James Francis Cagney Jr. (July 17, 1899 - March 30, 1986) was an Academy Award-winning American film actor who won acclaim for a wide variety of roles, including the career-launching The Public Enemy, and won the Oscar for Best Actor in 1942 for his role in Yankee Doodle Dandy. awards/DisplayMain.jsp?curTime=1204466096703" target="_blank">Academy Awards database
Like _James Stewart, Cagney became so familiar to audiences that they usually referred to him as "Jimmy" Cagney — a billing never found on any of his films.
In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Cagney eighth among the Greatest Male Stars of All Time.
One of Hollywood's pre-eminent male stars of all time (eclipsed, perhaps, only by "King" Clark Gable and arguably by Gary Cooper (I) or Spencer Tracy), and the cinema's quintessential "tough guy." Was also an accomplished if rather stiff hoofer and easily played light comedy. Ending three decades on the screen, retired to his farm in Stanfordville, New York (some 77 miles/124 km. north of his New York City birthplace), after starring in Billy Wilder's One, Two, Three (1961). Emerged from retirement to star in the 1981 screen adaptation of E.L. Doctorow's novel Ragtime (1981), in which he was reunited with his frequent co-star of the 30's, the actor 'Pat O'Brien', and which was his last theatrical film. (Ironically - or fittingly, if one prefers - it was O'Brien's last film as well.) Cagney's final performance came in the title role of the made-for-TV movie Terrible Joe Moran (1984) (TV), in which he played opposite Art Carney.
