James Cagney
Actor
Name at birth: James Francis Cagney, Jr.
James Cagney caught the public's attention as a tough-talking gangster in 1931's The Public Enemy. Cagney was originally a song-and-dance man in vaudeville and spent much of the 1920s onstage in New York. Fast-talking, energetic and animated, he became known for his streetwise gangster movie roles, but it was his singing and dancing as composer George M. Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) that earned him an Oscar as best actor. His later films were not as memorable or successful, but Cagney's star power never diminished and he became an icon of the silver screen. He returned from a 20-year retirement in 1981 take a small role in Ragtime. Cagney's 1976 autobiography was titled Cagney By Cagney.
Extra credit: Cagney was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Ronald Reagan in 1984. Cagney and Reagan appeared together in the 1938 film Boy Meets Girl.
Other actors who've played gangsters in the movies include Al Pacino (as Scarface), Marlon Brando (as Don Corleone) and Warren Beatty (as Clyde Barrow and Bugsy Siegel).
Blog posts mentioning James Cagney:
Roy Scheider, Star of Jaws and Jazz
Four Good Links
Yankee Doodle Dandy
Detailed description of one of his most famous films
James Cagney Filmography
All his films, from Sinner's Holiday forward
James Cagney Obituary
The New York Times calls him a "master of pugnacious grace"
James Cagney as Ethnic In-between
Sociological analysis of Cagney's roles in the 1930s
Vital Stats
Birth
Birthplace
Death
30 March 1986
(heart attack, age 86)
Best Known As
Star of the movies Public Enemy and Yankee Doodle Dandy
