James Francis Cagney Jr. (; July 17, 1899March 30, 1986) was an American actor and dancer. On stage and in film, he was known for his consistently energetic performances, distinctive vocal style, and deadpan comic timing. He won acclaim and major awards for a wide variety of performances.
Cagney is remembered for playing multifaceted tough guys in films such as The Public Enemy (1931), Taxi! (1932), Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), The Roaring Twenties (1939), City for Conquest (1940) and White Heat (1949), finding himself typecast in the early years of his career.McGilligan, page 11 He was able to negotiate dancing opportunities in his films and ended up winning the Academy Award for his role of George M. Cohan in the musical Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942). In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him eighth on its list of greatest male stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood. Orson Welles described him as "maybe the greatest actor who ever appeared in front of a camera".
After making his debut in 1919, he spent several years in vaudeville as a dancer and comedian and played his first major acting role in 1925. Al Jolson was sufficiently impressed by his performance in 1929's Penny Arcade that he bought the rights to it, securing Cagney's part in the Warner Bros. adaptation of the play. This marked the beginning of a lengthy, albeit turbulent association with the studio.
Cagney's fifth film, The Public Enemy, became one of the most influential gangster movies of the period. He became one of Hollywood's leading stars and one of Warner Bros.' biggest contracts at the time. In 1938, he received his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for his subtle portrayal of the tough guy/man-child Rocky Sullivan in Angels with Dirty Faces. He was nominated a third time in 1955 for Love Me or Leave Me with Doris Day. Cagney retired from acting and dancing in 1961. He came out of retirement 20 years later for a part in the movie Ragtime (1981), mainly to aid his recovery from a stroke.
Cagney walked out on Warner Bros. twice over the course of his career, each time returning on much improved personal and artistic terms. In 1935, he sued Warner for breach of contract and signed with Edward L. Alperson's independent company Grand National Pictures. In 1942, he established his own production company, Cagney Productions, before returning to Warner seven years later. In reference to Cagney's refusal to be pushed around, Jack L. Warner called him "the Professional Againster".James L. Neibaur, James Cagney Films of the 1930s (London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014), xi. Cagney also made numerous USO troop tours before and during World War II and served as president of the Screen Actors Guild for two years.John McCabe, Cagney (NY: Knopf Doubleday, 2013). ; and NJ Senate con. res. 39 (1998), Nicholas J. Sacco, sponsor; searchable at www.njleg.state.nj.us
Early life James Francis "Jimmy" Cagney Jr. was born in 1899 on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City. His biographers disagree as to the actual location: either on the corner of Avenue D and 8th Street,McGilligan, page 14 or in a top-floor apartment at 391 East 8th Street, the address that is on his birth certificate.McCabe, page 5 His father, James Francis Cagney Sr. (1875–1918), was of Irish descent. At the time of his son's birth, he was a bartenderWarren, page 4 and amateur boxer, although on Cagney's birth certificate, he is listed as a telegraphist. His mother was Carolyn Elizabeth (née Nelson; 1877–1945); her father was a Norwegian ship's captain, and her mother was Irish.
Cagney was the second of seven children, two of whom died within months of their births. He was sickly as an infant—so much so that his mother feared he would die before he could be baptized. He later attributed his poor health to the poverty his family endured.Cagney, page 2 The family moved twice while he was still young, first to East 79th Street, and then to East 96th Street.Cagney, page 3 He was confirmed at St. Francis de Sales Roman Catholic Church in Manhattan; his funeral service would eventually be held in the same church.
The red-haired, blue-eyed Cagney graduated from Stuyvesant High School in New York City in 1918, and attended Columbia College, where he intended to major in Art.McGilligan, page 16 He also took German and joined the Student Army Training Corps,Cagney, page 23 but he dropped out after one semester, returning home upon the death of his father during the 1918 flu pandemic.
Cagney held a variety of jobs early in his life: junior architect, copy boy for the New York Sun, book custodian at the New York Public Library, bellhop, draughtsman, and night doorkeeper.McGilligan, page 15 He gave all his earnings to his family. While Cagney was working for the New York Public Library, he met Florence James, who helped him into an acting career.James, pg. 45 Cagney believed in hard work, later stating, "It was good for me. I feel sorry for the kid who has too cushy a time of it. Suddenly he has to come face-to-face with the realities of life without any mama or papa to do his thinking for him."
He started tap dance as a boy (a skill that eventually contributed to his Academy Award) and was nicknamed "Cellar-Door Cagney" after his habit of dancing on slanted cellar doors. He was a good street fighter, defending his older brother Harry, a medical student, when necessary.Cagney, page 8 He engaged in amateur boxing, and was a runner-up for the New York state lightweight title. His coaches encouraged him to turn professional, but his mother would not allow it.Warren, pages 23–24 He also played semi-professional baseball for a local team, and entertained dreams of playing in the Major Leagues.Warren, page 22
His introduction to films was unusual. When visiting an aunt who lived in Brooklyn, opposite Vitagraph Studios, Cagney would climb over the fence to watch the filming of John Bunny movies. He became involved in amateur dramatics, starting as a scenery boy for a Chinese pantomime at Lenox Hill Neighborhood House (one of the first settlement houses in the nation) where his brother Harry performed and Florence James directed. He was initially content working behind the scenes and had no interest in performing. One night, however, Harry became ill, and although Cagney was not an understudy, his photographic memory of rehearsals enabled him to stand in for his brother without making a single mistake.Warrens, pg. 45
Career 1919–1930: Early career In 1919, while Cagney was working at Wanamaker's Department Store, a colleague saw him dance and informed him about a role in the upcoming production Every Sailor. It was a wartime play in which the chorus was made up of servicemen dressed as women that was originally titled Ever Sailor. Cagney auditioned for the chorus, although considering it a waste of time, as he knew only one dance step, the complicated Peabody, but he knew it perfectly.Warren, page 36 This was enough to convince the producers that he could dance, and he copied the other dancers' moves and added them to his repertoire while waiting to go on.Cagney, page 27 He did not find it odd to play a woman, nor was he embarrassed. He later recalled how he was able to shed his own naturally shy persona when he stepped onto the stage: "For there I am not myself. I am not that fellow, Jim Cagney, at all. I certainly lost all consciousness of him when I put on skirts, wig, paint, powder, feathers and spangles."McGilligan, page 19
Had Cagney's mother had her way, his stage career would have ended when he quit Every Sailor after two months; proud as she was of his performance, she preferred that he get an education.Warren, page 37 Cagney appreciated the $35 a week he was paid, which he later remembered as "a mountain of money for me in those worrisome days." In deference to his mother's concerns, he got a job as a brokerage house runner. This did not stop him from looking for more stage work, however, and he went on to audition successfully for a chorus part in the William B. Friedlander musical Pitter Patter, for which he earned $55 a week. (He sent $40 to his mother each week.Cagney, page 28) So strong was his habit of holding down more than one job at a time, that he also worked as a dresser for one of the leads, portered the casts' luggage, and understudied for the lead. Among the chorus line performers was 20-year-old Frances Willard "Billie" Vernon; they married in 1922.
The show began Cagney's 10-year association with vaudeville and Broadway. The Cagneys were among the early residents of Free Acres, a social experiment established by Bolton Hall in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey.Cheslow, Jerry. "If You're Thinking of Living In / Berkeley Heights, N.J.; Quiet Streets Near River and Mountain" , The New York Times, October 11, 1998. Accessed February 27, 2011. "Among the early residents of Free Acres were the actor James Cagney and his wife, Billie."
Pitter Patter was not hugely successful, but it did well enough to run for 32 weeks, making it possible for Cagney to join the vaudeville circuit. He and Vernon toured separately with a number of different troupes, reuniting as "Vernon and Nye" to do simple comedy routines and musical numbers. "Nye" was a rearrangement of the last syllable of Cagney's surname.McGilligan, page 20Warren, page 46 One of the troupes Cagney joined was Parker, Rand, and Leach, taking over the spot vacated when Archie Leach—who later changed his name to Cary Grant—left.Cagney, page 29Warren, page 48
In 1924, after years of touring and struggling to make money, Cagney and Vernon moved to Hawthorne, California, partly for Cagney to meet his new mother-in-law, who had just moved there from Chicago, and partly to investigate breaking into the movies. Their train fares were paid for by a friend, the press officer of Pitter Patter, who was also desperate to act.Warren, pages 52–54 They were not successful at first; the dance studio Cagney set up had few clients and folded; Vernon and he toured the studios, but there was no interest. Eventually, they borrowed some money and headed back to New York via Chicago and Milwaukee, enduring failure along the way when they attempted to make money on the stage.
Cagney secured his first significant nondancing role in 1925. He played a young tough guy in the three-act play Outside Looking In by Maxwell Anderson, earning $200 a week. As with Pitter Patter, Cagney went to the audition with little confidence he would get the part. At this point, he had had no experience with drama.Warren 55 Cagney felt that he got the role only because his hair was redder than that of Alan Bunce, the only other red-headed performer in New York.Cagney, page 32 Both the play and Cagney received good reviews; Life magazine wrote, "Mr. Cagney, in a less spectacular role [than his co-star] makes a few minutes silence during his mock-trial scene something that many a more established actor might watch with profit." Burns Mantle wrote that it "...contained the most honest acting now to be seen in New York."McGilligan, page 22
Following the four-month run of Outside Looking In, the Cagneys were financially secure enough for Cagney to return to vaudeville over the next few years, achieving various success. During this period, he met George M. Cohan, whom he later portrayed in Yankee Doodle Dandy, though they never spoke.Warren, page 57