James Cagney - Wikipedia

Thank you my friend Maj Marty Hogan for making us aware that July 17 is the anniversary of the birth of American actor and dancer James Francis Cagney Jr.
He certainly did a wonderful job of acting as a tough guy in The Public Enemy (1931), Taxi! (1932), Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), and White Heat (1949).
Rest in peace Vincent James Francis Cagney Jr.

A. Background from tcm.com/tcmdb/person/26868%7C77446/James-Cagney/
"The American gangster film, and the output of Warner Bros. in its most influential decade, would be unimaginable without the contributions of James Cagney. One of talking pictures' first generation of actors, Cagney forever romanticized the figures of the criminal and the con artist with his jittery physical dynamism and breakneck staccato vocal patterns.

Raised in New York City's tough Yorkville neighborhood, Cagney was a veteran of settlement house revues, vaudeville and five years of Broadway when he came to Warner Bros. in 1930. Cagney, Bette Davis and Edward G. Robinson, all signed to long-term contracts during this period, became the core of the studio's stock company, which also included character and supporting players such as Alan Jenkins and Frank McHugh. After playing several featured roles Cagney attained instant and lasting fame with his role as vicious gunman Tom Powers in William Wellman's "The Public Enemy" (1931).

"The Public Enemy"'s story of a wisecracking hood who seemed to delight in violence indelibly stamped the gangster genre. Along with "Little Caesar" (1931) and "I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang" (1932), the picture cemented Warner Bros.' position as a major studio. Between 1930 and 1941, Cagney made 38 films at Warner Bros. While most were crime and action dramas or comedies, quickly produced on modest budgets and featuring few other box office "names," many have become genre classics. Several, including "Angels With Dirty Faces" (1938) and "The Roaring Twenties" (1939), remain seminal works in American film history. Cagney reached a creative peak with "Yankee Doodle Dandy" (1942), a biopic based on the life of composer George M. Cohan. A sentimental masterpiece, the film drew on Cagney's prodigious dancing talents, largely unexploited at Warner Bros. (except for the marvelous "Footlight Parade" 1933), and brought him the Academy Award for best actor.

A series of well-publicized salary disputes at Warner Bros. led to Cagney's forming an independent production company, Cagney Productions. Headed by James and his brother William, a former actor, the firm was based on terms developed in James's last Warner Bros. contract and gave him unprecedented leeway in choosing vehicles and participating in profits. It proved a failure, releasing only three films through United Artists, but was nevertheless a path-breaking model which many others in the industry would soon follow.

In 1949 Cagney made an explosive return to Warner Bros. in the Raoul Walsh-directed "White Heat," playing Cody Jarrett, a violent, Freudianized update of the Tom Powers character in "The Public Enemy." Like the earlier film, "White Heat" was both profitable and enormously influential.

Throughout the 1950s Cagney played sardonic and often villainous characters for several studios, in films occasionally produced by Cagney Productions. The decade also saw his only directing assignment, "Short Cut To Hell" (1957), and his last musical, the uneven but sometimes delightful "Never Steal Anything Small" (1959).

After a bravura performance in Billy Wilder's ironic farce "One, Two, Three" (1961), Cagney retired. The following years saw him receive many honors, including the 1974 Life Achievement Award of the American Film Institute--the second such award ever given. His good friend and neighbor, director Milos Forman, lured him from retirement for "Ragtime" (1981), but Cagney's own desires to perform again were hampered by increasing ill health. He made only one more appearance before his death, the made-for-TV movie "Terrible Joe Moran" (1984)."

B. Background from .imdb.com/name/nm0000010/bio
"James Cagney Biography
Showing all 119 items
Spouse (1) | Trade Mark (6) | Trivia (71) | Personal Quotes (23) | Salary (12)

Born July 17, 1899 in New York City, New York, USA
Died March 30, 1986 in Stanfordville, New York, USA (heart attack following illness from diabetes)
Birth Name James Francis Cagney
Nicknames The Professional Againster Jimmy
Height 5' 6½" (1.69 m)

One of Hollywood's preeminent male stars of all time, James Cagney was also an accomplished dancer and easily played light comedy. James Francis Cagney was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City, to Carolyn (Nelson) and James Francis Cagney, Sr., who was a bartender and amateur boxer. Cagney was of Norwegian (from his maternal grandfather) and Irish descent. Ending three decades on the screen, he retired to his farm in Stanfordville, New York (some 77 miles/124 km. north of his New York City birthplace), after starring in Billy Wilder's One, Two, Three (1961). He emerged from retirement to star in the 1981 screen adaptation of E.L. Doctorow's novel "Ragtime" (Ragtime (1981)), in which he was reunited with his frequent co-star of the 1930s, Pat O'Brien, and which was his last theatrical film and O'Brien's as well). Cagney's final performance came in the title role of the made-for-TV movie Terrible Joe Moran (1984), in which he played opposite Art Carney.
- IMDb Mini Biography By: Bill Takacs < [login to see] >

Spouse (1)
Frances Cagney (28 September 1922 - 30 March 1986) ( his death) two adopted children: Cathleen "Cassie" Cagney and James Cagney Jr.

Trade Mark (6)
Famous for his gangster roles he played in the 1930s and 1940s (which made his only Oscar win as the musical composer/dancer/actor George M.Cohan most ironic).
Diminutive but nimble frame
Unmistakable rapid-fire speaking voice
Wise-cracking New Yorker persona
Compelling intensity
His thick New York accent

Trivia (71)
1. Cagney's first job as an entertainer was as a female dancer in a chorus line.
2. According to his authorized biography, Cagney, although of three quarters Irish and one quarter Norwegian extraction, could speak Yiddish, since he had grown up in a heavily Jewish area in New York. He used to converse in Yiddish with Jewish performers like Paul Muni, Sylvia Sidney and John Garfield.
3. Ranked #45 in Empire (UK) magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list. [October 1997]
4. Brother of actor-producer William Cagney and of actress Jeanne Cagney.
5. Received the American Film Institute Life Achievement Award (1974).
6. (1942-1944) President of Screen Actors Guild (SAG).
7. Convinced decorated war hero Audie Murphy to go into acting.
8. His widow Frances (nicknamed 'Bill') outlived Cagney by eight years, dying aged 95 in 1994.
9. Pictured on a 33¢ USA commemorative postage stamp in the Legends of Hollywood series, issued 22 July 1999.
10. Had two adopted children: Cathleen "Cassie" Cagney and James Cagney Jr..
11. Was best friends with actors Pat O'Brien and Frank McHugh.
12. Earned a Black Belt in Judo.
13. He was voted the 14th Greatest Movie Star of all time by Entertainment Weekly.
14. Extraordinarily (for Hollywood), he never cheated on his wife Frances, resulting in a marriage that lasted 64 years (ending with his death). The closest he came was nearly giving into a seduction attempt by Merle Oberon while the two stars were on tour to entertain World War II GIs.
15. His paternal grandparents and maternal grandmother were all of Irish descent, and his maternal grandfather was from Norway. As he told an interviewer shortly before his death in 1986: "My mother's father, my Grandpa Nelson, was a Norwegian sea captain, but when I tried to investigate those roots I didn't get very far, for he had apparently changed his name to another one that made it impossible to identify him within the rest of the population.".
16. His electric acting style was a huge influence on future generations of actors. Actors as diverse as Clint Eastwood and Malcolm McDowell point to him as their number one influence to become actors.
17. Lived in a Gramercy Park building in New York City that was also occupied by Margaret Hamilton and now boasts Jimmy Fallon as one of its tenants.
18. Though most Cagney imitators use the line "You dirty rat!", Cagney never actually said it in any of his films.
19. According to James Cagney's autobiography Cagney By Cagney, (Published by Doubleday and Company Inc 1976, and ghost written by show biz biographer Jack McCabe), a Mafia plan to murder Cagney by dropping a several hundred pound klieg light on top of him was stopped at the insistence of George Raft. Cagney at that time was president of the Screen Actors Guild, and was determined not to let the mob infiltrate the industry. Raft used his many mob connections to cancel the hit.
20. He was voted the 11th Greatest Movie Star of all time by Premiere magazine.
21. Named the #8 greatest Actor on The 50 Greatest Screen Legends List by The American Film Institute
22. According to his autobiography his brother Bill (who was also his manager) actively pursued the role of Cohan in the ultra-patriotic film Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) as a way of removing the taint of Cagney's radical activities in the 1930s, when he was a strong Roosevelt liberal. When Cohan himself learned about Cagney's background as a song-and-dance man in vaudeville, he okay-ed him for the project.
23. Lost the role of Knute Rockne to his friend Pat O'Brien when the administration of Notre Dame - which had approval over all aspects of the filming - nixed Cagney because of his support of the far-left (and anti-Catholic) Spanish Republic in the then-ongoing Spanish Civil War.
24. Originally a very left-wing Democrat activist during the 1930s, Cagney later switched his viewpoint and became progressively more conservative with age. He supported his friend Ronald Reagan's campaigns for the Governorship of California in 1966 and 1970, as well as his Presidential campaigns in 1980 and 1984. President Reagan delivered the eulogy at Cagney's funeral in 1986.
25. His performance as George M. Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) is ranked #6 on Premiere magazine's 100 Greatest Performances of All Time (2006).
26. His performance as Tom Powers in The Public Enemy (1931) is ranked #57 on Premiere magazine's 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time.
27. Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) is ranked #88 on the American Film Institute's 100 Most Inspiring Movies of All Time.
28. Often said that he did not understand the method actors like Marlon Brando. Cagney admitted that he used his own personal experiences to help create his performances and encouraged other actors to do so, but he did not understand actors who felt a need to go to the extreme length that method actors went to.
29. Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives". Volume Two, 1986- 1990, pages 149-152. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1999.
30. To protest the quality of scripts he was given at Warner Brothers, instead of violating his contract by refusing to appear in a picture he reputedly used his appearance to get even. In Jimmy the Gent (1934), he got an ugly crewcut to make himself look like the hoodlum Warners wanted him to play. In movies like He Was Her Man (1934), he grew a thin mustache to upset thin-mustachioed studio boss Jack L. Warner.
31. Encouraged by his mother to take up boxing as a hobby. She thought it was a necessary skill to have, especially in the rough Eastside section of New York City where he grew up. She would often show up and watch him take on neighborhood kids in a street fight. However, when he wanted to become a professional boxer, she disapproved. She started to put on a pair of boxing gloves and told him "If you want to become a professional fighter, then your first fight will have to be against me." He abandoned the idea of doing boxing professionally from that moment on.
32. Inspiration for the Madonna song "White Heat" from her 1986 album "True Blue".
33. Turned down Stanley Holloway's role as Eliza's father in My Fair Lady (1964).
34. Turned down the lead role in The Jolson Story (1946), which went to Larry Parks.
35. At the time of filming of White Heat (1949), Special Effects were not yet using squibs (tiny explosives that simulate the effects of bullets). The producers employed skilled marksmen who used low velocity bullets to break windows or show bullets hitting near the characters. In the factory scene, Cagney was missed by mere inches.
36. Broke a rib while filming the dance scene in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) but continued dancing until it was completed.
37. He once claimed that problems with Horst Buchholz had convinced him to retire from acting.
38. Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Ronald Reagan at a ceremony at the White House on March 26, 1984.
39. Along with Rita Hayworth, is mentioned by name in the Tom Waits song "Invitation to the Blues".
40. In his autobiography, he mentions that while in the chorus of the musical "Pitter Patter", he earned $55 a week, of which he sent $40 a week home to his mother. As his salary increased, so did the amount he sent back home. In The Public Enemy (1931), he earned $400 a week, sending over $300 back home. Until his mother passed, he never kept more than 50% of his earnings.
41. Often left the set early claiming he was too ill to continue filming in order to ensure an extra day of filming so that the extras and the film crew, whom he thought woefully underpaid, could get an additional day's salary.
42. Wrote that of the sixty-two films he made, he rated Love Me or Leave Me (1955) co-starring Doris Day among his top five.
43. Had two grandchildren from his daughter Cathleen: Verniey Lee and Christina May Thomas.
44. He was the father-in-law of screenplay writer Jack W. Thomas, who married his daughter Cathleen on February 17, 1962.
45. Grandfather of actor James Cagney IV. Great uncle of Pattee Mack.
46. Great grandfather of actress Fiona Cagney.
47. Great-great uncle of Brian Harrison Mack.
48. Had appeared with Pat O'Brien in nine films: Here Comes the Navy (1934), Devil Dogs of the Air (1935), The Irish in Us (1935), Ceiling Zero (1936), Boy Meets Girl (1938), Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), The Fighting 69th (1940), Torrid Zone (1940) and Ragtime (1981).
49. "Cagney! The Musical", an original biographical stage work written by Peter Colley and directed by Bill Castellino, had its world premiere in March 2009 at the Florida Stage theatre in Manalapan, Florida. Robert Creighton starred as Cagney, both he and the show received good to excellent reviews and the run soon sold out, setting a record for the theatre.
50. Part of the first group of major stars to join the Screen Actors Guild in October 1933 as member number 50. Before his Guild presidency, he served nearly a decade on the Board and as First Vice President. Cagney was elected Guild president in September 1942.
51. Had appeared with Frank McHugh in eleven films: The Crowd Roars (1932), Footlight Parade (1933), Here Comes the Navy (1934), Devil Dogs of the Air (1935), The Irish in Us (1935), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935), Boy Meets Girl (1938), The Roaring Twenties (1939), The Fighting 69th (1940), City for Conquest (1940) and A Lion Is in the Streets (1953).
52. Cagney and best friends Frank McHugh and Pat O'Brien, were known collectively and affectionately as the "Irish Mafia" and would often be seen out together around Hollywood nightclubs having a quiet drink and a chat. Other members of this close knit social group included actors Bing Crosby, William Gargan, Lee Tracy, Lynne Overman, James Gleason, George Murphy, Ralph Bellamy, Frank Morgan, Bert Lahr, Allen Jenkins and Spencer Tracy.
53. Once worked as a waiter.
54. A studio changed his birth date from 1899 to 1904 to capitalize on his youthful appearance.
55. In 1973, he was offered the title role in the comedy Harry and Tonto (1974) but Cagney, who was then 74-year-old and had not starred in a feature film since 1961, did not want to come out of retirement. The role, and the Best Actor Oscar, would go to Art Carney.
56. He refused payment for his cameo in The Seven Little Foys (1955) even though he spent ten days learning his complicated tap routine for the film.
57. He was originally intended for the role of Robin Hood in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) but left Warner Brothers who then shelved the film for three years.
58. Cagney was repeatedly sought out for roles after his initial "retirement" in 1961. He was sorely tempted to accept the plum supporting role as Alfred P. Doolittle in My Fair Lady (1964) and Francis Ford Coppola visited him at his New York farm for a role (presumably Captain McCluskey) in The Godfather (1972). He was flattered that the screenplay for Harry and Tonto (1974) was specifically written for him but also flatly refused. Although he returned to the screen as a narrator for two minor efforts in 1966 and 1968, it was his doctor that convinced him it would be therapeutic to return to the screen for Ragtime (1981). A proposed project that had would have had him starring as an elderly Wyatt Earp set in Los Angeles in the 1920s was in development prior to his death.
59. Offers of important parts in The Paper Chase (1973) and The Godfather: Part II (1974) did not tempt Cagney out of retirement.
60. He was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6504 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on February 8, 1960.
61. Charles Durning admired Cagney and said he learned everything directly from him.
62. Following his death, he was interred at Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne, New York.
63. New York City Mayor Ed Koch presented Cagney with the keys to the city on November 17, 1981.
64. Played the part of George M. Cohan in two entirely different films, Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) and The Seven Little Foys (1955).
65. At one time he owned the Santa Barbara Pier.
66. In an interview towards the end of his life, Cagney was asked by the interviewer who should play him if a movie was ever made about his life. Cagney replied that there was a 'young kid' called Mike Fox (referring to Michael J. Fox), who's really terrific and added that he thought Fox was even a spitting image of him as a young man. Although a movie of Cagney's life was never made, Fox, a huge Cagney fan himself, hosted an hour long biographic tribute to him called James Cagney: Top of the World (1992).
67. Appears in five Oscar Best Picture nominees: Here Comes the Navy (1934), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935), Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) and Mister Roberts (1955). Mutiny on the Bounty is the only winner.
68. He was offered the lead role in High Sierra (1941), but turned it down, as he wanted to avoid being typecast as gangsters. The film established Humphrey Bogart as a leading man.
69. He was originally cast in I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932), but dropped out. Paul Muni replaced him.
70. Son of James (1875-1918) and Carolyn (née Nelson) Cagney (1877-1945). Both were born and raised in the state of New York.
71. Maternal grandson of Henry (1837-1915), born in Norway, and Mary (née Flynn) Nelson (1846-1910), born in Ireland.
.

Personal Quotes (23)
1. There's not much to say about acting but this. Never settle back on your heels. Never relax. If you relax, the audience relaxes. And always mean everything you say.
2. All I try to do is to realise the man I'm playing fully, then put as much into my acting as I know how. To do it, I draw upon all that I've ever known, heard, seen or remember.
3. My biggest concern is that doing a rough-and-tumble scene I might hurt someone accidentally.
4. [in the early 1960s] In this business you need enthusiasm. I don't have enthusiasm for acting anymore. Acting is not the beginning and end of everything.
5. They need you. Without you, they have an empty screen. So, when you get on there, just do what you think is right and stick with it.
6. Where I come from, if there's a buck to be made, you don't ask questions, you go ahead and make it.
7. With me, a career was the simple matter of putting groceries on the table.
8. Once a song and dance man, always a song and dance man. Those few words tell as much about me professionally as there is to tell.
9. I hate the word "superstar". I have never been able to think in those terms. They are overstatements. You don't hear them speak of [William Shakespeare] as a superpoet. You don't hear them call Michelangelo a superpainter. They only apply the word to this mundane market.
10. You know, the period of World War I and the Roaring Twenties were really just about the same as today. You worked, and you made a living if you could, and you tried to make the best of things. For an actor or a dancer, it was no different then than today. It was a struggle.
11. My father was totally Irish, and so I went to Ireland once. I found it to be very much like New York, for it was a beautiful country, and both the women and men were good-looking.
12. [about his most famous misquoted line] I never actually said, "Nnng-you dirty ra-at!" What I actually said was [imitating Cary Grant] "Judy! Judy! Judy!"
13. Learn your lines, find your mark, look 'em in the eye and tell 'em the truth.
14. [about The Public Enemy (1931)] What not many people know is that right up to two days before shooting started, I was going to play the good guy, the pal. Edward Woods played it in the end.
15. Learn your lines ... plant your feet ... look the other actor in the eye ... say the words ... mean them.
16. The lovers of hate, born in fear - Find no release from tension - They spend their lives in a permanent state - Of miserable apprehension.
17. When I was younger, if someone had told me I had only two years to live, I'd have gone to an island that was really country--and just rocked it out by myself. But if someone told me the same thing today, I believe I'd probably travel--just to get away from all the noise and nonsense we are surrounded with.
18. The things the world most needs are simplicity, honesty and decency--and you find them more often in the country than in the city. My feeling for the country goes beyond sense. I don't like to be in the cities at all. I like to be where animals are--and thing growing.
19. [Telegram sent to House Ways and Means Committee regarding No Runways on Vacation Isle - 1969] For more than 30 years I have watched Martha's Vineyard go downhill as a place of natural wonder and peaceful haven. Now they are talking of runways for jets. Is there to be no end to the destruction of all that is natural and worthwhile? Please give it some thought.
20. [in 1931] I'm sick of guns and beating up women. Movies should be entertaining, not bloodbaths.
21. I still think of myself essentially as a vaudevillian, as a song and dance man. The vaudevillians I knew by and large were marvelous people. Ninety percent of them had no schooling, but they had a vivid something or other about them that absolutely riveted an audience's attention. Those vaudevillians knew something that ultimately I came to understand and believe - that audiences are the ones who determine material. They buy the tickets.
22. [on his Hollywood arrival] I came out here on a three week guarantee, and I stayed, to my absolute amazement, for thirty-one years.
23. The thing is to try to give the audience something to take away with them. That's what I always wanted to do.

Salary (12)
Sinners' Holiday (1930) $500 /week
Sinners' Holiday (1930) $500 /week (three-week shoot)
The Doorway to Hell (1930) $400 /week
The Public Enemy (1931) $400 /week
Blonde Crazy (1931) $450 /week
Taxi! (1932) $1,400 per week
Hard to Handle (1933) $3,000 /week
Great Guy (1936) $100,000
Something to Sing About (1937) $100,000
Boy Meets Girl (1938) $5,000 /week
Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) $150,000
The Roaring Twenties (1939) $12,500 /week"

James Cagney accepts the 2nd AFI Life Achievement Award (1974).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXxZCrM04uI

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Maj Marty Hogan good read/share of James Cagney- a legend in his own time!!

Great actor - thanks Marty.