In 1976, two of New York’s most gifted stage actors met during a production of Measure for Measure in Central Park. Meryl Streep was 27, already turning heads in the city’s theater world. John Cazale was 41, quieter in his fame but deeply respected by everyone who worked with him. Their connection was immediate. Within months, they were living together in a loft on Franklin Street.
Cazale had already built a remarkable career before Streep entered his life. He appeared in five films — The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, The Conversation, Dog Day Afternoon, and The Deer Hunter. Three of those five were nominated for Best Picture. He was not a movie star in the traditional sense. He didn’t have that kind of presence. What he had was something rarer: a deep, lived-in sadness that directors like Francis Ford Coppola and Sidney Lumet actively sought out. Lumet once said that Cazale’s sadness was visible in every single shot — and that he never tried to find out where it came from.
Streep later described falling for him in terms of his character, not his looks or his résumé. “I had never met anyone like him,” she said. She pointed to his curiosity about people, his compassion, and what she called his specificity — the sense that he saw the world with unusual precision. Together, they were treated as the crown jewel of New York theater. Streep was considered the finest actress of her generation. Cazale was held in the same regard among actors. Legendary producer Joe Papp worked with both of them and championed their careers.
Then, in May 1977, Cazale began missing performances of Agamemnon. He told people he was feeling unwell. Papp, worried, arranged for Cazale to see a doctor on the Upper East Side. The diagnosis was terminal lung cancer. The disease had already spread throughout his body. There was no path to recovery.
Streep and Cazale kept the severity of his condition private for as long as they could. One afternoon, while having lunch with Cazale’s brother Stephen in Chinatown, Cazale coughed blood onto the sidewalk. Even Stephen didn’t fully grasp how advanced the illness had become. Streep confided in Al Pacino, who accompanied Cazale to radiation treatments. She also wrote to her former Yale drama teacher, Bobby Lewis, describing her reality in plain terms: “My beau is terribly ill and sometimes, as now, in the hospital. I am worried all the time and pretending to be cheery all the time, which is more exhausting mentally, physically, emotionally than any work I’ve ever done.”
Streep set her career aside entirely during those months. Robert De Niro later said he had never seen one human being so devoted to another. She was at Cazale’s side through the final stretch, retreating into what she called a cocoon — a private world that, despite everything, gave her a strange sense of shelter. Cazale was admitted to Memorial Sloan Kettering in early March 1978. Streep did not leave.
John Cazale died on March 12, 1978. Streep learned the news at 3 a.m. In the final moments, as she wept against his chest, Cazale opened his eyes. He said softly, “It’s okay, Meryl. It’s all right.” Then he closed them. He was 42. Streep was 28. The first call she made was to Cazale’s brother, Stephen. She was 29 by the time the year was out, and she had already lived through more grief than most people encounter in a lifetime. That same year, she received her first Academy Award nomination for The Deer Hunter — the last film Cazale ever made.
