Legacy
Cazale was described by those close to him to be "often shy" and "very emotionally sensitive." Close friend and frequent co-star Pacino collaborated with him on three films and various theater productions. Although he never received an Oscar nomination, wrote Bruce Fretts, he "was the walking embodiment of the aphorism acting is reacting, providing the perfect counterbalance to his recurring co-stars, the more emotionally volatile Al Pacino and Robert De Niro." Pacino once commented, "All I wanted to do was work with John for the rest of my life. He was my acting partner."
The Boston Globe asks, "Why was Cazale so influential? In part, it was because of his commitment to the craft of acting." To Streep, he was "monomaniacal," which had an effect on his co-stars, who were then "challenged to take their own games up a notch."
Cazale's image was used for The Godfather video game, as his character, Fredo. He has a theater named after him, the McGinn/Cazale Theatre (currently inhabited by the company Second Stage Theatre), located at 2162 Broadway at 76th Street in New York City. Cazale was cited as a "Distinguished Performance" by the Off-Broadway Obie Awards for the 1967-68 season for his performance in Israel Horovitz's play The Indian Wants the Bronx.
His life and career were profiled in the documentary film, I Knew It Was You, directed by Richard Shepard, which premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and was scheduled by HBO.
Read more about this topic: John Cazale
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“What is popularly called fame is nothing but an empty name and a legacy from paganism.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)