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Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient James Cagney
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Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient James Cagney
JAMES CAGNEY
Awarded by
President Ronald Reagan
March 26, 1984
As a giant in the world of entertainment, James Cagney has left his mark not only on the film industry but on the hearts of all his fellow Americans. In some 60 years in entertainment, performing on stage and screen, he mastered drama and action adventure, as well as music and dance. One of his most remembered performances, as George M. Cohan in "Yankee Doodle Dandy," was a whirlwind singing and dancing film that inspired a Nation at war when it sorely needed a lift in spirit. James Cagney's professional and personal life has brought great credit to him and left unforgettable memories with millions who have followed his career.
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.
In sharp contrast to his later public image as Hollywood's "Public Enemy", Cagney's first regular role as a professional actor was somewhat more genteel, if not refined: Cagney starred in a troupe of full drag female impersonators, honing his song and dance skills in a dress. While touring with the troupe Cagney met vaudevillian Frances Vernon, who he married in 1922. The Cagneys were both hired for the chorus of the Broadway revue "Pitter Patter" shortly after their marriage, and by 1925 Cagney was appearing as a leading man in a number of Broadway productions.
In 1930, Cagney was starring in the successful stage show "Penny Arcade" when the film production rights to the play were acquired by Warner Brothers Studios, who hired him and his co-star Joan Blondell to reprise their roles for the film. Released as "Sinners Holiday", the film launched Cagney's legendary 30 year career.
 Cagney's New York tough guy act, fabricated from bits of real people he had known in his youth in Yorkville, led to a number of "anti-hero" roles as Americans lionized the bootleggers of Prohibition and the Depression. In 1931, Cagney's lead opposite Jean Harlow in "The Public Enemy" made him the hands down favorite hoodlum in Hollywood's popular and profitable gangster films. While Cagney was challenged by few actors other than Edward G. Robinson for dominance of the genre, his popularity in such roles led Warner Brothers to underutilize his other talents. A capable comedian, singer and dancer as well as dramatic actor, Cagney only infrequently had opportunity to exercise those skills, though such occasions were universally successful.
Departures from crime pictures included "Jimmy the Gent", the first of 3 light films with actress Bette Davis , a Shakespearian turn as Bottom in the 1935 adaptation of "A Midsummer Night's Dream", and in 1942 the tribute to Cagney's fellow vaudevillian, George M. Cohen, "Yankee Doodle Dandy". The musical, released as patriotic World War II fare, featured Cagney in gravity defying dance numbers, teamed him with esteemed actor Walter Huston as well as his sister, Jeanne, and earned James Cagney a Best Actor Oscar.
Cagney's forays into comedy and musicals were infrequent largely due to the mechanizations of Warner Brothers, but deviations from his tough guy roles often proved more lucrative than the hastily turned out gangster epics. Cagney released back-to-back box office hits "Mister Roberts", in which he played a comically villainous ships captain opposite Henry Fonda and Jack Lemmon and reprised his George M. Cohen role for the Bob Hope film "The Seven Little Foys". Warner Brothers screenwriter Julius Epstein , who had a deep admiration for Cagney's skill with understated humor, often tailored such projects as "The Bride Came C.O.D." and "The Strawberry Blonde" to suit the actor's skills.
Cagney's deepest niche was carved in crime films, as was that of his frequent early co-star, Humphrey Bogart , whose co-starring roles included the film "Angels With Dirty Faces". Cagney's films, such as
 "White Heat" (1949) gave audiences images and tag lines that endured decades, from grapefruit attacks on argumentative female costars to the unsettling "Top of the world, Ma!" of a defiant and despairing criminal. Despite his success in the genre, Cagney's dissatisfaction with the constant march of mobster roles found him abandoning Warner Brothers and the Hollywood Studio System in the late 1930s.
A founder of the Screen Actors Guild and proponent for actors' creative rights, Cagney formed his own Grand National Pictures, a production as well as distribution venture. The project failed, however, losing money as Cagney's brother William, appointed as producer and director of the small company, went continually over budget and behind schedule with such projects as "Great Guy" and "Something to Sing About". Cagney ultimately returned to Warner Brothers.
In 1961, after finishing his 70th film, the comedy "One, Two, Three", James Cagney announced his retirement, emerging only once in 20 years thereafter, to narrate the Roy Rogers, Jr. film "Arizona Bushwhackers" in 1968. Cagney, who, with his wife Frances was the parent of 2 adopted children, settled in to his Stanfordville, New York farm, seemingly immovably, to garden, paint and write poetry, as well as the autobiography Cagney by Cagney (1975).
In 1974 James Cagney was the first recipient of the American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement Award, which was followed by Kennedy Center honors in 1980. Suffering from diabetes as well as a plethora of other health problems, Cagney chose to return to film work, as much for his own morale as for the sake of the art. That film, "Ragtime" (1981) was a critical and popular success, as was Cagney's performance as a turn of the century police chief. He made a final film, the made for television "Terrible Joe Moran" three years later.
In 1984, James Cagney was presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom , America's highest civilian honor, by his long time friend, former actor turned President, Ronald Reagan. Less than two years after presenting James Cagney with the Medal of Freedom, Ronald Reagan delivered the actor's eulogy. James Francis Cagney died in his sleep of a heart attack at his farm in Stanfordville, New York, March 30th, 1986. His survivors at his death included his wife of 64 years, Frances Vernon Cagney and his adopted children.
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Medal History
