| James Cagney, 1899-1986 Oscar winning actor James Cagney, who epitomized the Roaring 20s tough guy and rose to fame in the gangster film "The Public Enemy", was in real life an accomplished painter and poet who preferred life on his upstate New York farm to the high life of Hollywood. A former vaudeville song and dance man whose 75 film credits include many movie classics, James Cagney died on March 30th, 1986. Known for his intense portrayals of hard edged street hoods and "G Men", Cagney was- and was not- the sort of man he often portrayed on film. Born James Francis Cagney, Jr., on July 17th, 1899 in New York City, he was the son of hard working, lower-class immigrants: Cagney's father was an Irish-born bartender, and his mother, a sturdy Norwegian woman who guided her three children alone after she was widowed in 1918. Cagney, his sister Jeanne and brother William grew up in the tough Lower East Side neighborhood of Yorkville, with Cagney taking to the streets and a string of odd jobs early in his youth to help support his family. His work as a waiter, pool hall attendant and newsboy gave him an income as well as fluency in Yiddish by his teens, when he was drawn into the higher paying world of vaudeville. Cagney's enterprise enabled him to add to the family income, as well as afford to enroll at Columbia University, which he attended for less than a year before dropping out to take a "money job" on the show circuit of vaudeville. | |
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