James Cagney Net Worth

James Cagney's Quotes

• There's not much to say about acting but this. Never settle back on your heels. Never relax. If you relax, the audience relaxes. And always mean everything you say.
• All I try to do is to realise the man I'm playing fully, then put as much into my acting as I know how. To do it, I draw upon all that I've ever known, heard, seen or remember.
• My biggest concern is that doing a rough-and-tumble scene I might hurt someone accidentally.
• [in the early 1960s] In this business you need enthusiasm. I don't have enthusiasm for acting anymore. Acting is not the beginning and end of everything.
• They need you. Without you, they have an empty screen. So, when you get on there, just do what you think is right and stick with it.

Interesting Facts about James Cagney

1. Cagney's first job as an entertainer was as a female dancer in a chorus line.
2. According to his authorized biography, Cagney, although of three quarters Irish and one quarter Norwegian extraction, could speak Yiddish, since he had grown up in a heavily Jewish area in New York. He used to converse in Yiddish with Jewish performers like Paul Muni, Sylvia Sidney and John Garfield.
3. Ranked #45 in Empire (UK) magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list. [October 1997]
4. Brother of actor-producer William Cagney and of actress Jeanne Cagney.
5. Received the American Film Institute Life Achievement Award (1974).
6. (1942-1944) President of Screen Actors Guild (SAG).
7. Convinced decorated war hero Audie Murphy to go into acting.
8. His widow Frances (nicknamed 'Bill') outlived Cagney by eight years, dying aged 95 in 1994.
9. Pictured on a 33¢ USA commemorative postage stamp in the Legends of Hollywood series, issued 22 July 1999.
10. Had two adopted children: Casey Cagney Thomas and James Cagney Jr..
11. Was best friends with actors Pat O'Brien and Frank McHugh.
12. Earned a Black Belt in Judo.
13. He was voted the 14th Greatest Movie Star of all time by Entertainment Weekly.
14. Extraordinarily (for Hollywood), he never cheated on his wife Frances, resulting in a marriage that lasted 64 years (ending with his death). The closest he came was nearly giving into a seduction attempt by Merle Oberon while the two stars were on tour to entertain World War II GIs.
15. His paternal grandparents and maternal grandmother were all of Irish descent, and his maternal grandfather was from Norway. As he told an interviewer shortly before his death in 1986: "My mother's father, my Grandpa Nelson, was a Norwegian sea captain, but when I tried to investigate those roots I didn't get very far, for he had apparently changed his name to another one that made it impossible to identify him within the rest of the population.".
16. His electric acting style was a huge influence on future generations of actors. Actors as diverse as Clint Eastwood and Malcolm McDowell point to him as their number one influence to become actors.
17. Lived in a Gramercy Park building in New York City that was also occupied by Margaret Hamilton and now boasts Jimmy Fallon as one of its tenants.
18. Though most Cagney imitators use the line "You dirty rat!", Cagney never actually said it in any of his films.
19. According to James Cagney's autobiography Cagney By Cagney, (Published by Doubleday and Company Inc 1976, and ghost written by show biz biographer Jack McCabe), a Mafia plan to murder Cagney by dropping a several hundred pound klieg light on top of him was stopped at the insistence of George Raft. Cagney at that time was president of the Screen Actors Guild, and was determined not to let the mob infiltrate the industry. Raft used his many mob connections to cancel the hit.
20. He was voted the 11th Greatest Movie Star of all time by Premiere magazine.