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 James Cagney biography: James Francis Cagney, Jr. was born on July 17, 1899 in Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City on the corner of Avenue D and 8th Street. His father, James Sr. was an Irish American bartender and amateur boxer; Cagney was born in a room above his father’s saloon. His mother, Carolyn Nelson, was half Irish, half Norwegian; her father was a Norwegian ship captain while her mother was Irish American.The family moved twice when he was still young, first to East 79th Street, and then to East 96th Street. Cagney was the second of seven children, two of whom died within months of birth; he himself had been very sick as a young child, so much so that his mother feared he would die before being baptized. He later attributed his sickness to the level of poverty in which they grew up.The red-haired, blue-eyed Cagney graduated from Stuyvesant High School in New York City in 1918, and attended Columbia College of Columbia University where he intended to major in art.He also took German and joined the Student Army Training Corps,but dropped out after one semester, returning home upon the death of his father during the 1918 flu pandemic. He had a range of jobs early in his life, and gave all his earnings to the family: junior architect, copy boy for the New York Sun, book custodian at the New York Public Library, bellhop, draughtsman and a night doorman. 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 to face-to-face with the realities of life without any mama or papa to do his thinking for him." He started tap dancing as a boy (a skill that would eventually contribute 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, against all-comers when it was required. He engaged in amateur boxing, and was a runner-up in the New York State lightweight title. His coaches encouraged him to turn professional, but his mother would not allow it.He also played semi-professional baseball for a local team, and entertained dreams of playing in the Major Leagues. His introduction to films was unusual; when visiting an aunt in Brooklyn who lived opposite Vitagraph Studios, Cagney would climb over the fence to watch the filming of John Bunny films. 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. He was initially content working behind the scenes, and had no interest in performing. One night, however Harry became ill, and although James was not an understudy, his photographic memory of rehearsals allowed him to stand in for his brother without making a single mistake. Afterward, he joined a number of companies as a performer in a variety of roles. While working at Wanamaker's Department Store in 1919, Cagney learned (from a colleague who had seen him dance) of a role in the upcoming production Every Sailor. A war-time play in which the chorus is made up of servicemen dressed as women, it was originally titled Every Woman. Cagney auditioned for the role of a chorus-girl, despite considering it a waste of time; he only knew one dance step, the complicated Peabody, which he knew perfectly.This skill, however, was enough to convince the producers that he could dance, and he copied the other dancers' moves while waiting to go on. 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 natural 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." 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.Cagney appreciated the $35 a week that he received from performing, which he called "a mountain of money for me in those worrisome days." In deference to his mother's worries, he got employment as a brokerage house runner.This did not stop him looking for more stage work, however, and he went on to successfully audition for a chorus part in Pitter Patter, for which he earned $55 a week—he sent $40 a week back to his mother.So strong was his habit of working more than one job at a time, 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 16 year-old Frances Willard "Billie" Vernon, whom he would marry in 1922. The show began Cagney's 10 year association with vaudeville and Broadway. Pitter Patter was not hugely successful, but it did well enough to run for 32 weeks, allowing 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. The Nye was a rearrangement of the last syllable of Cagney's surname. One of the troupes that Cagney joined was Parker, Rand and Leach, taking over the latter position when Archie Leach—who would later change his name to Cary Grant—left. After years of touring, performing and struggling to make money, Cagney and Vernon moved to Hawthorne, California in 1924. They moved there 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. They were not very successful at first; the dance studio Cagney set up had few clients and folded, and he and Vernon toured the studios but garnered 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 non-dancing 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 of getting the part; he had had no experience with drama until this point. Cagney felt that he only got the role because he was one of only two red-headed performers in New York, and assumed he got it because his hair was more red than Alan Bunce's. Both the play and Cagney received good reviews; Life magazine wrote, "Mr. Cagney, in a less spectacular role 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". Following the show's four month run, Cagney went back to vaudeville for the next couple of years. He achieved varied success, but after appearing in Outside Looking In, the Cagneys were more financially secure. During this period, he met George M. Cohan, whom he would go on to portray in Yankee Doodle Dandy, though they never spoke Cagney secured the lead role in the 1926–27 season West End production of Broadway by George Abbott. The show's management insisted that he copy Broadway lead Lee Tracy's performance, despite Cagney's discomfort in doing so but the day before the show sailed for England, the management decided that Cagney should be replaced.This was a devastating turn of events for Cagney; apart from the logistical difficulties this presented—their luggage was in the hold of the ship and the couple had given up their apartment—he almost quit show business. As Billie recalled, "Jimmy said that it was all over. He made up his mind that he would get a job doing something else." The Cagneys had run-of-the-play contracts—their contracts lasted as long as the play did: Billie was in the chorus line of the show, and with help from the Actors’ Equity Association, Cagney took up the understudy role to Tracy on the Broadway show, providing them with a desperately needed steady income. Cagney also established a dance school for professionals, then picked up another role in the play Women Go On Forever, directed by John Cromwell, that ran for four months. By the end of the run, Cagney was exhausted after acting and running the dance school. He had built a reputation as an innovative teacher, and so when he was cast as the lead in Grand Street Follies of 1928 he was also appointed the choreographer. The show received rave reviews and was followed by Grand Street Follies of 1929. These roles led to a part in George Kelly's Maggie the Magnificent, a play generally not liked by the critics, although Cagney's performance was. Cagney saw this role (and Women Go on Forever) as significant because of the talent that directed them; he learned "what a director was for and what a director could do. They were directors who could play all the parts in the play better than the actors cast for them." Playing opposite Cagney in Maggie the Magnificent was Joan Blondell, who would star again with him a few months later in Marie Baumer's new play Penny Arcade.While the critics panned Penny Arcade, Cagney and Blondell were both highly praised. Al Jolson, sensing a potential film success, bought the rights for $20,000. He then sold the play to Warner Brothers, with the stipulation that Cagney and Blondell be cast in the film version. Retitled Sinners' Holiday, the film was released in 1930.Cagney was given a $500-a-week, three-week contract. In the film, he portrays Harry Delano, a tough guy who becomes a killer but generates sympathy because of his unfortunate upbringing. This role of the sympathetic "bad" guy would be a recurring character-type for Cagney throughout his career.During filming of Sinners' Holiday, he also demonstrated the stubbornness that would characterize his work demeanor. He later recalled an argument he had with director John Adolfi about a line: "There was a line in the show where I was supposed to be crying on my mother's breast... [The line] was 'I'm your baby, ain't I?' I refused to say it. Adolfi said 'I'm going to tell Zanuck.' I said 'I don't give a shit what you tell him, I'm not going to say that line'". They took the line out. Despite this outburst, the studio liked him, and before his three-week contract was up—while the film was still shooting[45]—they gave Cagney a three-week extension, which was followed by a full seven-year contract at $400 a week.The contract, however, allowed Warners to drop him at the end of any 40-week period, effectively guaranteeing him 40 weeks income, after which there would be no further guarantees. As when he was growing up, Cagney shared his income with his family. With the good reviews that Cagney received, he immediately starred in another gangster role in Doorway to Hell. The film was a financial hit, helping cement Cagney's growing reputation.He made four more movies before his breakthrough role. | ||||||||||
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