Table of Contents
Meet the Five Children of Late Actor James Caan
In The Godfather, James Caan’s character Sonny Corleone lived and died by the family code. However, in real life, it is Caan’s children who are keeping that legacy alive.
The actor, who passed away on July 6, 2022, at 82, due to a combination of heart problems, was married four times and fathered five children throughout the years.
Firstly, he married actress Dee Jay Mathis in 1961; they had a daughter, Tara, in 1964, and then divorced in 1966. Ten years later, in 1976, he married Playboy model and Road House actress Sheila Ryan. In 1976 they had their son, Scott Caan, but the marriage ended the following year.
In 1990, Caan and Ingrid Hajek got married, and in 1991 they had a son, Alexander James Caan, before divorcing in 1994. The year after, he married Linda Stokes, his fourth wife. They had two sons: James Arthur, born in 1995, and Jacob Nicholas, born in 1998.
Scott, Caan’s oldest and one who followed him into acting, told PEOPLE in 2010 that even though his father “made mistakes that hurt him — and me — he has always been there for me no matter what.”
Let’s meet James Caan’s five kids and see the new lives they’ve created.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(993x149:995x151)/james-caan-kids-scott-caan-jimmy-caan-main-split-031725-aa7368388ad649ca94ea78333f94064a.jpg)
James Caan Took a Break From Hollywood to Coach His Son’s Little League Team
During the 1980s, James Caan even stopped acting for five years when he was at the lowest point of his drug addiction and he coached his son Scott’s little league baseball team during that time.
He later reminisced coaching as “the high point of my low point” and that discovering how much his drug addiction had affected Scott was what really got him to stop.
“I thought I was fooling my son but I was so dumb, I mean, you’re hardly ever consciously hurting people, but when you look back you go, ‘Oh my God.’ I didn’t think he knew what was going on, you know; you think that kids aren’t smart enough,” Caan said. “That was like the rude awakening. It was over.”
In an Esquire interview in 2003, he admitted that coaching experience was what saved him from his dark time. “I had great, great times as a Little League coach.” he said. People used to wonder why he gave up seeing the “creative juices” in him, but Caan considered coaching very creative.
“Coaching is creative, because you could take a kid who thought he wasn’t any good and, within four minutes, change his mind,” he told. “And I didn’t have to wait six months for them to put music to it.”
James Caan’s Son Scott Also Made His Way to Hollywood
It seems that James Caan’s firstborn son, Scott Caan, eventually made the decision to become a member of the family of actors, just like his father.
After an attempt at rapping for a short period of time, Scott turned to acting. He is well-known for portraying Turk Malloy — one of the two brothers who are constantly bickering but good at what they do since Turk is the witty driver and car mechanic — in the Ocean’s trilogy among other roles.
Moreover, he was able to achieve long-term television success when he portrayed Detective Danny “Danno” Williams in the popular CBS TV show Hawaii Five-0. He was in the series for the whole ten seasons run until the show ended in 2020.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(736x137:738x139)/james-caan-kids-son-scott-caan-mercy-premiere-031725-dda3aa01b88e48749e2aba378fa33fcb.jpg)
Scott Caan Unveils Daughter’s Name as a Tribute to James Caan
It seems that Scott Caan has paid tribute to his father, James Caan, through the naming of his child.
Scott and his partner, Kacy Byxbee (according to IMDb, she was a costume assistant who worked on Hawaii Five-0 at the very beginning and thus, it is presumed, Scott met her on the set of the show) had their first child, a girl, on July 9, 2014.
E! News has highlighted the fact that the couple named their daughter Josie James Caan, which is widely thought to be a homage to Josie’s granddad.
James Caan’s Kids Were Often His Biggest Supporters at the Red Carpet
It’s true that a lot of James Caan’s children have generally kept away from the public eye, but they were quite a regular feature whenever their dad needed support at the show biz themed outings.
Scott was his father’s companion at a number of red carpet premieres over time, with one occasion being the 2010 launch of Mercy, a project they both had a hand in. James Jr. was part of the event with Caan when they marked the 50th anniversary of The Godfather and both he and his younger sibling Jacob were present at the October 2007 premiere of Bee Movie.
Scott Caan and His Dad Got Along Before James Caan Died
Scott Caan talked quite openly about his relationship with his father as being a complex one but, in the end, full of love. He also revealed that they had reconciled when James Caan passed away.
In 2023 during his appearance on the Inside of You podcast, Scott reminisced about how incredibly talented his father was. “My dad was not a typical actor-type. He was good at everything,” he revealed. “He was a great athlete, he was good at riding a motorcycle, he was a cowboy, and he could play any instrument.”
However, Scott has also confided in people about their split moments. “If someone asked me whether we had a good relationship or not, I couldn’t just say ‘no’ because then that would be a lie,” he told PEOPLE in 2010. James Caan, who publicly confessed to his addiction problems when Scott was a kid, said, “I was a bit of a wild child, and he saw that in me.”
Scott Caan Regretted His Father and Had a Great Time Working with Him
At some point, Scott Caan decided not to hold a grudge against his father for the difficult times of their childhood, and the two later even worked together on screen. James Caan was Scott’s father in the movie Mercy, which was actually written by Scott. The experience was very meaningful to Scott, and he told PEOPLE in 2010 that he really wanted to keep giving his dad roles through his writing.
“If I can see him happy, working, and be the one responsible for it, that would make me happy for the rest of my life,” he added.
During the series Alert: Missing Persons Unit promo, a few years later Scott disclosed to Extra that his last chat with James before his death in 2022 was a source of peace for him saying in a way that “there was nothing left unsaid.”
