In Praise of Great Films - The movies of an actor who never appeared in a non-great film

Fourth in a series.

It's likely most people aren't familiar with the name of the actor John Cazale. After all, he only appeared in five feature films in his career before an untimely death of bone cancer in 1978.

But here's the thing: Every movie he ever starred in was nominated for a "Best Picture" Academy Award. How many actors in the history of cinema can lay claim to the fact that every film they were ever in was an Oscar nominee for Best Picture? Answer: none.

Cazale's movie career began when he was cast as the weak brother Fredo Corleone in the classic Francis Ford Coppola film The Godfather in 1972, which won Best Picture and is considered to be one of the greatest motion pictures of all time.

Two years later he appeared in two more Coppola pictures, The Conversation and The Godfather Part II, both of which were nominated for Best Picture (the latter won).

The following year, Cazale starred in Dog Day Afternoon as the ill-fated Sal, a bank robber who was partnered up with the great Al Pacino, a longtime friend of Cazale's. Dog Day would go on to earn six Oscar nominations, including Best Picture.

That makes him four-for-four, and his final film was the 1978 Best Picture Oscar winner The Deer Hunter. Cazale was reportedly dying of bone cancer while shooting the movie, and he passed away shortly after filming was completed. His early demise cemented his unique stature as the only actor in history who never appeared in a feature film that wasn't nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. If he had survived for years beyond 1978, Cazale would have likely made many more films, and the odds of him acting in one which wasn't a Best Picture nominee would've been quite high.

His career was what it was. An amazing run for a short-lived career and a short-lived life. Thirty years after his passing, we can only honor his great work and his remarkable footprint on cinema's history.