Playboy Interview: James Caan

James Caan just can't seem to get the knack of being a star. He certainly looks like one, and he's worked hard to become one ever since he dropped out of college at 18 and stayed alive by hustling pool, playing poker, bouncing drunks in a dance hall and hauling carcasses in his father's meal-packing plant in Sunnyside, Queens, before stumbling into his acting career. But now that he's finally, Wade it--thanks to kinetic performances in two back-to-back hits, "Brian's Song" and "The Godfather," four years ago--stardom may be the only role he hasn't learned to play convincingly. He drives a truck, owns a wardrobe of blue jeans and work shirts, ropes steers in his spare time. He isn't vain or patronizing. He remembers your name. He listens when you talk. He even has a sense of humor about himself.

In fact, since we'd heard about his tendency to put on interviewers, and knowing this wasn't going to be just another showbiz chat, we asked Contributing Editor Murray Fisher to conduct this one. Fisher had edited the "Playboy Interview" for many years before moving to the West Coast, so he knew what he was getting himself into:

" 'I gotta go to the bathroom. Do I have to raise my hand?' said Caan during one taping session by the swimming pool in the back yard of his Beverly Hills ranch home. I gave him permission to be excused, then turned off the tape machine and watched with fascination while a pet parrot reached a claw through the bars of its cage and spent the next three minutes affectionately scratching the back of one of Caan's two dogs, which stood there twitching its hind leg in ecstasy with a football in its mouth.

"On his way back, Jimmy stopped off to trade a few punches with a couple of his rodeo buddies, who were drinking Coors, chain-smoking Luckies and shooting pool very methodically in the living room. As he was leaving them, the Dutch houseboy came out to announce a phone call for him from a female friend. After greeting her warmly, Jimmy made arrangements for dinner, said goodbye, then added, 'And by the way, don't ever call here again.' Turning to me, he said, 'You gotta keep these teenage fans in their place.' As I picked up my glass of wine to take a sip before getting the interview back under way, he tapped the brim with his plastic bottle of nasal decongestant, said, 'Here's to ya,' and sprayed both of his nostrils.

"Just then, a Beverly Hills policeman--who had become a friend after stopping Jimmy for speeding--arrived with an armload of handmade belts for sale. Jimmy didn't buy one, but he sang him a song: 'Officer Krupke, get down on your knees, 'cause no one likes a fella with a social disease.' We had finally sat down to resume taping when a middle-aged man in a well-tailored suit and tie--an extraordinary sight in Los Angeles--ambled out to join us. 'I came for my ten percent,' he said, ominously tapping a spot under his left shoulder. I reached to turn off the recorder, but Jimmy grabbed my hand. 'Leave it running. I want the world to know that this man, Stan Karmen--renowned talent agent; raconteur, man about town and putz--is responsible for puttin' me right in the toilet. And now he's come to flush it.' They talked business for a while, and when he'd left, Jimmy said, 'I wait to apologize--for my agent, who should have known better than to act like an equal in front of a journalist, and I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt; for my girlfriend, who was rude to call when she knew I was home; for my friends, who have no doubt been offending your ears with their fuckin' crudities; and for my face, which has been hanging out ever since you got here. You should've mentioned it. Now quit wastin' my time and let's get on with this stupid conversation.' He seized the microphone. 'At the end of our last episode,' he said in Tire unctuous baritone of a daytime-serial announcer, 'Ralph, who had left Ann in the car, was contemplating whether Susan, who secretly loved Mary, was indeed going to squeeze the pimple on his back. Ire join them now in the parlor.'

"That was the way it went for the three weeks I spent with him. The mood wasn't always so antic, but in the coarse of a single session, Jimmy would often flash from easygoing volubility to a hind of clenched restlessness that he seemed able to work off only by lifting bar bells, shooting baskets, wrestling with a friend or roping the horns on a sawhorse he keeps in the back yard. Pressed to talk about his broken marriage and a recently ended four-year love affair, he was alternately testy, melancholy and withdrawn. His vocabulary is colloquial and richly profane, and he'd probably punch you out if you accused him of being an intellectual: but it quickly becomes obvious that he's far deeper and more complex than the fun-loving jock or the male chauvinist pig portrayed in the popular press. He has a quality of tough honesty--about himself as well as about others--that's as rare as it is disarming. With the possible exception of Iris friend Mel Brooks, he's also both the funniest and the most unpretentious celebrity I've ever met. At the end of our last session, a particularly searching and serious discussion of what he wants to do with the rest of his life ('have a terrific time--and become the greatest actor in the world') and what he'd like to leave behind ('a warm glom'), he started to walk away, stopped as if a final reflection had occurred to him, turned, walked back to me and said solemnly, 'Murray, I look cat it this way.... And he crossed his eyes."

[Q] Playboy: Would you say that----

[A] Caan: Yes, I definitely would. If I could. But I can't.

[Q] Playboy: So you won't?

[A] Caan: Not on your life. Hey, this is easy. I thought these interviews were supposed to be tough. This time tell me the answer and I'll give you the question.

[Q] Playboy: All right: Thursday afternoons, sometimes, when my parents weren't around.

[A] Caan: The question is: Did you ever leaf through National Geographic with your robe open? Now, get the fuck outa my house, because I won't stand for these kinda personal questions.

[Q] Playboy: Give its another chance.

[A] Caan: Well, just one.

[Q] Playboy: Thanks. We've noticed that you leave the water running when you go to the bathroom. Why?

[A] Caan: Now, that's the kinds personal question I don't mind. The answer is that I'm filling the sink so that my Barbie doll can go skinny-dipping. Now, do you mind if I ask you a personal question?

[Q] Playboy: Well, just one.

[A] Caan: Why are you wearing those Bunny ears?

[Q] Playboy: All Playboy interviewers wear them. They're short-wave-radio antennas over which we receive our instructions directly from Hef, who's monitoring this conversation.

[A] Caan: Well, I'm glad he dropped in--Hi, Hef!--because I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him.

[Q] Playboy: You agreed to do this interview as a personal favor?

[A] Caan: No, he told me if I didn't do it, I couldn't go to the Mansion anymore. I'll do anything to go to the Mansion.

[Q] Playboy: You don't like doing interviews?

[A] Caan: Next to watching reruns of The Munsters, it's my favorite pastime. In the last couple of years. I've done maybe 500 of these fuckin' things. After the first 200 or 300, even I get bored listening to myself answering the same goddamn questions. The only ones I've really enjoyed are the ones where I can be half a wise ass.

[Q] Playboy: Which half?

[A] Caan: That's Very funny. I see I've got to remind you that when this interview gets published, it's gonna say Playboy ... Caan ... Playboy ... Caan before every question and answer. My name is the one that gets printed: you're anonymous; you've got no identity whatever. Let's keep it that way.

[Q] Playboy: If you weren't a friend of Hef's, we'd make you sorry for that. But you were talking about why you don't like to do interviews.

[A] Caan: That shouldn't come as a surprise, with schmucks like you to work with. No offense. as my friend Mel Brooks said in his Playboy Interview--to another one of you assholes. Oops--there I go again. Sorry. You're really not as bad as this guy who did in awful--I mean, an unbelievably stupid--interview with me a year or so ago. At the end. trying to be cute, he said. "What's the dumbest question you've ever been asked in an interview?" I thought for a second and said: "That's it."

[A] There was another one I'll never forget that Alan Arkin and I gave to some guy on the set of Freebie and the Bean. He was so fuckin' serious that we couldn't take hint seriously, so wheat he asked me, "How did your prepare for this role, Mr. Caan?" I said, "It's been a challenge. And one of the most challenging scenes is cumin' up now. See that fourth-story window over there? I'm gonna do a high fall outs that window right onto the concrete. And I'm not gonna use adouble or a cushion or anything. I'm gonna land right on my head." The guy's looking at me openmouthed, and he says, "But how do you prepare for that?" And I say, "Well, I eat a special fruit." "A special what?" "Fruit. It's found in the jungles of Peru, where the fibers are very hard. The technical explanation is too complicated to go into, but it toughens up your head. You never hurt yourself when you cat that special fruit."

[Q] Playboy: Anyone we know?

[A] Caan: I wouldn't be at all surprised.

[Q] Playboy: You may not like interviews, but you seem to be having a pretty good time doing this one so far.

[A] Caan: No thanks to you, shit face. I'm having a good time because I feel good today. But that's another trouble with interviews. I know these Playboy Interviews go on forever, but most of them only last for an hour or so, and that's it. Whatever mood you're in when the guy happens to be there, that's what gets depicted in the interview. If he catches you at a bad time and you're feeling down, you come off mean or sullen, angry, depressed, whatever. But by the time the next guy waltzes in, you're feeling mellow, laid back. superphilosophical, and you sound really wise and mature. And the next clay you feel like clownin' around and you wind up looking like a fuckin' idiot when the story comes out.

[A] But you can't seem to win, no matter what you say, because they take everything you've told them and turn it into whatever's gonna sell magazines. You know, they all start out asking your deepest feelings about life, actin' and all that, and they end up asking, "Who are you fuckin'?" And that's the part that appears in print. Or they'll just make it up outs nothin'--quotes and incidents that never happened--and print that. Lately. I've been reading some of these bullshit articles about me in these trash fan magazines, about what a macho fuckin' pig I am, about bow I get loaded and go around smackiu' people, hsmpin' women in the gutter and all that shit. I can't believe the crap they come up with.

[Q] Playboy: You mean you're not a macho pig?

[A] Caan: Anybody says I am, I'll kick the shit out of him--or her. No, I mean, I was brought up to defend myself if I have to, but I've never started a fight in my life, and I can't remember the last time anybody started one with me. When I take a chink--which isn't often, mostly wine--I get happy and laugh a lot. And I've never lucked a woman in the gutter--not without puttin' a pillow under her first. Chivalry ain't completely dead, you know.

[Q] Playboy: Are sure you ought to be confessing that you're really a gentle soul? Don't you think this tough-guy image of yours has something to do with your popularity?

[A] Caan: Can I help it if I've got this sensational body [stroking his bare chest and shoulders] and the face of a Greek god? Get your hand off my knee, fella. But there's lots of good-looking, well-built guys in this business, and most of them couldn't play a corpse on Medical Center. I would hope that my popularity has less to do with how I look than with the fact that I'm a good actor.

[Q] Playboy: Come off it. You know perfectly well that fan magazines run all those stories about you not because their readers admire your talent but because hey'd like to make it with you.

[A] Caan: Can you blame them? Poor, lovesick kids. But they don't run all those stories because I'm such a big fuckin' stud. And they don't do it because I'm such a terrific actor, either. They do it because I got lucky. I've been around this business a long time, but a few years ago I happened to make two pictures that turned out to be the biggest movies of that year. One of them, Brian's Song, was the most successful picture ever made for television, and the other was The Godfather. Now, I turned in good performances in both films, but I've done better work before and since; so it wasn't anything special I did. But both pictures made a shit load of money, so overnight I became box office, a hot property. a fuckin' genius. Next year I could lie in the lower-left-hand corner on Hollywood Squares; who the hell knows? So I'm making the most of it now while I've got my turn at bat.

[Q] Playboy: Lately, you seem to be going directly from one picture to another. In your haste to capitalize on having made it big and being in such demand at last, are you being as selective as you should he about parts?

[A] Caan: In the past year or so, to tell you the truth, I've let myself get bulldozed into a couple of pictures that I normally wouldn't have done. I'd rather not name them, but you'll see them soon enough, if you haven't already; nothin' to be ashamed of, but nothin' to be proud of, either--just the usual bullshit macho leading-man kind of role that has me kill in' 18 people and then jumpin' on a horse, clangin' my gonads together.

[Q] Playboy: Sounds painful. You're big enough now to get any part you want. Why do you let yourself get bulldozed?

[A] Caan: That's a good question. Now shut up. Look, you always tell yourself there are good reasons for it at the time; it's not till it's too late and you can't get out that you realize what a mistake you've made. The problem is that the bigger you get, the more high-powered advice you receive from studios, agents, all the people involved in tellin' you what you ought to do. But when they tell me I've got to do this or that big commercial vehicle so that I can afford to do the artsy-fartsy stuff I really want to do, and it turns out to be worth three dead flies financially as well as artistically, or it makes money but I don't, or I make plenty but to get it I have to work three or four miserable months cooped up with people I don't like on a project I can't stand--again, no names--then I have to ask myself who I should be listening to.

[A] I mean, I have an agent I trust professionally more than anybody else I know, but with the best of intentions, he could put me in the shithouse just as fast as somebody who wanted to ruin me, and if that's what might happen, I want to be the one responsible for it. From now on, I'm running the show. After I hear what everybody has to say, I'm gonna do only what my own instincts tell me to do. I mean, if a part isn't right for me, or the people I'd have to work with are pricks or cunts--it ain't worth all the money in the world, even if it's another Gone wide the Wind. If that means I have to suffer economically and they'll take that tin superstar off my dressin'-room door, that's just the way it's gonna have to be.

[Q] Playboy: Are you sure you won't rationalize backing clown when it comes time to make the next big decision?

[A] Caan: No, I'm not. But at least I'm aware of the problem. The trouble is that there are a lot of pressures and responsibilities on my back that make it tough to take any big risks with my financial security right now; I haven't got enough fuck-you money yet. I've got maybe ten or eleven people--mostly family--depending on me.

[Q] Playboy: But if you were to wait longer between parts, holding out for one you loved--even if it paid you less--couldn't they live on less? Isn't your primary obligation to yourself?

[A] Caan: Ultimately, yes. But blood is thicker than water, and until my family and the rest of the people close to me are taken care of, I don't feel I have the right to fuck around with their future just to achieve 100 percent of my artistic integrity startin' tomorrow. But I got another problem to work on and that's my friends. It's terribly hard for me to say no to a friend. I know there's a way to do it without being nasty or rotten, but I haven't learned it yet. I just don't want to hurt anybody's feelings. And if I say no, I'm afraid they won't like me; I'm afraid they'll think I'm a bastard. I've been that way all my life; I mean, there are worse traits, but this one sure gets me into a lot of trouble. I need to be liked even by people I don't care about--by people I hate, for Christ's sake. I remember this girl back in high school who said somethin' mean about me, and I couldn't rest till I got her to like me; the sick part is that I didn't even like her. Anyway, all my life I've cared so much what people thought about me that a lot of the time I haven't ended up doing what I really wanted to do, just so they wouldn't think I'm a bad guy.

[A] I won't pretend that I haven't gotten even with a few people who've done me bad turns, because I have. If somebody's good to me or bad to me, I don't forget. Remember that, punk. But I don't go around nursing grudges. Now that I'm fortunate enough to be able to dictate terms, I'm not tryin' to stick it up anybody's ass. I don't want any more than my fair share. But I'm sure as hell not gonna accept less. And if I have anything to say about it--and I do--people are gonna honor their commitments if they expect me to honor mine. If that makes me a prick, I'm just gonna have to learn to live with it.

[Q] Playboy: Is that the choice--between kicking ass and kissing it?

[A] Caan: You got a way with words, kid. Have you ever thought of becomin' a writer? But sometimes it seems like that is the choice. You get put in that position. And I ain't gonna kiss ass. But I don't feel like I'm kicking it, either. All I'm doing is living by the golden rule. I treat people right and I expect them to treat me right. And I always give 'em the benefit of the doubt; I assume they're being straight with me until I find out otherwise. And lately I been getting a lot of otherwise: guys I know--other actors--putting me down behind my back and then coming up to me on the street and saying, "Hey, man, how ya doin', ole buddy?" I'd like to punch 'em right in the fuckin' mouth, you know, because they're full of shit.

[Q] Playboy: Why do you think they're badmouthing you--jealousy?

[A] Caan: I don't know what else it could be. But it seems to be the nature of this business--or any business, I guess--that the more successful you become, the more people there are waiting with sharpened knives to carve you up and cut you clown. It's like they want to see me fall on my ass because they think that'll make 'em look better, give 'em a better shot at the roles I'm getting lately. Maybe that's human nature, but it ain't my nature. I'm not setting myself up as Mr. Wonderful, but I've always been a booster, not a knocker. If I'm not gonna get a role myself, I'd sure as shit like to see Paul Newman get it, or Bobby Duvall, or whoever it is.

[A] I mean, Bobby, who's one of my best friends, enjoys my success almost as much as I do, and Newman is one of the nicest guys in the world to work with: he's always helping everybody else. It's always the most talented people who do the most for others; it's the no-talent jackasses who got there by luck or connections who feel threatened by anybody with real ability and want to push them down and come on like big fuckin' movie stars. You know, the kind who's got to have their dressing room decorated by some Beverly Hills faggot, and they won't go to the shithouse unless you take them there in a limo, and the chauffeur's got to wipe their ass afterward with a powder puff, and every five years they get their face peeled or their tits pumped up. I mean, no wonder they're such shitty actors--and actresses--if that's what they think it's all about.

[Q] Playboy: So how come you live in Beverly Hills in a $200,000 house with a pool and a sauna?

[A] Caan: Sly devil. You think you've caught me. don't you? Well, it so happens that this isn't my house; it's my agent's house, and lie lets me rent a furnished room in the basement where I can entertain guests once a month between five and six A.M. in exchange for light housework. I dust his money, shoot his cuffs and change the Wall Street Journals in the bottom of his cage.

[Q] Playboy: Do you do floors?

[A] Caan: No, but I do do-do now and then. Normally, I wouldn't use language like that, but I know it's the kind of thing you like to hear. What was the question?

[Q] Playboy: If you're such a modest, unassuming guy, how come you live in such a fancy house?

[A] Caan: Why didn't you say so in the first place? The answer to that is that I don't see any contradiction between wanting to live in a nice house and not wanting to be a show-off when I'm out of the house. You don't see any tour buses coming through here; I'm not flauntin' my lifestyle. More caviar? No? How about a Raisinet? Fuck ya, then. But this plate means a lot to me, because it's the first thing I ever owned. All my life I've rented, and I was always movin' out after three months and getting sued for breaking the lease when I found another place I liked better. Christ, I was getting Blue Chips from Bekins. It got to be too much.

[Q] Playboy: Did you begin to feel the need for roots?

[A] Caan: Do I look like a vegetarian?

[Q] Playboy: Let's rephrase the question: Did you get tired of living out of a suitcase?

[A] Caan: I certainly did. It began to get stuffy when the lid was closed.

[Q] Playboy: One last try: What was it that made you decide to buy this place?

[A] Caan: I fell in love with the doorknobs. And the furnace. And havin' the money to buy it: that was a big factor. Since then, I've really fixed it up--moving walls around, adding rooms, putting in brick and paneling. I don't mean I did it myself. I don't know which end of a nail to hit, but I designed it. You may not think it looks like much, but it sure beats hell out of living at the Y. The thing I like best about it, though, is thai it's always full; my friends are here all the time; the door is always open. It's a meeting place, like the club you used to go to when you were a kid.

[Q] Playboy: We've noticed the crowds. Your entertainment expenses must be enormous.

[A] Caan: I can afford it.

[Q] Playboy: We've heard that you're also a notorious check grabber and you've got a reputation as a soft touch. Just recently, you even brought your parents out to California and set them up in a Beverly Hills apartment. With all those expenses, have you been able to accumulate any savings?

[A] Caan: No. I've never saved any money. I don't think that's what, it's for. I like to live well and I like to see my family and my friends live well. That costs money. Fortunately. I make a lot of it.

[Q] Playboy: Do you spend most of your social time here at the house with your family and friends?

[A] Caan: I like to hang out at home. yeah.

[Q] Playboy: Doing what?

[A] Caan: I spend a lot of time locked in the bathroom reading Playboy. And writing dirty words on the wall with a Water Pik. When I get bored with that, I come out and play with the light switches for a while. Then I spend a couple of hours standin' down on the corner, flaggin' down tourists and selling them maps to the homes of those old ladies who stand on corners selling maps to the homes of the stars. And once in a while-like every night-a bunch of the guys will drop in for a game of nine ball or a few hands of poker, or just to sit around with their dirty feet on the table, drinkin' my booze and shootin' the shit. If it's any of your business.

[Q] Playboy: Do you go out often?

[A] Caan: Only to put out the garbage. What do you mean, do I go out often? Every day my dad'll let me borrow the car. It you mean socially. I like to go out to dinner at a restaurant or somebody's house; anyone will do. What are you having tonight at your place? Once in a while I go dancing-usually along the median strip of the Pasadena Freeway. And now and then I'll go out with the guys and get shitfaced. But I'm not a drinker: I get shitfaced on Shirley Temples.

[Q] Playboy: Are there any drugs you prefer to alcohol?

[A] Caan: 1 lake an aspirin now and then, when I've got somebody like you to talk 10. And Midol during my period. But if you're referring to other kinds of drugs--and I can tell from the size of your pupils that you are--I'd rather get sloshed than stoned. I've done a little bit of everything, of course, in the interests of scientific research. I mean, not everything, nothin' heavy. If anybody's passing a joint, I'll take a toke just to be sociable. But drugs aren't part of my lifestyle. That's where the problems start. Everything in moderation is my motto. I wanna stay healthy.

[Q] Playboy: Is that why you're so deeply into sports?

[A] Caan: I like to stay in shape and everything, but that's not why I do it. And I sure as hell don't do it to keep up my macho image, which is what one of those fuckin' fan magazines said about me the other day. If it's not part of my job. the only reason I do anything is 'cause I enjoy it. And I enjoy sports. I always have. I'm a very physical kind of guy. I can't spend a lot of time just sittin' around; I've gotta be doing something to let off steam, to work up a sweat. But the main thing for me is the competition. I'm really a fanatic about it. I mean, it's like a disease. I agree with Vince Lombardi: Winning ain't everything; it's the only thing. I've got to win: I've got to be the best. A week after I started playing tennis. I couldn't understand why I couldn't beat Pancho Gonzales; it really pissed me off. So I bore down and practiced my ass off--I'll bet you were wonderin' why I don't have an ass--and eventually I did beat him. Or maybe that was Irving Gonzales.

[Q] Playboy: Why don't you play professionally?

[A] Caan: Too inconsistent. Some clays I could lose playing against Ray Charles. But when I'm in there with really still competition. I tend to play a lot better. Maybe I play looser because I expect to lose, and that takes the pressure off. Another reason I do my best against champs might be that I know they're better than me. so I don't have to worry about hurting their feelings if I beat 'em. I really feel like a shit if I beat somebody who ain't as good as me. That's why I don't like to play tennis--or any oilier one-on-one game--with friends.

[Q] Playboy: When you do, do you go easy on them?

[A] Caan: Maybe I should, but I can't. If I was playin' ping-pong with a five-year-old. I'd try to blow him off (he table. That's the only way I know how to do anything: all out. Four or five years ago, I was shaggin' ass in a baseball game out here and I popped a tendon in my shoulder. The biceps in my right arm dropped down around three inches; looked pretty good in a short-sleeved shirt, but the other one didn't match, so they drilled a couple of holes in my shoulder bone, fed the tendon through and tied it back down. Girls can't keep their hands off the scar.

[Q] Playboy: Has the injury cramped your style?

[A] Caan: Only at sports. I can't play baseball or football that hard anymore. But I can still shoot your eyes out from 20 feet on a basketball court. And I can still rope pretty good.

[Q] Playboy: Roping, like everything else in rodeo, is dangerous. Have you ever gotten hurt at it?

[A] Caan: That's like askin' a swimmer if he's ever gotten wet. I've lost count of the bruises and the rope burns; and not long ago, my right thumb was out of commission for seven months. I had to stir my coffee with a spoon for a change.

[Q] Playboy: How do the studios feel about your taking chances like that?

[A] Caan: It's in my contract that I can't even think about rodeoing during a picture. I don't blame 'em. But when I ain't workin'. they can't tell me nothin'. If I've got a broken thumb when it's time to start shooting, they'll just have to write it into the script. That would be great if I had a part as a hitchhiker, right?

[Q] Playboy: Don't you worry about losing a thumb--or getting crippled? Many cowboys do.

[A] Caan: To tell you the truth. I have been fighting my head a little lately because of that last injury. But it ain't gonna make me stop.

[Q] Playboy: Why not?

[A] Caan: It helps me get all this Hollywood crap out of my system. I mean, I'm not knocking what I do for a livin': despite all the bullshit, I love it. But every once in a while, you got to blow it out. Ropin' does that for me.

[Q] Playboy: Couldn't an ocean cruise or a weekend in the country accomplish the same thing?

[A] Caan: Not like rodeo. There's something about the dirt; it's clean, you know? It makes you feel good. I don't wanna sound like John Wayne, but it's so American in the old-fashioned sense of the word: simple, basic, honest, wholesome, rough and tough. It gives me the chance to escape not only from L.A. but from the modern age--and from myself. It lets me act out one of my favorite dreams: being a cowboy. It's like actin', only for real. I love the drama of being alone in a ring, pitted against a powerful animal. I mean, you can't talk your way out of it; there ain't no bullshit, except for the stuff on your bootheels.

[Q] Playboy: Are you any good at it?

[A] Caan: Not bad. But it's a good thing I don't have to do it for a living, because I couldn't win enough to feed an ant--not competing against professionals who've been ropin' 30 steers a day for ten years. But they don't make that much money from it, either. They do it because they love it. It's a clean life--no attachments, no responsibilities, no bills coming in--but it ain't an easy one: driving maybe 100,000 miles, three or four rodeos a week, 12 months a year. paying a $50 entrance fee so they can bust their humps for a $100 prize, and nothin' if they lose, plus doctor's bills if they get hurt. They say hockey players are tough: forget about it. There ain't nobody as tough as a rodeo cowboy. "They get a broken leg or 25 stitches and climb right back on.

[Q] Playboy: Why?

[A] Caan: The competition. And the camaraderie. I mean, they fight among themselves all the time--you know, drunk, fuckin' around, spoilin' for action--but it's a tight fraternity. If you're an outsider, it wouldn't be a good idea to mess with 'em.

[Q] Playboy: How do they feel about having a big rich movie star mixing in?

[A] Caan: If I came on like a big rich movie star, they'd tell me to get fucked or just punch me out. They don't give a shit who you are. But they know I'm not slummin'. They know I'm there because I love ropin', that I go all out just like they do and I take my lumps along with the rest of 'em; and I think they respect me for that. And accept me. They're friends of mine.

[Q] Playboy: Most of your friends seem to be jocks--cowboys, stunt men, sports figures--and almost all of them are men. Some people would say you're suffering from arrested development.

[A] Caan: They're right. So sue me. I still like to hang out with the guys--play ball, cahoots, laugh a lot. chase girls and talk about horses and football. Thurber wrote that half the adult male population of the United States put themselves to sleep dreaming that they've just struck out the Yankees. That's me, boy. It has a lot to do with the way I was brought up on the streets of New York. You know, "I'll meetcha down by the candy store at six." I've just never outgrown it. I hope I never do.

[Q] Playboy: Do you have any women friends?

[A] Caan: Absolutely. As a matter of fact, that's the best relationship you can have with a woman. I found that out the hard way. If I had to choose, I'd much rather have a woman I could be friends with and share things with than the most incredible beauty in the world who turned me on every three seconds. It's infinitely more important to me to have someone to talk to and laugh with than someone to fuck--excuse me, make love to.

[Q] Playboy: You seemed to find both in Connie Kreski, the girl you lived with for four years.

[A] Caan: Yeah, I did. Connie is the sweetest girl I ever met. She's sensitive and thoughtful: she loves animals and children; she hasn't got a had word to say about anyone; she's a simple homebody; that's her whole life. And on top of everything else, she's beautiful to look at.

[Q] Playboy: What did she see in a rowdy like you?

[A] Caan: It had to be the present I gave her soon after we met. It was the most unbelievably ugly bouquet of flowers you ever saw. I went clown to the shop and picked 'em out myself--a couple of gladiolas stickin' out in different directions, some wilted roses, a few dead leaves, a little bit of everything, all in colors so loud you could almost hear 'em clashing. It was horrible. And on the card. I wrote: "Made in Poland especially for Connie Kreski." After that, she was mine.

[Q] Playboy: It was a few years before you met her that she posed for Playboy as a Playmate of the Month. How diet you feel about that?

[A] Caan: I don't put her down for doing it: she was raised Catholic and it was like a rebellion to her. But I didn't like it. I guess I'm old-fashioned that way. I just wouldn't want any girl I was going with doing a nude layout. And if I'd been with her before it happened, I wouldn't have permitted it.

[Q] Playboy: You're going to get letters from readers for using the word permitted.

[A] Caan: You're right--especially now that you've thoughtfully pointed it out. So let me explain. It's not like I'd have to say, "I won't permit it." If I was that close to somebody, I would hope she'd know how I felt about somethin' like that and not want to do it. If the relationship meant anything to her, she'd have to consider my views the way I would consider hers. If it was somethin' so important to her that she had to do it anyway, then maybe we weren't meant for each other. So it's not a question of being Hitler; it's a question of respecting each other's feelings.

[Q] Playboy: Even though it was after the fact, was Connie's centerfold a problem between the two of you?

[A] Caan: Not at all. That was part of the past, and you can't change it. What was important was what happened and how we felt about each other while we were together.

[Q] Playboy: How did you feel about each other?

[A] Caan: She loved me and I loved her. In my way, I still do. But somehow that feeling it began with started to fade. For her it seemed to last. I don't know what I'd want that she hasn't got. I mean, she's an extraordinary girl. Still. there was somethin' lacking; maybe in me, I don't know. All I know is that we reached a point where I couldn't live with myself without marrying her, but I just didn't feel ready for it or right about it, so it seemed that the only fair thing to do was to take a vacation from each other. Right now, though, she's alone, and that bothers me a lot. I can't ask her to come back. but if worst comes to worst and she doesn't meet anybody she can fall in love with, I want her to know I'll always take care of her, and even if we never get together again, we'll always be close friends.

[Q] Playboy: After failing at your marriage, do you think you might just be afraid to take the plunge again?

[A] Caan: Exactly the opposite. I hope to God I fall head over heels in love tomorrow with somebody I'd like to spend the rest of my life with, because there's nothing in the world I want more than to get married and settle down and have kids and live happily ever after. I'm. 35 and gettin' older every day and--here comes another fuckin' macho statement from the male chauvinist pig--I'd like to have a little halfback to play with while I'm still young enough to throw a pass. Christ, I find myself sometimes looking so desperately for somebody to fall in love with that I'm willing to do it with almost anybody. And the moment I find someone, I start waiting for something to go wrong--and I never have long to wait. It must be a sickness of mine.

[Q] Playboy: Incurable romanticism?

[A] Caan: Maybe that's it. Maybe I was born 200 years too fuckin' late. Or maybe I was spoiled by my parents--by what a great relationship they've got, by how happy they've always been together. After 37 years, they not only still love each other but they really like each other; they're best friends. They've got common beliefs and common interests; but they've got lots of independent interests, too, and that's just as important. Underneath it all, though, is respect and trust. They're really open with each other; there's nothing they wouldn't tell each other. I mean, it's not like a confessional, but there's nothing either one feels like he'd have to hide from the other.

[Q] Playboy: Is fidelity important to you?

[A] Caan: Of course. I just couldn't be with anyone I was worried about. I'd never ask, and I'd never spy, but if I found out that a girl I was seriously interested in was fuckin' around on me, that would be it; she'd be history.

[Q] Playboy: And would you expect the same treatment from her?

[A] Caan: I would hope she'd never ask, because if she did, and I had been messin' around, I'd have to tell her the truth. because I never lie.

[Q] Playboy: Then you believe in open relationships--open on your end.

[A] Caan: That's right, Charley. It's the old double standard. The problem is that I know I can handle what I do, but I also know that I couldn't handle whatever she might do. That ain't fair, but that's the way I am; I can't help it. I know it's nonsense to believe that a woman doesn't have the same natural instincts and shouldn't have the same rights as a man, but that's the way I was brought up, and I can't seem to get past it. I mean, it was Ok for me to go home and tell my dad I just balled three broads, and he'd say, "That's my boy!" But God forbid my sister would brag about makin' it with three men. Guys my age grew up wanting their sisters--and their brides--to he lily-white virgins of the Nile, yet we spent most of our time tryin' to make sure there weren't any left on earth.

[A] Fortunately, I've advanced in my thinking since then. If I meet a girl today who's 21 or 22 and she hasn't had an affair or two, I think there's probably something wrong with her. Whereas ten or fifteen years ago, she was considered a slut. But there's some part of me that hasn't grown up--or caught up with the times.

[Q] Playboy: So if you were to get married again, you wouldn't be able to remain faithful or to grant your wife the same freedom you insist on for yourself?

[A] Caan: I might not fuck around if I was dead in love with somebody; I don't want a gold star for it, but I didn't fuck around for the four and a half years I was married. I don't know if it would be the same next time, though; I'm older and I've been around and we've all lived through the sexual revolution and all that, so it might be much more difficult now to stay faithful. You hear people today saying, "I'll settle down when I get all this foolin' around out of my system." But what happens if you never get it out of your system? Maybe I won't get it out of my system till I'm 80 and I need somebody to help me go to the bathroom: "Come on, honey, I got to go peepee."

[Q] Playboy: How do you usually get it out of your system--chasing girls, one-night stands, all of that?

[A] Caan: I never messed around much when I was young; but when I reached 25, after my marriage broke up, it was like they opened my cage: Every night I was out with a different girl. But that really gets old fast. I'd find myself telling the same fuckin' story every night, you know? It got so I wished I had a little tape deck that I could just whack into my mouth and read a magazine or go to sleep while I was getting that part over with. It turned into a routine; you couldn't avoid the sameness. By a certain time, we got to the house, had a drink, I was playing my guitar, singing a song, saying, "Oh, wow, aren't you charmin'? Drop your pants," and goin' fuckin' bananas. I didn't like not being able to relax and be myself.

[A] Another reason I can't be much of a pussy hound is that I want to imagine that I'm in love before I make love. Even if I was with a whore, I'd want to pretend it was all for real; I'd function better under those circumstances. I mean, if you can't feel a little bit romantic about it, you might as well fuck a liver. A chicken, maybe, but a liver--yucch!

[Q] Playboy: Convincing yourself that you're in love sounds like the kind of thing we used to think women did to rationalize making love.

[A] Caan: If you're calling me a cunt, you're gonna get it upside the head with my purse, faggot. No offense. But sexual guilt isn't exclusive with women. It goes back again to the way men--including me--used to be brought up: believing that the moment you have sex with a girl, you owe her something, because she's given away this terrific treasure. Anal she figures you won't respect her if site gives it away too cheap; so she pretends she's in love, and so do you. Thank God all that is changing.

[Q] Playboy: Still, don't you find that most of the women you meet nowadays are more casual about sex than you are?

[A] Caan: A lot of 'em, yeah. And it's a turnoff. I think the sexiest part of seduction is the courting ritual that comes before the lovemaking: the cat-and-mouse. the kissing, the handholding, the soft lights, all that shit. These days, women seem to want to go straight for the crotch. And that's another by-product of women's lib that turns me off: aggressiveness. For the last couple of years, a lot of women have been comin' on with me, and I don't think it's just because I've become well known. I mean, sometimes I can't help wondering if they'd treat me the same if I was delivering pizzas, but I really don't think it's star fucking. Whatever it is, though, I don't like it. I don't like to be pushed. Maybe it's old-fashioned--there he goes again--but I want to take the initiative. I think it's the man's role. I also happen to believe--batten the hatches, men--in a patriarchal society. I believe that the husband should be the head of the household, that he should be the boss--when it comes to the big decisions. That's not to say marriage should be a dictatorship: there should be discussion and sharing and cooperation about everything. Compromise and consideration are part of any good relationship. And not just on the woman's side. I don't want a robot on my arm. But if there's a basic difference of opinion about something really important, somebody's got to resolve it if it's a problem that affects the welfare of the family, and I think that's got to be the husband.

[Q] Playboy: Those are very Neanderthal views, don't you think?

[A] Caan: That's exactly what they are. Men have run the family ever since the caves, and I think that's the way it's printed in our nerve endings, or we wouldn't have been doing it that way all these generations. I think we started gettin' in big trouble when we began to lose faith in this age-old role for men. And women lost their way when they started listening to all that bullshit feminist propaganda about how they couldn't be fulfilled unless they had a career. I happen to believe that a woman isn't truly fulfilled until she has kids--and raises them full time. Shit, that's the greatest fulfillment anyone could have. I'm not sayin' they shouldn't have equal voting rights, equal pay for equal jobs or any of that; but in personal relationships, I think the male is meant to be the final arbiter; and I really believe that if she's married, a woman's place is in the home--at least until the kids are grown. Gloria Steinem can lead a march to my house with torches, but 70 percent of the women I know agree with me. So maybe I'm not such a fuckin' pig after all.

[Q] Playboy: Well, whatever you are, no one could accuse you of being trendy.

[A] Caan: Damn right. I was brought up in a very traditional home. Whenever my brother or sister or I goofed off, it was, "Wait till your father gets home!" We grew up in Sunnyside, a nice middle-class neighborhood; you know, the typical Italian-Irish-Jewish melting put, with a lot of ball and ring-a-levio in the streets. It was a tough neighborhood, but my parents taught us to respect not only them but all the people in our community. And they gave us a good home life. We all ate together at six o'clock, we went away in the summer and we never really wanted for anything. I had good schoolin', a bicycle, a piano and a bat and a ball. No spoiling, though. My dad is a very old-fashioned European guy--almost a musical-comedy version of a father--and he's very kind, very fair, very honest, very strong and very strict.

[Q] Playboy: Did you need a lot of discipline?

[A] Caan: Nah, I wasn't really a wild kid. But I was very competitive. Maybe I was tryin' to prove somethin' to my dad--at 215 pounds, he's a pretty tough dude--or maybe it's because I always hung around with guys three and four years older than me. It's no ego thing, but I can't think of anybody my age in my neighborhood that I didn't surpass physically. I wound up playin' ball with older guys, dating older girls and growing up that much faster. That's what I remember most about when I was a kid--lying about my age. That and fightin'.

[Q] Playboy: We thought you said you weren't a wild kid.

[A] Caan: I wasn't, but in that neighborhood, fightin' was just part of being a kid-- like pimples and homework. I mean, there was nothing fatal about comin' home with a black eye or a coupla bruises. I got beat up once when I was four or five and came in all bloody, and my uncle, who was visitin', pushed me out into the street again to rework the kid who did it to me. Another time I'll never forget, because I think it's why I became an actor. I was watching my brother fighting and this lady came clown and just whacked him. So I whacked her. Then she dragged me inside her house and when my mother came to get me, she was terrific. "Oh, thank you very much, ma'am," and "Wait till your father comes home." Then, when we got outside, she whispered, "The next time she hits your brother, kick her."

[Q] Playboy: Did you run with any gangs?

[A] Caan: We had a group. Stole Baby Ruths from the candy store, broke windows, did a lot of things we weren't supposed to; I mean, nothing really big; we never robbed anybody. There was no fear of getting stuck or shot in those clays. But later on, about four or five years later, like my younger brother's crowd, they started gettin' pretty heavy. There were a lot of blades and zip guns and garrison belts and cue balls in white socks; they would've used a bazooka if they'd been able to get hold of one. Only once did I get caught in somethin' like that. Eight guys jumped me at the Lowery Street station and I got cut with a razor. Found one of 'em alone about six months later and beat the shit out of him. They're always like that: real tough when they're together but little pussies when they're alone.

[Q] Playboy: Do you look back on your street life with any bitterness?

[A] Caan: No, I don't regret any of it. There's something fair about the streets. I really feel that having to fight now and then helped me get along in life. It taught me how to win and it taught me how to lose. It taught me about competition. Of course, I was fortunate that I could handle myself when I was a kid. So I didn't get the shit kicked out of me that often. But I wasn't a bully, either.

[Q] Playboy: So how come they called you Killer Caan by the time you were 11?

[A] Caan: I see you've been doin' your research, prick. I'll tell you how that happened. Around that age, I began to box a little bit--oranges, mostly--and one summer at camp I was matched against this guy Wasserman. He was the biggest kid in camp--outweighed me by 52 pounds--but I knocked him cold. Well, the next year, I went back to camp and Wasserman was there again; he'd taken boxin' lessons all winter long and lost about 25 pounds, and he beat the dog shit out of me.

[Q] Playboy: Did you go home and take karate lessons that winter?

[A] Caan: Karate. That's where you take a board and break a guy's arm with it, right? I know all about that stuff. Like jujitsu. You see, I'm half a Jew, so I just needed the jitsu. I got a big start on that game.

[Q] Playboy: Did it ever do you any good?

[A] Caan: Being Jewish?

[Q] Playboy: Learning karate and jujitsu.

[A] Caan: Are you kidding? I never learned any of that. I learned the art of self-defense Sunnyside style. That's where if a guy throws a punch at you, you hit him with a brick. Or even better, hit him with it first. I wrote away to one of those courses and that's what they said to do.

[Q] Playboy: Did you ever try "dynamic tension" with Charles Atlas?

[A] Caan: Nah, I got tense enough without him. But I did try to pull a train with my hair once. That's why I'm a little thin up there. You pull a few trains, boy, you see how quick your hair goes.

[Q] Playboy: Did you use any martial-arts methods when you threw a kid out of a second-story window in public school?

[A] Caan: That's an absolute lie. It was more like a story and a half. Come on upstairs and I'll show you how I did it. We had found out that the teacher was gonna spring a test on us, so we were all trying to cram in whatever we could beforehand, and this kid came in singing and everybody said shut up, but he wouldn't stop. So I said, "Hey, man, shut the fuck up or I'll throw ya out the goddamn window." When he still wouldn't stop, everybody was there watching, so I had to do it. Somebody jerked the window open and I kinda snatched him and chucked him out in one motion. But the teacher caught me. My timing was always impeccable.

[Q] Playboy: Were you expelled?

[A] Caan: I didn't get expelled, but they didn't accept me back. It was like the end of the year. So I transferred to a school in Manhattan called Rhodes.

[Q] Playboy: A reform school?

[A] Caan: No, but I met a lot of guys there of the same caliber. Even so, it didn't take me long to establish myself there as the class clown: The level of wit wasn't that high. I also went out for basketball and baseball and became the captain of both teams; I owned the ball. Didn't study a whole lot; used to skip study hall and go drink beer at a place called the White Rose. But I got pretty good grades anyway, 'cause I was a truly gifted con man. Established a new statewide track-meet record in bullshit throwing. Even got elected president of my class; voted most likely to exceed. I wasn't what you'd call an introvert.

[Q] Playboy: How old were you when you started getting interested in girls?

[A] Caan: Oh, shit, man! I remember having a mad love affair at camp when I was ten. I used to sneak over to the girls' camp during rest period.

[Q] Playboy: Did you make out with her?

[A] Caan: Oh, yeah.

[Q] Playboy: All the way?

[A] Caan: What kind of boy do you think I was? How dare you? I didn't do anything like that till I was 12, when I started going with this girl in my neighborhood. I just put it in that far, you know? Then I went to Miami one summer when I was 13. I always looked older than I was, and I was hangin' around with these guys who were 17 and 18, and this one guy started telling me about this whorehouse he knew. I thought it was the funniest story I'd ever heard, because, like, a guy picks you up in a motorboat and takes you out to this little island. So, naturally, I went there myself first chance I got. I was scared shitless.

[Q] Playboy: That was the first time you got it all the way in?

[A] Caan: Yeah. Some old girl in the back of a car. She was about 40. Looked like she'd been on fire and got put out with a fork.

[Q] Playboy: How was she?

[A] Caan: All I remember is the mosquitoes bit my ass off. It wasn't a very romantic experience. But there was something about it that I liked. And I went straight home and started seeing this girl there. Went with her for two years.

[Q] Playboy: Did your parents know you were sleeping with her?

[A] Caan: I guess they suspected. If my father had known for sure, he probably would have wanted to jump on her himself. I remember one night a few years ago, my brother Ronnie and me were half bombed in Vegas, and we had a girl with us, and we were all sitting around having a good time. And Ronnie says, "Come on, let's call Dad and wake his ass up." It was five o'clock in the morning and we put this girl up to saying, "Hello, Mr. Caan? I've just been fucked by your sons, and I want to thank you, 'cause they're really great." And the old man says. "You ain't been fucked till you been fucked by the old man." When she got up off the floor, he added, "Of course, I need two guys to help me on and off."

[Q] Playboy: You're obviously a chip off the old block. But let's get back to your first girlfriend. Living at home, where would you go to be alone together?

[A] Caan: Up on the rooftops. We'd go into those little sentry stands with the pigeons. And in the winter, we'd go down to the storage room in the basement and screw over the bicycles and the sheets.

[Q] Playboy: Ever get caught?

[A] Caan: A few times. It was really hysterical. My mother walked in one time, yelling, "Surprise!" Great sense of humor, my mother. Another time, at my girlfriend's house, her folks walked in; this time, I yelled "Surprise!" Then there was a time when I wasn't caught in the act, but I might just as well have been. I was taking out this girl from Yonkers. We used to go by the cemetery and neck all the time, and one night we got kind of passionate. She had on a pair of those pedal pushers they were wearing in those days and this little blouse. And we got to fumblin' around down there and I ripped her zipper out. And she had nothing to hold her pants up with, see. So we waited extra late and got home around two-thirty, and she said, "Come on, walk me in." And I said, "Well, look, I mean...." And she says, "It's OK, my parents are asleep." So we walked in--she's holding her pants up with one hand--and there in the livin' room are six people playin' pinochle. Her parents and two other couples. I didn't know whether to shit or go blind.

[Q] Playboy: Which did you do?

[A] Caan: I said, "How do you do?" and ran out the door.

[Q] Playboy: Did you see her again? Or Yonkers?

[A] Caan: Nope. It was a true act of cowardice. Oh, oh. Now that you've got me going, I remember the very first time I ever got caught. It was with the four year-old girl from upstairs. Her mother went down to the basement with the laundry and when she came back, there I was, examining the dear little thing's peach.

[Q] Playboy: How old were you?

[A] Caan: Five. She liked older men.

[Q] Playboy: Precocious, weren't you?

[A] Caan: Yeah, well, I kinda liked it even then.

[Q] Playboy: So by the time you ----

[A] Caan: Got to Phoenix, I was sleepin'.

[Q] Playboy: Sounds like you could have used the rest. What we were going to say was that by the time you got to college, you must have been around more than most postgraduates.

[A] Caan: Well. I never took a poll, but at 16, which is when I started college, I was keepin' up with the guys who were 18 or 19. When I went to Michigan State, I was in love with a girl who was 18, and my biggest fear was that she was gonna find out I was two years younger than her. Then her father found out I was Jewish and it was all over anyway.

[Q] Playboy: Had you run into much anti-Semitism before that?

[A] Caan: I was aware of it, but I never got persecuted or anything. But I didn't feel especially Jewish to begin with; I mean, my parents weren't religious. My father is an agnostic, if anything, and my mother gets holy maybe twice a year, so it was never a big thing with me or my friends. But I remember a coupla times when somebody found out I was part Jewish, they looked at me differently; so I didn't talk about it. I remember feeling--I don't know how to explain it--sort of an embarrassment about it. Maybe that had something to do with why I tried so hard to be funny, and to be tough, and to excel at sports; I wanted to be accepted. Who knows? I don't lose any sleep over it. All that's past now, of course. Now I'm proud to be Jewish. I don't think I act particularly Jewish. But you know something? During the Six-Day War, I got so Jewish I wanted to hijack a bomber and strafe Cairo. Not that I've got anything against them fuckin' Arab goat eaters.

[Q] Playboy: Of course not. But we were talking about Michigan State. How long did you stay there after being found out?

[A] Caan: I quit after a year--but not because of that, for Christ's sake, and he ought to know; he was Jewish, too. I went to Michigan in the first place because I wanted to play football, and it had one of the best teams in the country.

[Q] Playboy: Did you make the team?

[A] Caan: I held bags for a while and they sent me home in a box. I just wasn't big enough or old enough, I guess. I got home one holiday bandaged from my neck to my ass, and my mother took one look and said, "Have you thought of tryin' out for the swimming team?" I was gonna do that, but I got homesick, and I missed this girl I'd met at home, so I transferred to Hofstra in New York.

[Q] Playboy: Did you do any better there?

[A] Caan: I did great. Couldn't find anything that held my interest. Changed my major every two weeks. Finally sold my books halfway through the year. All the classes were reading, no doing--even in drama, which I tried as a last resort. It was all such a fuckin' waste of time that I quit school that summer and went to work in my dad's packing house. Even haulin' carcasses was livelier than college. But by the end of the summer, I was getting restless to do something with myself, so when somebody told me about an actin' school in Manhattan called the Neighborhood Playhouse, I went down there and asked if I could join up. I found out later that they had waiting lists for this place; they take only 30 guys and 30 girls a year. But I talked to the guy in charge and he must have seen something even I didn't see, because he accepted me on the spot. I started classes ten days later.

[Q] Playboy: And did it hold your interest?

[A] Caan: Well, I'm still actin'. At least I think I am. But I had my doubts there for a while. When I signed up, they gave me a slip to go to this place on Broadway to pick up some stuff for school--I wasn't sure what--and they handed me some dance tights, a dance belt and fuckin' ballet slippers! I thought, what the hell did I get myself into now? I asked for a brown bag to carry 'em out, but they didn't have one, so I had to take 'em home that way. My dad took a look at them, rolled his eyes. whistled, patted me on the hack and just shook his head. For the next two weeks. The first day of school, I showed up in the locker room and there were all these guys flittin' around, slipping into their outfits, and all I could think about was that I'd traded football pads for this. But finally I got 'em on and I skulked clown to the exercise hall--feeling naked as a jay bird, afraid somebody I knew was gonna see me and tell the whole neighborhood--and when I got there, I found out I'd put the goddamn thing on backward. It was horrendous.

[Q] Playboy: When did you start to enjoy yourself?

[A] Caan: When I found out there were girls in the class with us. I used to love to lift them up. And Martha Graham was teaching there; she was really exciting. It was a good year and I got hooked on performing.

[Q] Playboy: Had you quit your job at the packing house by that time?

[A] Caan: Nope, I was still unloading hindquarters at four in the morning--that was about the only piece of ass I had time for--and I was working Friday and Saturday nights as a waiter in a place called the Tuxedo Ballroom. It was the biggest dance hall I'd ever seen. The Devlin brothers, who owned the place, thought I'd just come off the boat: I talked with a brogue, danced the fling, the whole shot. One night I was dancing with a fall tray of Scotch and rye--ta-da, ta-da, ta-da--twirlin' around like a fuckin' dervish, and all the drinks come flyin' off. It was great.

[Q] Playboy: Sounds like a high-class joint. Did guys go there to pick up girls?

[A] Caan: What, are you kidding? They sure as hell didn't come in to pick up guys; not in that neighborhood. Sometimes, though, they got two for the price of one: They picked up not only a girl but a case of the clap. The girls would come in on Saturday night and get piss-assed, work the guys into a frenzy, stick their tongues in their ears and promise to meet them later. Then, around one or two, they'd leave and go home--alone--'cause they had to be in church by nine the next morning, in time for confession. As soon as they left--the "nice" girls, I mean--the party would begin to warm up. Chairs would start to go: it was a real Donnybrook. Somebody would say something and wham! "Hey, I like dem brown shoes wid dem white socks!" "Hey, ya mudda sleeps inna gahbidge can!" "Hey, getcha hand off my girl!" "Hey. getcha hand off my dick!" "Hey, getcha hand off my hand!" "Hey, getcha hand!" It didn't matter what you said: the point was to get it started. One night the 300-pound bouncer was out sick and they handed me his carnation and told me to get out there and stand in for him; I spent the night in the bathroom. Mrs. Cann didn't raise no fool for a son.

[Q] Playboy: Did you get combat pay for working in that place?

[A] Caan: No. but I supplemented my income with tips for taking the Reserved signs off tables for big spenders who wanted to sit clown. I always managed to earn enough money to get along on, and a little bit extra. A while later, when I started getting actin' jobs off-Broadway, I was taking home a fast $37.50 a week: but somehow I always found a way to flesh that out at the poker table or the pool hall. I'm not that great at either game, but I won consistently by practicin' the Caan system: always playing somebody worse than me. I also did a lot of betting on ball games. Didn't do quite as well at that: there wasn't anybody to con. But I found a way to win (continued on page 150)Playboy Interview(continued from page 61) even when I lost. I wouldn't know how I was gonna pay the bookmaker, but every Monday after an unlucky weekend, I'd go out--don't ask me why--and buy myself a suit. I guess I wanted to look good when they came to get me. My wife wondered how I managed to afford such a nice wardrobe on such a small salary, and I wondered myself. But I'd say, "What are they gonna do to me, make me a leper?" And somehow I always came up with the money before I found out the answer to that question.

[Q] Playboy: Where did you meet your wife?

[A] Caan: That's a great story: I was doin' La Ronde off-Broadway, and 20th Century-Fox asked me to do a screen test. I was like 19 or something. So I went down to Fox and they were testing five girls and me.

[Q] Playboy: You were that pretty?

[A] Caan: You should see me in a swimsuit. But I arrived and put on my make-up, and when I came out, there was this girl sitting in a room all by herself. They say it doesn't happen, but I just looked at her and wang! Bells rang. And--I'll show you what a smoothy I was--the first thing I said to her was, "I'm gonna marry you." Isn't that terrible?

[Q] Playboy: Yes. Was she that great to look at?

[A] Caan: Gorgeous. Blonde. Pretty little nose. Pretty big eyes. Beautiful body. Solid. Nice tits. Nice ass. And legs! And legs. And legs. She was a dancer. After we finished our auditions, I walked her to the bus depot, and on the way, I charmed her with my mumblin' and stutterin', and finally I managed to spit out an invitation to come to my show the following Friday. She said yes. Oh, golly, gee.

[Q] Playboy: Did she tell you anything about herself on the way to the bus?

[A] Caan: Her name: Deejay Mattis. I don't remember the rest, because I went deaf. But not blind. All I could do was look at her--and lick the saliva off my chin. I wanted desperately to hold her hand, but I was paralyzed, too. Then she got on a bus and went away.

[Q] Playboy: Did she go to the show on Friday?

[A] Caan: Yes! I pushed extra hard that night onstage, and she said I was very good. Then we went out to--are you ready?--the Tavern-on-the-Green. Ballroom dancing. Soft lights. Sweet music. Did a lot of dippin'. A dip here, a dip there. And we'd sit out them fast numbers, because I didn't want my sweat to come out through my armpits. And I was very careful about breathin' in her ear. You don't want to breathe too hard, so she gets the wrong idea--or the right idea. It was so terrific. I was in a daydream for weeks. Pretty soon I started borrowing my father's station wagon and taking her to drive-ins.

[Q] Playboy: And making out?

[A] Caan: Is that all you ever think about? It's all I ever think about. But she was above all that, so we watched the movie and discussed auteur cinema during the intermission.

[Q] Playboy: In the front seat or the back seat?

[A] Caan: It had to be the front seat, 'cause my father carried meat in the back, and the fat would always be in the creases, and it would smell like a shithouse back there. So I used to hang one of those pine-scented room deodorants in the back--God, it was fuckin' awful. Why weren't we rich, Dad? Anyway, I'd go home in the mornin' and he'd be waitin' for the car to go to work.

[Q] Playboy: You got home that late?

[A] Caan: Once in a while. Like, one time I remember, after we'd been goin' out for a while, we were invited to a Halloween party. A costume thing. Only it was held the weekend before Halloween, at a dance hall in Manhattan. I decided to go as Nero, and the lady across the street made me a sheet with a hole in the middle, and I had gold chains across my thing, with a laurel wreath, and those gold laced-up sandals, and iron clasps for my biceps. I looked great. No fiddle, though. She was in a toga, too. With those legs, and those legs, and those legs. So I pick her up in Jersey and we're driving down highway 21 back toward Manhattan. It's raining hard, so I go under this underpass and stop to wait for it to lighten up and whack! A truck hits me right in the ass. Now I get crazy, because this is, like, holy shit, my father's car! I get out of the goddamn station wagon--on the freeway, right? and the traffic is backin' up--and there's this burly truck driver waiting for me. So I go back to this guy and I say, "You stupid...." And I notice that he's staring at me, and so is everybody else on both sides of the highway; everything's at a standstill. "They're lookin' at this maniac standing there in a toga in the middle of the highway with a wreath on his head, and it's raining. I didn't say another word. I jumped back into the car and took off. Never even got the guy's license; had to tell my father somebody must've hit me when we were parked.

[Q] Playboy: Sounds like a fun courtship. How long did it last?

[A] Caan: Eight or nine months. Then the baby came. No, we just decided to run away. We eloped to North Carolina. I borrowed five bucks from my mother and we drove down in a friend of mine's 1940 LaSalle--with him and his pregnant wife. It sounds like a bad B movie, but it was really romantic. God, I wish I could do it again. "The highlight of the trip back was when we stopped in Virginia for some watermelon. Boy, you talk about exciting honeymoons! I drove her straight home to her folks' house in Jersey and kissed her goodbye and told her not to worry, we'd straighten out everything with her parents.

[Q] Playboy: Did they disapprove of you?

[A] Caan: You might say that. She was like the starlet of Union, New jersey--lead dancer on the Mitch Miller show--and I wasn't good enough for her. So I told her not to tell her folks till I took care of things at my house. So I drive home and walk in and my father is in his usual position--layin' on the couch in his undershirt, watchin' TV--and I say, "Dad, listen, I got somethin' to tell ya." And he says, "You got married, right?" Just like that! I have no idea how he knew. And with that, my mother gets hysterical with laughter--she's doubled over because I had to borrow five bucks from her to get married. My father was a little hurt, because we were very close, and I hadn't spoken to him first. But they were both happy for me.

[A] That's when the phone rang. It was her folks: "How could you do this to us? What'll our friends say?" I said. "Forget about your friends. What about your daughter? That's the important issue." I was very mature even when I was 21. But that conversation got nowhere, so her father tried to call North Carolina and have them rip up the records. When that didn't work, either, they tried to get me to turn Catholic or sign a paper agreeing to bring up the kids as Catholics, and when I refused, they started in on her. Called her a slut and everything else they could think of. She called me up in tears and told me and I said, "OK, I'm gonna come and get ya." It was great. I felt like Clark Gable. And I went and got her. And they didn't say a word. She just walked out. I took her home to my house and she started cryin' even harder, 'cause my parents were so good to her. My father even went apartment huntin' with her.

[A] Finally, we found a place on 67th Street. It was in a nice building, but it was small. I kept wondering why these guys would always let themselves in with a passkey and store buckets and mops there. We'd fool people when they came over. "Oh, this is a lovely living room," they'd say. "The bedroom must be nice, too." Only we'd never invite them into the bedroom, because there wasn't any. Anyway, we'd sit up and eat in bed, which was also the couch.

[Q] Playboy: Were her parents mollified by the lavish lifestyle you were providing for their daughter?

[A] Caan: Even after a year, her mother would call up once a month and say, "Are you happy?" But finally they came around. 'Cause she obviously was happy. And so was I.

[Q] Playboy: How long did it stay that way?

[A] Caan: I guess till I began to get work in television and we moved out here to L.A. I mean, we had a baby and everything, and we were together four and a half years, but it just didn't go, man. It wasn't just me and it wasn't just her. Like I said before, I never fooled around on her. I don't know about her, and I don't want to know. Maybe she ran into somebody else. Maybe not. There's nobody to blame in a situation like that. But whatever the reasons were, it ended.

[Q] Playboy: Were you shaken by it?

[A] Caan: Yeah. For a long time. But I got over it, and I still like her very much. She's a terrific mother; she's been remarried for seven years now; lives in Tarzana.

[Q] Playboy: Do you see your daughter often?

[A] Caan: Not as much as I'd like to.

[Q] Playboy: Does that bother you?

[A] Caan: Yes. It's like I only get to see her for three hours at a time once in a long while, and that makes me crazy. I get a terrible headache and I can't get over it for days. You're giving me one now, as a matter of fact, so do you mind if we change the subject?

[Q] Playboy: Sorry. In times of stress such as you've been describing, many people look for help from a psychiatrist. Did you?

[A] Caan: Not then. A few years later I did, but I stopped when f caught him going to a fortuneteller.

[Q] Playboy: Right. Did you really go to a psychiatrist?

[A] Caan: No. I was just kidding. He was only a psychologist. It was after I finished a movie called The Rain People. I played a mentally retarded character, a guy completely devoid of ego, and that's not an easy or pleasant or even healthy thing to do. It was probably the best performance I ever gave--Francis Coppola directed it--but I got so deeply into that role that I couldn't get out of it. For the four or five months we were makin' Rain People, I was so depressed I just sat in my room at night and cried.

[Q] Playboy: Was it just because of the part?

[A] Caan: Most of it, yeah. But it didn't help that I was away front home for so long, without my friends, not able to blow off a day's work at night. We went from one little town to another all over the country, and I had nothing to do after shooting was over every day but sit in the Holiday Inn and watch the wallpaper peel. I was really crazy by the time it was over. Took me a couple of months--and a few visits to the shrink--to come out of it. That experience frightened me so much that I try to lean away from those kinds of characters.

[Q] Playboy: That was seven years ago. Do you think it might happen again?

[A] Caan: I hope it doesn't. But I know I might give a better performance if it did. So I might have to play that kind of part again--who knows?

[Q] Playboy: Do you have a tendency to lose yourself in the characters you play?

[A] Caan: Not like that; but if you're right for a role, and you're any good at what you do, it's got to become part of you for as long as it lasts. Like the whole time I was playing Sonny Corleone in The Godfather, I just busted everybody's stones morning, noon and night. It kept the energy level going all the time, even when I wasn't oncamera. It wasn't anything I thought about or planned; it just happened. I'm not a very cerebral kind of actor.

[Q] Playboy: We've heard that you not only don't try to psych out the motivations of a character but that you don't even like to study your lines.

[A] Caan: That's true. I don't know if it's laziness or what, but I just try to get the behavior of a character down--the way he talks, the way he walks--and then let osmosis take over. If I like a script after I've read it the first time, I say yes right away--and I never look at it again. Then, before I go into a scene. I'll sort of go over it with the script girl a couple of times, so I kinda know the thing, and if it's written well. I don't really have to think about remembering my lines, and that makes me available to whatever's gonna happen in the scene. I have no preconceived notions of where the director may put me in a room, or of what the actor or actress I'm working with is gonna do. If the wind starts blowing or a chair falls over, I can just go with it. I mean, if a train came through the room unexpectedly, I don't think it would throw me off; I'd just react to it as the character would--instinctively. That makes it real.

[Q] Playboy: Have you met many directors who don't like to give you that kind of freedom?

[A] Caan: I've found recently that those who hire me know what to expect and feel the same way I do about it. Otherwise, I don't think they'd mess with me.

[Q] Playboy: You're also known as a notorious cutup on the set. Do some directors find that difficult to deal with?

[A] Caan: Most of them know pretty much what to expect of me between takes, too. I down around a lot not only because it's fun but because it relaxes me and takes my mind off of what I'm doing. I don't want to think about it too much, or I'll lose the spontaneity. I don't know if Duvall and Brando mess around for the same reasons I do, but we were all sure as hell doin' a lot of it while we were makin' The Godfather; but Francis seemed to take it all in stride.

[Q] Playboy: Are you talking about all the mooning that Coppola mentioned in his Playboy Interview last year?

[A] Caan: Some people just can't keep a secret. He's probably jealous because i've got a better-looking ass than he does.

[Q] Playboy: He said that Brando dropped his pants, but he didn't mention you.

[A] Caan: Brando probably pressured him to hush it up. The truth is that I got off a moon so spectacular that it went straight into the Guinness book.

[Q] Playboy: Care to tell us about it?

[A] Caan: Are we alone?

[Q] Playboy: Absolutely.

[A] Caan: Ok. Car to car, on Second Avenue in New York, in broad daylight, I mooned Brando. I was riding along with Bobby anti a friend of mine, with his kids in the back, and we saw Brando ahead of us. We made the kids turn away, pulled up alongside him, I hung it out the window and we honked. Man, he died! He just fuckin' disappeared! Almost drove up onto the curb. That won me the belt. But then he and Bobby won it back by moonin' 500 extras on the set. Five hundred. That record's gonna last a while.

[Q] Playboy: You could moon millions, if you did it in a movie.

[A] Caan: I wouldn't want it commercialized. That would cheapen it.

[Q] Playboy: We've heard that Sam Peckinpah, who directed your latest film, The Killer Elite, is something of a practical joker himself. How did you get along?

[A] Caan: Sam is a great character. He didn't joke around too much on this last picture, but I had a little fun with him. We were on location down at the waterfront in San Francisco, and I was out on a boat near the shore with a friend of mine, and we had dressed up this life-size dummy to look just like Sam, and we waited till the whole press was there, and then we started beatin' the shit out of it. It was so realistic even Sam thought it was him.

[Q] Playboy: Was the action that lively when the cameras were rolling?

[A] Caan: The blood bags were bursting all over the place. It's a half assed CIA type of story about a political figure who's ousted from power somewhere in the Far East and I'm one of the guns hired to help put him back in, and everybody's betraying everybody else. I won't spoil it for you by tippin' off the climax, because I know you'll he running out to see it after this exciting description I just gave you. Let's just say that Peckinpah fans won't be disappointed.

[Q] Playboy: It doesn't sound like one of your deeper roles.

[A] Caan: What makes you say that? I get to register a lot of pain. I get to bleed and crawl around the floor after I'm shot in the leg; I get to maim and kill a few people myself. What more could an actor ask for?

[Q] Playboy: Maybe a chance to act?

[A] Caan: What do you want from me? It isn't what you'd call a big message movie and my part has all the subtlety of a dumdum bullet. You want me to admit that it's not likely to earn me another Academy Award nomination? Ok, I admit it. Live and learn. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

[Q] Playboy: Do you feel the same way about the part you played in Rollerball? One reviewer wrote: "Caan the athlete is here, but where is Caan the actor?"

[A] Caan: You're really rubbin' it in, aren't you, buddy? I think I did pretty good with the part I had to work with. Some of the critics said I walked though it--or skated through it--but for Christ's sake, I wasn't playing a flashy character. He may be kind of a rebel, but he's still monofaceted, the product of a very controlled society. The people are sort of mechanical; they aren't allowed to think or feel. Their only emotional outlet is Rollerball.

[Q] Playboy: Is the game as dangerous as it looks in the movie?

[A] Caan: Games don't come much rougher. With all the precautions we took, with all the paddin' we wore, even the professional roller skaters and motorcyclists got banged up. Me, too. Got an injection in the shoulder, another under the ribs. But it was fun, man! I hadn't skated since I was a kid, and the first day on the track, they had to have two guys hold me up. But after that, we really started haulin' ass; I mean, we were movin'! It's a wild sport; it really gets to you. Toward the end of the picture, we got so into it that we started playin' for real; there were terrible fights. It was great.

[Q] Playboy: Sounds like a barrel of laughs. The picture you're shooting now, Harry and Walter Go to New York, doesn't sound quite as exhilarating. Are you enjoying yourself anyway?

[A] Caan: You mean even though I don't have anybody around to kick the shit out of? I know this will cone as a surprise, but there are things I enjoy now and then besides wearing a jockstrap. When I read the script for Harry and Walter, it sounded like good clean fun--singin', dancin', Partin' around--with my friend Elliott Gould, who I always have a good lime with. We play a couple of schmucks in 1892 who want to rob a bank; they're complete fuck-ups, but somehow they manage to bring it off anyway. You want to hear one of the numbers we sing?

[Q] Playboy: Do we have a choice?

[A] Caan: Not if you want to continue this interview. It goes like this; I'll sing bout parts: "I'm Harry, I'm Walter. It's wonderful to be here. We guarantee to put a smile on every face we see here. I'm Walter, I'm Harry. The billing doesn't matter. A team, a set, a pair. If I'm the former, I'm the latter! We sing, we dance, wear baggy pants and a million disguises. Light of foot, sleight of hand, full of surprises! I'm Harry. you're Walter! And now it's time to say: 'Maestro, take it away! ' " *

[Q] Playboy: That's incredible.

[A] Caan: Wait'll you see the dance routine that goes with it. Show-business dynamite. Elliott and I will be headed straight for the big time when this picture comes out. I'm not supposed to tell you this, but another reason it's gonna be a smash is that Mark Ryden, the director, has bagged a superstar for a fantastic cameo. He's persuaded the late Gary Cooper to come out of retirement to play the part of a guy sleeping. He was gonna get a speaking part, but he couldn't remember his lines.

[Q] Playboy: If Cooper does well in the role, it could start a new trend in comebacks.

[A] Caan: Right. You see why I love actin'? Not only do I get to live out all my fantasies and get paid for it but when I get too old to play leading men anymore, I can still do character parts, even after I'm dead. That's what I call job security.

[Q] Playboy: You've been quoted as saying that you'd like to live to be 9,000,000 years old. Is that accurate?

[A] Caan: No, it's an outrageous misquotation, typical of the yellow press. What I said was that I'd like to live to be 900,000,000 years old.

[Q] Playboy: That leads us to conclude that it bothers you to be growing older.

[A] Caan: Very perceptive. Do you know anybody it doesn't bother to be growing older? Anybody over 30, I mean? I remember trying to race ahead when I was young; I wanted to catch tip with all the older guys who were havin' all the fun. I feel like running backward from now on, or at least staying where I am for a while. I'm not looking forward to the time when I can't do all the things I like anymore. I haven't gotten there yet. I can still play ball pretty good. But I'm getting banged up more. And all them old injuries I used to get when I was 17 or 18 playing football that never bothered me then, they're bothering me now--my shoulder, my ankle. And I worry about my legs going. Look at 'em. The last time you saw legs that skinny, they had a message tied around 'em.

[Q] Playboy: Maybe they'd be in better shape if you spent more time bumping girls against doors, like Sonny Corleone in The Godfather.

[A] Caan: I've tried it, but I can only do it if the door is layin' down.

[Q] Playboy: Sooner or later, of course, even sex is going to go. How do you think you'll handle it when the time comes?

[A] Caan: Once that goes, it won't help to handle it. Right? You know, this may come as a surprise to you, but gettin' old and dying ain't one of my favorite subjects. As a matter of fact, the thought of dying scares me to death. So if it's all the same to you--and maybe even if it's not--what do you say we talk about somctbing else? Like your leaving.

[Q] Playboy: Don't you think it's better to, deal with your fears?

[A] Caan: I'll pay your fee now, doctor, if you let me off the couch.

[Q] Playboy: That's a deal.

[A] Caan: Here.

[Q] Playboy: Thanks. See you next week at the same time?

[A] Caan: Not if I see you first.

[Q] Playboy: We won't have to come back if you'll answer these last few questions.

[A] Caan: Fair enough. The answer to the first one is yes. No to the next one. Yes to the following three. Maybe to the one after that. And "Mind your own fuckin' business" to the last one. I think we saved ourselves an hour.

[Q] Playboy: You just went two questions beyond the end of the interview.

[A] Caan: In that case, don't let me keep you. If I don't see you again, swell. Just kidding. Actually, I want you to know that I don't blame Hefner for boring me shitless with this fercockteh interview. I blame you. Now, goodbye and good luck.

[Q] Playboy: Don't you think the readers will be hoping for something a little snappier in the way of an ending?

[A] Caan: You want snappy? I'll give you snappy. Guy goes to see a doctor who invented this machine that can change your I.Q. Says, "Listen, doc, ya gotta help me. I want my I.Q. lowered." Doctor says, "Lowered? I've never had a request like that before. What is your I.Q.?" Guy says 180. Doctor says, "You're a genius, for Christ's sake." Guy says, "That's the problem. I live in the Polish neighborhood I grew up in, and I love it very much, and I love my people. But I make them uncomfortable, and vice versa. I don't want to leave home; I just want to get down to their level. So I'd like you to lower my I.Q." Doctor says, "To what?" Guy says, "About 40." Doctor says, "Well, it's your head. Put this helmet on and I'll be back to turn off the machine in 20 minutes." Well, the doctor goes about his business and an hour and a half later, he remembers that he still has this guy strapped to the machine. So he runs in and pulls the helmet off, slaps the guy on the face and says, "Are you all right?" And the guy comes to, opens his eyes and sings: "When Irish eyes are smilin'...." There, how's that for a finish?

[Q] Playboy: You want an honest opinion?

[A] Caan: Well, then, how about a magic act? It's my last bit, but it never fails.

[Q] Playboy: Anything to salvage this fiasco.

[A] Caan: Ok, you see that dog? Watch this. Out, damned Spot!

[Q] Playboy: Where'd he go? Hey, you're a man of many talents.

[A] Caan: Thanks very much. Now that old clock on the wall tells us that it's gettin' late and they'll be waitin' up for you at the home.

[Q] Playboy: Wait a minute. We can still hear the dog barking over there behind that drape.

[A] Caan: Wrong. I'm also a ventriloquist.

*Copyright © 1976 by Screen Gems-Columbia Music, Inc, and Colgems Music Corp. "Nobody's Perfect," music by David Shire, lyrics by Alan and Marilyn Bergman