Who filled the void left by John Cazale’s death?
In Hollywood history, only one actor starred in a ‘Best Picture’ nominee every time he signed up for a movie. That actor is John Cazale, the inimitable star of five all-time classic movies from the 1970s: The Godfather, The Conversation, The Godfather Part II, Dog Day Afternoon, and The Deer Hunter. Tragically, he was already suffering from lung cancer as he filmed the last of those five movies, and he died on March 13th, 1978, less than a year after being diagnosed with the disease.
At the time, Cazale was in a relationship with Meryl Streep, and she was dedicated to him in his final months. Al Pacino, who worked with Cazale in three of his five movies and countless times in the theatre, said, “I’ve hardly ever seen a person so devoted to someone who is falling away like John was. To see her in that act of love for this man was overwhelming.”
Cazale’s prodigious acting talent was recognised among all his peers, although he wouldn’t see wider recognition from the public until long after he passed. In the documentary I Knew It Was You, Streep revealed that she learned so much about acting from him, while Pacino declared, “All I wanted to do was work with John for the rest of my life. He was my acting partner.”
What was it about Cazale that was so unique and indelible on-screen? Well, for starters, there was his look. With dark, deep-set eyes, a receding hairline, and a gaunt frame, everything about him seemed to speak to a deep-seated sadness at his core. He wasn’t as explosive as some of his New Hollywood peers but instead offered a low-key, simmering counterbalance to them. In fact, Cazale’s great talent was reacting to other performances.
Director Richard Shepard told the Los Angeles Times that when he watched Cazale in The Godfather and Dog Day Afternoon, he noticed that the camera kept cutting to Cazale’s reactions, even when he had no lines. Shepard theorised, “There’s so much going on with his performance. I think the directors realised that he brought something more – some special kind of energy – that wasn’t on the pages of the script.”
When Cazale died, a void was left in Hollywood. He was a special kind of character actor, and his influence can be seen in several stars who came after him. For example, Steve Buscemi, Sam Rockwell, and the late Philip Seymour Hoffman were all open about how much Cazale influenced their work.
It’s difficult to say who picked up the baton from Cazale and ran with it in any linear way, though. It’s not as if the likes of Francis Ford Coppola and Sidney Lumet suddenly began hiring a Cazale-esque character actor with haunted eyes and a mainline to every weak, fragile, and resigned aspect of the human condition.
However, it must be said that Cazale wasn’t just an actor who portrayed weak-willed losers. In Dog Day Afternoon, there is something quietly menacing about him, like he has a reservoir of untapped malice inside. It makes the performance mysterious and unique, and I think it’s the best comparison point to the actor who came the closest to filling Cazale’s void.
In 1989, the laconic, implacable Puerto Rican actor Benicio Del Toro first came to Hollywood’s attention as henchman Dario in the Bond movie License to Kill. Over the next six years, he kicked around in mostly unheralded and underseen films until he broke out with 1995’s The Usual Suspects. His performance as the knowingly unintelligible crook Fred Fenster is a highlight of the film, and he quickly followed it up with eye-catching turns in The Fan and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
Over the next 25 years, Del Toro would bring his unique brand of laid-back, mysterious charisma to movies of all kinds. However, his turns in films like Traffic, The Way of the Gun, 21 Grams, Sicario, and Reptile make me think he might be the modern incarnation of Cazale. In some ways, Del Toro may be a decent thought experiment in imagining what Cazale’s career might have looked like had he lived past 42 and moved into leading man parts.
It’s hard to picture someone like Cazale accessing the kind of bizarre, off-the-wall energy Del Toro showcases in his Marvel and Star Wars appearances, but that’s not to say he couldn’t have turned his hand to them if the opportunity had presented itself. He’d certainly have rocked the quiet, simmering, brooding roles Del Toro is so good at, though, and probably added another layer of the customary brittle vulnerability he was so expert at portraying.
In truth, Del Toro would likely be embarrassed by anyone drawing parallels between him and Cazale, but there’s no doubt that Cazale’s era of filmmaking is a huge influence on everything he does as an actor. In 2018, an Esquire magazine profile revealed he is singularly obsessed with the New Hollywood era and loves actors like Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman, Jack Nicholson, and Robert De Niro. He worships using the same method of acting at the altar as most of those guys – and so did Cazale.
In that very profile, Del Toro’s Sicario co-star Josh Brolin revealed that when he asked what he’d been doing lately, the star simply said, “I’ve been watching old movies.” Brolin remarked, “That’s what you did yesterday?” to which Del Toro deadpanned, “No, that’s what I did for the last month.” An amused Brolin concluded, “I know that he means it. He’s literally been in the dark for 30 days, just watching old movies and eating Doritos.”
I’d bet big that at least one of those movies featured Cazale, the actor who left a devastating void that Del Toro may have filled.
