Cagney James - Cagney

ALSO BY JOHN McCABE

Mr. Laurel and Mr. Hardy (1962)

George M. Cohan: The Man Who Owned Broadway (1973)

The Comedy World of Stan Laurel (1973)

Laurel and Hardy: The Films ( with Al Kilgore and Richard Bonn ) (1975)

Proclaiming the Word ( with G. B. Harrison ) (1976)

Charlie Chaplin (1978)

The Grand Hotel (1987)

Babe: The Life of Oliver Hardy (1989)

The High (1992)

This Is a Borzoi Book
Published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.

Copyright 1997 by John McCabe

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Distributed by Random House, Inc., New York.

http://www.randomhouse.com/

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
McCabe, John.
Cagney / by John McCabe. 1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
eISBN: 978-0-307-83099-9
1. Cagney, James, 18991986. 2. Motion picture actors and actressesUnited StatesBiography. I. Title.
PN 2287. C 23 M 27 1997
791.43028092dc21
[B] 97-5067

v3.1

For
Linny, Deirdre, and Sean, with many loving memories of The Senator, Lovie the Princess, and The Klunk Kid

My prime obligation is to James Cagneyhis informal reminiscences are the heart of this workbut I am also deeply indebted to Frances Willard Willie Cagney for insights into her husbands character and life that gave me deeper understanding of his extraordinary personality. For much of my basic understanding of him I owe more than I can ever satisfactorily acknowledge to my old friends Pat OBrien and Frank McHugh. Over the years of our comradeship at The Lambs Club, they told me Cagney stories that amply confirmed in interesting detail what I had heard and was yet to learn of his tough sweetness, deep kindness, and exemplary gifts of friendship. Pat said, He was the best man I ever met in the course of my long lifeand Ive met many and many a man. Frank echoed this.

Marge Zimmermann gave me vivid details of Cagneys last days. She also gave me access to all his personal papers, the most interesting of which was his composition book, as he called ita much-used quarto in which he structured his verse and penned other thoughts.

Special thanks to Selden West, authorized biographer of Spencer Tracy, for urging me to write this book, and to Robert Gottlieb of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., who gave me the commission to do so, with needed attendant encouragements and incisive editing. Thanks, too, to Ken Schneider, Iris Weinstein, and Abby Weintraub of Knopf. I have a very special obligation to two of the publishing worlds bright stars, Ken McCormick and Sam Vaughan, who during their Doubleday years showed their faith in me by asking that I ghostwrite Cagney by Cagney, a vital step toward my present work.

Karen Lee Hodgson was a much-valued research assistant, as was Veronica Cullen. I am especially grateful to Ned Comstock, director of the Cinema/TV section of Doheny Library, University of Southern California, and to Stuart Ng, for easeful access to the Warner Brothers Collection there. Thanks also to Sam Gill and his efficient staff at the Library of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. And as always through the years I am grateful to Charles Silver and his associate Ron Magliozzi of the Film Study Center of The Museum of Modern Art for their kind help. I am also grateful to Mary Corliss and Terry Geesken of MOMAs Film Still Archive, Bob Cosenia of the Kobal Collection, and Christel Schmidt of the George Eastman House.

For their Cagney memories I am indebted to: Richard Erdman, Harry Flynn, Milos Forman, Shirley Jones, Harris Laskawy, Perry Lafferty, Jimmy Lydon, Virginia Mayo, Don Murray, Brigid OBrien, Floyd Patterson, Joseph Sargent, James Sherwood, Burt Solomon, Peter Turgeon, Ben Welden, and Roland Rolie Winters. I am grateful to Professor Jack Morrison, husband of Jeanne Cagney, for giving me a penetrating look into Cagney family mores. Ray Wemmlenger, librarian of The Players, showed me correspondence between various Players officers and Cagney through the years. Peter Bogdanovich supplied me with a merry account of his wonderful luncheon with Cagney. Special thanks also to the following: Peter Ballante, Steve Cardali, Victoria Cullen, Arnold Karolewski, and John Mainelli for access to their precious Cagney press books purchased at the Doyle Galleries auction, and to Joanne Porino Mounet of Doyle for information about the Cagney memorabilia auction. Robert Costello, lawyer for the Cagney Estate, gave me vital information on the wills of both James and Frances Cagney.

Also thanks to: Peter Boutin, Richard W. Bann, Michael F. Blake for his comments on Lon Chaney and Cagney and for a rare copy of You, John Jones, Ron Borst, Paul D. Colford, John Carroll for essential irrelevancies, Frank Carroll, Bill Erwin, Robert Frye (producer of the fine Biography treatment of Cagney for A&E Channel), Thom Forbes, Richard Frank for some Hollywood history and a rare photograph of the Cagneys at play, Chuck Gustafson, Madeline Hamermesh, Howard Hays of University of California at Los Angeles for wonderful Cagney newsreel footage, Julio Hernandez-Delgado, Roger B. Hunting, Janis Johnson, Larry Kasha, Lincoln Kirstein for an encouraging phone call, Linny McCabe, Chuck McCann and Betty Fanning-McCann, Pete McGovern, Stephanie McGreevy, Mrs. Frank (Dorothy) McHugh, Lisa Mitchell, Robert Montgomery, old friend Max Morath for insightful comments on White Heat, Ruth Neveu, Ann Nunziato and Fr. Tom McSweeney of The Christophers for their help in tracking down A Link in the Chain, Donald OConnor, Elizabeth Plowe, W. T. Rabe, Eulalie Regan, Steffi Sidney for information about her father, Sidney Skolsky; Philip Truex, Peter Turgeon for friendship and two Cagney stories, Whit Vernon, Arthur Weisenseel, M.D., old friends Rube and Liz Weiss for augmenting my Cagney-stimulated knowledge of Yiddish, and Jordan Young.

In 1973 Doubleday and Company asked me to ghostwrite the memoirs of James Cagney. I knew him only through correspondence and tales of him by mutual friends. He had kindly contributed to my book George M. Cohan: The Man Who Owned Broadway because of his affection for and admiration of the man he portrayed in so sprightly a manner in Yankee Doodle Dandy. The autobiography, Cagney by Cagney, duly appeared in 1976 to generally good reviews, the only critical reservation being that Cagney did not tell all. It was a charge he accepted gladly. Goddamned right I didnt tell all, he said. All would be boring, boring, boringand Im in the business of entertainment. And if I choose to remember only the best parts of my life, I dont know why in hell I should apologize for that. He warmed to the subject. Some of these film scholars mail me their requests to learn every jot and tittle about a guys life and work. The average readerand thats the one Im interested indoesnt need or want to know these things. When reminded that he, Cagney, wanted to know jot and tittle about virtually all he was interested inpoetry, conservation, animal husbandry, painting, farming, and morehe smiled and said, Jot, yes; tittle, no.