JAMES CAGNEY By Ellis Buckley Bio James Francis

JAMES CAGNEY By Ellis Buckley

Bio James Francis Cagney Jr. was an American born actor who was predominantly known for his roles in crime dramas. He started his early career a song-and-dance man in the 1920’s and scored his “big break” in the Broadway musical Penny Arcade. Later in 1930 he made his film debut in Sinner’s Holiday where he managed to gain a contract with Warner Bros, one of the big five. After a few supporting roles Cagney was handed his role as a new York gangster in The Public enemy unleashing his typecast of the explosive “tough guy” in most films. While Cagney was still acting he carried on with his passion for musicals and showed of his skills as an incredible dancer in Footlight Parade. After his last film One, Two, Three in 1961 Cagney retired to his farm on New England where we received a Life Achievement Award form the American Film Institute. Unfortunately in the 1970 s his heath started to deteriorate where is doctors told him to continue to work, he came out of retirement for two final films before dying in New York in 1986.

Persona Cagneys skill and uniqueness as an actor gave him the ability of having a certain persona as the “though guy” in most of his films and gave a natural extension of his real-life character. During the golden age of Hollywood he was type casted which means he was strongly identified with a specific character this is because of his background having grown up in New York and his father being in an Irish gang. “Though I soon became typecast in Hollywood as a gangster and hoodlum, I was originally a dancer, an Irish hoofer, trained in vaudeville tap dance. I always leapt at the opportunity to dance in films later on. ” — James Cagney

Costume ■ James cagney was well known for his signature costume in his films this consisted of a suit and a fancy top hat.

Cagney, "You dirty rat!" 1932 https: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=-0 Mk. IPGKd. Ak

James Cagney meets The Dead End Kids https: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=7 q-o. U 6 w. Ax 4 A

The Golden Age of Hollywood At the start of the 1920’s, the technology had improved more dramatically that any other period, therefore studios could now produce films with audio in it, subsequently becoming the biggest progress in the movie industry. It was named the evolution. Just imagine, if movies that you watch today still did not have any sound. Even with the new effects and 3 D technology that we have now movies just would not be the same without sound. The sound is like the soul of a movie, At the start of this evolution, Hollywood studio did not believe that the movie with sound could be very successful. However in 1927, after the Hollywood published the first "talkie" movie "The Jazz Singer", and it turned out the producer was so wrong. "The Jazz Singer" became an evolutionary step for the movie industry all over the world

Refrences IMDb. (2019). "Biography" James Cagney: Top of the World (TV Episode 1992). [online] Available at: https: //www. imdb. com/title/tt 0526090/ [Accessed 8 Jan. 2019]. Encyclopedia Britannica. (2019). James Cagney | Biography, Films, & Facts. [online] Available at: https: //www. britannica. com/biography/James-Cagney [Accessed 8 Jan. 2019]. The James Cagney Project. (2019). The James Cagney Project. [online] Available at: https: //cagneyproject. wordpress. com [Accessed 9 Jan. 2019]. Jewell, R. (2007). The golden age of cinema. Malden, MA: Blackwell.