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Cagney

by John McCabe

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582446,355 (3.46)1
Cagney came from a poor Irish-American New York family but once he found his metier as an actor, it was not long before he was recognized as a brilliantly energetic and powerful phenomenon. After the tremendous impact of Public Enemy - in which he notoriously pushed half a grapefruit into Mae Clarke's face - he was typecast as a gangster because of the terrifying violence that seemed to be pent up within him. Years of pitched battle with Warner Brothers finally liberated him from those roles, and he went on to star in such triumphs as the musicals Yankee Doodle Dandy (winning the 1942 Oscar for best actor) and Love Me or Leave Me. Even so, one of his greatest later roles involved a return to crime - as the psychopathic killer in the terrifying White Heat. He retired from films in 1961 after making Billy Wilder's One, Two, Three, only to return twenty years later for Ragtime. But however much Cagney personified violence and explosive energy on the screen, in life he was a quiet, introspective, and deeply private man, a poet, painter, and environmentalist, whose marriage to his early vaudeville partner was famously loyal and happy. His story is one of the few Hollywood biographies that reflect a fulfilled life as well as a spectacular career.… (more)
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A biography from an interesting perspective. An actor himself, later a college professor, John McCabe was asked to work as the ghost writer for Cagney on Cagney, Jim Cagney autobiography. He formed a strong friendship with the actor and later convinced him that there was more to be said than that contained in his autobio.

Cagney agreed and was very accessible to McCabe in the writing of this biography. At first glance, it could be considered primaily a study on the Cagney films but there are excellent insights into the Cagney family.
They were involved by him in his career and the film business but estranged from his wife, Willie. His wife set up their two adopted children in their own house so that Cagney could focus on his work and rest when the labor was done without their distractions. When you read about his close and sustained relationshps with adults especially his family, his estrangement from his children is hard to understand and a strange flaw in an otherwise admirable man.

Tha latter chapters are very insightful about Cagney, the painter, writer, actor and dancer. He knew he would have to give up dancing and intentionally stopped acting but really regretted when declining health forced him to stop writing and painting.

Among his peers, he was always considered the best actor. His take on acting could be summed up in three words, "just do it" ( )
  jamespurcell | Apr 26, 2008 |
Good biography of Cagney, very readable - I must admit I came away from it thinking a little less of the man. ( )
  J.v.d.A. | Jun 28, 2007 |
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Epigraph
But I have seen a Proteus that can take

What shape he please, and in an instant make

Himself to anything: be that or this

By voluntary metamorphosis

~ Preface to Jealous Lovers,
by Thomas Randolph, 1632,
in praise of his actor
friend Thomas Riley

In the very nature of acting. .. there is an
essential gaiety. If it isn't light-hearted, it
becomes absurd. You can achieve every shade
of seriousness by means of ease, and none of
them without it.

~ Bertolt Brecht,
Der Messingkauf
(The Purchase of Brass), 1955
Dedication
For Linny, Deirdre, and Sean, with many loving memories of The Senator, Lovie the Princess, and The Klunk Kid
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Cagney came from a poor Irish-American New York family but once he found his metier as an actor, it was not long before he was recognized as a brilliantly energetic and powerful phenomenon. After the tremendous impact of Public Enemy - in which he notoriously pushed half a grapefruit into Mae Clarke's face - he was typecast as a gangster because of the terrifying violence that seemed to be pent up within him. Years of pitched battle with Warner Brothers finally liberated him from those roles, and he went on to star in such triumphs as the musicals Yankee Doodle Dandy (winning the 1942 Oscar for best actor) and Love Me or Leave Me. Even so, one of his greatest later roles involved a return to crime - as the psychopathic killer in the terrifying White Heat. He retired from films in 1961 after making Billy Wilder's One, Two, Three, only to return twenty years later for Ragtime. But however much Cagney personified violence and explosive energy on the screen, in life he was a quiet, introspective, and deeply private man, a poet, painter, and environmentalist, whose marriage to his early vaudeville partner was famously loyal and happy. His story is one of the few Hollywood biographies that reflect a fulfilled life as well as a spectacular career.

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