indian Wants the Bronx". Cazale made his big screen debut, alongside his old friend Al Pacino, as Fredo Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather. The film broke box office records and made Pacino, Cazale and several of their previously unknown co-stars famous. Cazale would again star alongside Pacino in Sidney Lumet's Dog Day Afternoon (for which he received a Golden Globe nomination), as well as reprising his role as Fredo in The Godfather Part II. During this time, he would also star alongside Gene Hackman in Coppola's The Conversation.
Despite being diagnosed with cancer, Cazale continued to work, his final appearance being alongside his then fiancée Meryl Streep, whom he met on the set of his fifth film, The Deer Hunter. When distributor Universal Studios first learned of Cazale's illness, they were reluctant to insure the actor, but Streep and director Michael Cimino both went to bat for him and won out. Cazale never lived to see the release of the film, and thus never learned that every single feature in which he had starred had received an Academy award nomination for Best Picture. No other actor with multiple films to his credit has such a distinction.
Today, Cazale is the only actor with multiple roles to have all of his films listed on the IMDB [Top 250]. In spite of the desperate, violent characters he played in a handful of films, he was by all accounts a kind and gentle person off screen, and was a close friend of most of the actors he had worked with. Friend and frequent co-star Pacino collaborated with him on three films and various theater productions, and referred to him as "his acting partner."
Years after his death he appeared in a sixth feature film, The Godfather Part III (1990) in archive footage. The Godfather Part III was also nominated for Best Picture. Most recently, Cazale's image was used for The Godfather video game, as his character, Fredo. He has a theater named after him, the McGinn/Cazale Theatre, located at 2162 Broadway at 76th Street, above the Promenade Theatre on the fourth floor. The theater seats from 99 to 108 people.
Filmography
| Date | Film | Role |
|---|---|---|
| March 15, 1972 | The Godfather | Fredo Corleone |
| April 7, 1974 | The Conversation | Stan |
| December 12, 1974 | Fredo Corleone | |
| September 21, 1975 | Dog Day Afternoon | Salvatore "Sal" Naturile |
| December 8, 1978 | The Deer Hunter | Stanley Stosh |
External link
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