James Cagney (17 July 1899-30 March 1986) was an American actor and dancer who was known as a vaudeville performer and an actor in gangster movies during the 1930s. Cagney was also a supporter of the Democratic Party for many years, later joining the Republican Party due to his increasingly conservative views.
Biography[]
James Cagney was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City, New York on 17 July 1899, and he began his acting career as a performer on the Every Sailor revue in 1919. He spent several years in vaudeville as a dancer and comedian until he got his first major acting part in 1925, and rave reviews from the 1929 play Penny Arcade led to Warner Bros. giving him a seven-year contract. During the 1930s, he became known as a "tough guy" actor in gangster movies, and he received an Academy Award for Best Actor nomination in 1938 for his role in Angels with Dirty Faces. He retired from acting and dancing in 1961 to spend time with his family, and he returned to acting for the 1981 movie Ragtime to assist in his recovery from a stroke.
Cagney became involved in politics during the 1930s as a Democratic Party member, opposing the studio's support of 1934 California Republican gubernatorial candidate Frank Merriam's campaign with money "taxed" from studio actors. He gave money to the defense fund of labor leader Thomas Mooney, gave money for a Spanish Republican Army ambulance during the Spanish Civil War, and donated to striking cotton workers in the San Joaquin Valley. Cagney was investigated by the US government as a "communist sympathizer", but he was cleared of charges, and he became President of the Screen Actors Guild in 1942. Cagney fought against the American Mafia, and the Mafia nearly sent a hitman to kill him. During World War II, Cagney fought for Franklin D. Roosevelt's re-election campaigns, but his views changed after the war, becoming disillusioned with Harry S. Truman. In 1948, he voted for Republican presidential nominee Thomas E. Dewey, and, by 1980, he was contributing financially to the Republican Party, becoming more conservative as he grew older; this was a reaction to the backlash against liberalism as a result of the growth of the counterculture movement of the 1960s. Cagney died at his Stanfordville, New York farm in 1986 at the age of 86.