Oscar Profile #141: James Cagney

Born July 17, 1899, James Cagney was the second of seven children, two of whom died at birth, of an Irish bartender and Irish-Norwegian mother. He grew up on New York’s tough lower East Side.

Cagney held a variety of jobs before making his stage debut as a sailor masquerading as a female dancer in 1919’s Every Sailor. Married to Frances Vernon in 1922, various minor roles followed, eventually leading to starring roles. Al Jolson liked him and co-star Joan Blondell in 1930’s Penny Arcade so much that he bought the screen rights and sold them to Warner Bros. with the stipulation that both Cagney and Blondell be cast in the film version, retitled Sinners’ Holiday.

Cagney quickly became of Warner Bros. brightest young stars. Cast in the second lead in his fourth film, 1931’s The Public Enemy, director William A. Wellman had him and intended lead Edward Woods switch roles. The result was overnight stardom as has seldom been duplicated. The Public Enemy was a box office sensation that is still regarded as one of the greatest gangster films of all time.

Typecast along with Edward G. Robinson, both Cagney and Robinson insisted on playing other roles to augment their highly successful turns as bad guys. Cagney had enormous success as a race car driver in 1932’s The Crowd Roars and as a showman in the 1933 musical Footlight Parade. He also enjoyed a successful on-screen partnership with Pat O’Brien in nine films starting with 1934’s Here Comes the Navy.

Cagney’s dynamic portrayal of a gangster who is hero to the neighborhood kids in 1938’s Angels With Dirty Faces brought him great critical acclaim, a New York Film Critics award for Best Actor and the first of three Oscar nominations.

Back in gangster mold in 1939’s The Roaring Twenties, he diversified as a blind former pugilist in 1940’s City for Conquest; a small town dentist in 1941’s The Strawberry Blonde and showman George M. Cohan in the perennial 4th of July favorite, 1942’s Yankee Doodle Dandy, for which he received his second New York Film Critics Award and his only Oscar.

President of the Screen Actors Guild from 1942-1944, Cagney continued to appear in prestige films, most notably the 1949 gangster classic, White Heat; the 1955 film version of the Broadway smash Mister Roberts in which he played a rare supporting role (to Henry Fonda); Doris Day’s gangster husband in the same year’s Love Me or Leave Me for which he received a third Oscar nomination and screen legend Lon Chaney in 1957’s Man of a Thousand Faces.

Cagney’s last film before retiring was Billy Wilder’s uproarious 1961 comedy, One, Two, Three, after which he turned down every role that was offered to him from Eliza’s father in 1964’s My Fair Lady to the old man traveling with his cat in 1974’s Harry and Tonto which won an Oscar for Art Carney.

Cagney became the second recipient of the prestigious American Film Institute Lifetime Achievement Award in 1974 following John Ford.

Lured out of retirement for 1981’s Ragtime, he came back for his ninth film with old friend Pat O’Brien, but neither he nor the film lived up to expectations despite its eight Oscar nominations.

Cagney’s last role was in the 1984 TV movie, Terrible Joe Moran with Carney. He died in 1986 at 86.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES (1938), directed by Michael Curtiz

One of the best loved films of the 1930s, Cagney and Pat O’Brien co-starred in their fifth film together as former boyhood friends, one (Cagney) now a notorious gangster, the other (O’Brien) now a priest. This was also the second film starring the Dead End Kids, later The Bowery Boys.

O’Brien tries to break the cycle of violence by breaking Cagney’s influence over the kids. He convinces Cagney to go to his execution a coward in one of the screen’s great endings. Ann Sheridan and Humphrey Bogart co-star. Cagney’s performance won him the New York Film Critics Award for Best Actor and earned him the first of his three Oscar nominations.

YANKEE DOODLE DANDY (1942), directed by Michael Curtiz

This somewhat fictionalized life story of writer-actor-composer George M. Cohan (1878-1942) was for decades everyone’s favorite Cagney film. It played relentlessly on TV, especially on the 4th of July from the mid-1950s well into the 1970s.

Cagney sings and dances his way through “Give My Regards to Broadway”; “Over There”; “You’re a Grand Old Flag” and other Cohan classics with great charm and energy. Also starring Joan Leslie, Walter Huston and Rosemary DeCamp, Cagney won his second New York Film Critics Award and first and only Oscar for his stirring portrayal. He later reprised the role in a cameo in 1955’s The Seven Little Foys with Bob Hope.

WHITE HEAT (1949), directed by Raoul Walsh

Cagney returned to gangster glory as the venal Cody Jarrett whose vile mother is based on the notorious Ma Barker. The film has many iconic moments including the grown Cody sitting on his mother’s lap and Cody’s demise in a spectacular blaze of glory.

The film was dismissed by most critics in its day because of its extreme violence but has since become recognized as one of Cagney’s signature films. Virginia Mayo, Edmond O’Brien and Margaret Wycherly as Ma also turn in unforgettable performances.

LOVE ME OR LEAVE ME (1955), directed by Charles Vidor

One of Cagney’s personal favorites, he actually plays second fiddle to Doris Day in her best dramatic role as torch singer Ruth Etting. His mean, short-fused Marty Snyder, known as “Marty the Gimp” makes life miserable for his spectacularly talented wife, but a joy for audiences as his once again turns to the kind of role that made him famous.

Cagney received his third and final Oscar nomination for his performance the same year as his indelible mean-spirited captain in Mister Roberts.

ONE TWO THREE (1960), directed by Billy Wilder

Cagney went out on top as Coca Cola’s man in Berlin who may lose his job if he can’t keep his boss’s daughter (Pamela Tiffin) from marrying a hot-headed Communist (Horst Buchholz). The laughs come fast and furiously in this one-of-a-kind romp also starring Arlene Francis and Lilo Pulver.

Cagney missed out on an Oscar nomination for this one, but he was runner-up to Maximiian Schell in Judgment at Nuremberg in the balloting for the New York Film Critics Award, tying with Paul Newman in The Hustler for second place.