Meryl Streep
In 1978, Meryl Streep was on the verge of becoming the greatest actress of her generation. The 29-year-old had already wrapped production on The Deer Hunter, Michael Cimino’s Oscar-winning Vietnam War epic, and had recently finished filming Manhattan; Woody Allen’s successful follow-up to Annie Hall (1977), and Interiors (1978).
Streep was also about to start production on Kramer vs. Kramer, Robert Benton’s 1979 culture-changing masterpiece about divorce, parenting, and all the things in between. The film dominated the Oscars that year, winning eight, including Streep’s first, for Best Supporting Actress.
Dustin Hoffman, Streep’s co-star, also won the Oscar for Best Actor. The time that they spent filming together has become the stuff of Hollywood Legend, and not in a good way. It’s common knowledge that Hoffman mistreated Streep throughout the production, which one might attribute to Hoffman’s dedication to the “Method” style of acting.
Kramer vs. Kramer
In a 2018 interview with the New York Times, Streep called out Dustin Hoffman for the way he had behaved and treated her forty years earlier. In addition to throwing a wine glass near Streep’s head without warning her, Hoffman regularly insulted and demeaned the actress throughout the production. Streep would go on to say:
“…He just slapped me. And you see it in the movie. It was overstepping. But I think those things are being corrected in this moment. And they’re not politically corrected; they’re fixed. They will be fixed, because people won’t accept it anymore. So that’s a good thing…”
The Oscar-winning role of “Joanna” was originally offered to Kate Jackson, of Charlie’s Angels fame. But showrunner Aaron Spelling wouldn’t let her out of her contract for the role. After that, every bankable star in Hollywood was offered the part; Fonda, Dunaway, MacGraw. However, Benton and Streep both shared an Agent, so she got an audition.
While Benton and Hoffman didn’t know much about Streep, they did know she was grieving the recent loss of her lover and partner, 42-year-old Golden Globe-nominated actor, and New York City theatre legend, John Cazale. Hoffman saw that Streep was still suffering and in pain, and lobbied that these qualities would bring the Joanna character to life. Streep won the role, and the rest is history.
John Cazale
John Cazale grew up outside of Boston, Massachusetts, and studied drama at Oberlin College in Ohio. Later, he would transfer to Boston University, where he would study under Peter Kass, whose students included Olympia Dukakis, Faye Dunaway, Maureen Stapleton, and Val Kilmer, among others.
After college, Cazale would have several menial jobs to make ends meet, including driving a taxi. He would work for the Charles Playhouse in Boston and appeared in two of its productions, Hotel Paradiso and Our Town, both in 1959. Cazale’s performance in Our Town was praised by critics and gained Cazale some much-needed attention.
The struggling thespian would soon make his way to New York City, where he would work as a photographer and as a messenger for Standard Oil. It was here that he would meet and form a lifelong bond with fellow actor, Al Pacino. Pacino goes into great detail, in the clip below, on his partnership and friendship with Cazale:
The play, The Indian Wants The Bronx, premiered at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre in Waterford, Connecticut in 1966. Written by Israel Horovitz, it starred both Pacino and Cazale and gained them both national attention and recognition. Both actors would win the Obie Awards. In 1968, Cazale would win another Obie for his performance as “Dolan” in Horovitz’s Line.
The Godfather
In 1971, while performing Line with Richard Dreyfus at the Lucille Lortel Theatre in New York City, casting director Fred Roos noticed the veteran stage actor and recommended him to director Francis Ford Coppola, who was about to commence filming on an adaptation of Mario Puzo’s national bestseller, The Godfather.
Roos thought Cazale’s demeanor on stage would translate perfectly to the screen, and he was cast as “Fredo Corleone,” the well-intentioned, yet meek older brother to Pacino’s “Michael Corleone.” Throughout Cazale’s short but eventful life, Cazale and Pacino would work together a total of six times on stage and screen.
Coppola was so taken with Cazale’s expressive and emotional performance, that he specifically wrote the character of “Stan” for him in the director’s next feature, The Conversation, released in 1974 and starring Gene Hackman. The film was yet another Oscar-nominated picture that Cazale was a part of.
The five films that Cazale co-starred in before his tragic premature passing is a run that is unmatched to this day by any actor or actress. The Godfather, The Conversation, The Godfather, Part II, Dog Day Afternoon, and The Deer Hunter. These five films were nominated for an astonishing thirty-five Academy Awards, winning fifteen.
The Love Affair
With Cazale’s legacy secure as a successful character actor, he returned to the place that he loved, the stage. In the summer of 1976, Cazale co-starred in Measure for Measure at the Delacorte Theater. Written by William Shakespeare, his castmates were Sam Waterson and a young Meryl Streep. Streep had been rapidly building a career as a theater actress.
The two fell for each other instantly. While Cazale may have been the more famous of the pair, they were both still struggling artists. Both trying the pay the bills. Cazale would often be seen taking Streep to dinner down in Little Italy. Restauranteurs, who recognized Cazale from The Godfather, would insist that the couple dines for free.
The couple had great chemistry together and Measure for Measure director Joe Papp noticed this immediately, as did their castmates. The relationship between Streep and Cazale became so physical, that Streep’s constantly chapped lips were noticed by the crew on an almost daily basis. Streep, who is notoriously private about her personal life, gave a rare interview years later regarding the brief but intense time that she spent with the late John Cazale. She would state in part:
“He wasn’t like anybody I’d ever met…It was the specificity of him, and his sort of humanity and his curiosity about people, his compassion.”
Mid-1970s
In the mid-1970s in Manhattan, Meryl Streep and John Cazale were sharing a loft on Franklin Street, in Lower Manhattan. Horovitz, who was close friends with the couple would later comment:
“…They were great to look at, because they were kind of funny-looking, both of them…They were lovely in their way, but it was a really quirky couple…”
Cazale had promised to marry Streep as soon as he got his “first big break.” Things were going well for the couple. They were award-winning stage actors, with legendary director/producer Joe Papp in their corner. In May 1977, Cazale was starring in a production of Agamemnon at Lincoln Center in New York City.
Diagnosis
The actor had been feeling unwell; so much so that he had missed several performances. Papp was able to get him an emergency appointment with his doctor, located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Cazale, Streep, and Papp were informed that the diagnosis was terminal metastasized lung cancer. He was 41 years old.
While leaving the stage and stopping working, was the last thing Cazale wanted to do, he was forced to resign from the production of Agamemnon, and immediately begin treatment to fight the cancer that was destroying his body. The play’s director Andrei Serban reflected in a 2018 interview:
“…but the abrupt stop came the day he found out about his illness. Even then, he acted with a certain heroism. Rather than sending a message via his agent, he came in person to tell us about his difficult decision to withdraw…”
Meryl Streep would dedicate the next nine months of her life to being with Cazale, taking care of him, and trying to lift his spirits and nurse him through this horrific illness. Streep talked about this in a 2018 interview:
“…I moved into his hospital room and read him the sports pages and did imitations of newsreaders. I was so close to him that I couldn’t see that he was so close to death. When it came, it was a shock…What John’s death did is make me confront my own mortality…”
Cazale and Streep were both offered roles in Michael Cimino’s epic 1978 film The Deer Hunter. The film also starred Robert De Niro and Christopher Walken. This was the film role that would be the couple’s ticket to marry. Instead, it was precious time that Streep and Cazale would have together, as the actor’s condition worsened.
Working Through The Pain
De Niro had seen Streep onstage in Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard at Lincoln Center. He convinced Cimino to hire the actress. Streep, who was not a fan of the character development of “Linda” primarily took the role to remain with Cazale for the duration of filming. Pacino would take Cazale to his radiation treatments.
No one but Streep, Cazale, and a few others knew how sick he was. Soon, it became too complicated to hide. The producers of The Deer Hunter were not willing to put up the money to insure Cazale. With Streep and De Niro threatening to quit the production, they agreed to keep Cazale on. Pacino would later reflect on Streep’s dedication to Cazale:
“…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…”
The Deer Hunter
With his time limited, Cazale worked through The Deer Hunter. Cimino would rearrange his schedule and shoot Cazale’s scenes first. To keep up with the mounting medical bills, Streep signed on for a nine-hour television drama, Holocaust. She would start as soon as she wrapped up her work on The Deer Hunter.
Streep would win an Emmy for the series, but it was mostly shot in real-life locations. Including a concentration camp in Austria. Because of this, Streep had to leave the country for some time. Streep would later reflect on this:
“I was going crazy, John was sick, and I wanted to be with him.”
While Streep was out of the country for two months, Pacino continued to take him to radiation treatments. As Streep returned from filming, Cazale was again admitted to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. The cancer that had started in his lungs had metastasized to his bones.
Passing
On March 12, 1978, a doctor woke Streep up, who was by Cazale’s side. Cazale had passed away. The love affair between Meryl Streep and John Cazale was over. Israel Horovitz, days later, would publish a eulogy in The Village Voice for the late John Holland Cazale:
“John Cazale happens once in a lifetime. He was an invention, a small perfection. It is no wonder his friends feel such anger upon waking from their sleep to discover that Cazale sleeps on with kings and counselors, with Booth and Kean, with Jimmy Dean, with Bernhardt, Guitry, and Duse, with Stanislavsky, with Groucho, Benny, and Allen. He will make fast friends in his new place. He is easy to love.”
For all that Meryl Streep has accomplished — twenty-one Academy Award nominations, the most of any actress ever. perhaps her greatest performance was that of a young woman devoting herself to a dying man.
