James Cagney 1899–1986
Born James Franics Cagney Jr in 1899. Cagney grew up in Yorkville, New York and graduated from Stuyvesant High School in 1918. The first entertainment job he landed was as a female dancer in a chorus line!
In 1922 Cagney met and fell in love with a fellow dancer named Frances Willard (aka: "Billie") Vernon whom he married on September 28 of that year.
When Warner Brothers bought the film rights to the play Penny Arcade they took Cagney and his co-star Joan Blondell from the stage to the screen in Sinner's Holiday (1930). Cagney went on to star in numerous films with Warner and became a household name with his portrayal of Tom Powers in The Public Enemy (1931).
James Cagney became a top star of the 1930’s and 40’s with leading roles in films such as G Men (1935), Angels With Dirty Faces (1938), and The Roaring Twenties (1939) but due to disputes with Warner often his box office hits became varied.
Ironically Cagney won his one and only best actor Academy Award not as a tough guy in a crime melodrama but by singing and dancing (his greatest joy) in the acclaimed musical Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942). He was one of the founders of the Screen Actors Guild and president of the Guild from 1942-44.
In 1949 Cagney again returned to Warner Brothers and to the tough guy role his fans adored, to play the crazed killer Cody Jarrett in White Heat.
Cagney's last appearance on film was in Ragtime in 1981, capping a career that covered over seventy films, although his film prior to Ragtime had been in 1961 with One, Two, Three. During this hiatus Cagney rebuffed all film offers to devote time to learning how to paint (at which he became very accomplished), and tending to his beloved farm in Stanfordville, New York.
In 1974 he received the Lifetime Achievement Award of the American Film Institute and in 1984 his friend Ronald Reagan awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
James Franics Cagney Jr passed away in 1986, leaving his undeniable acting style upon the silver screen for audiences to forever savour and enjoy.