Of New York History and New Hollywood Horror...

EDWARD CLARK'S "FOLLY"

The address, One West 72nd Street, may not register with many who live outside the city of New York, but the name of the building at the corner of 72nd Street and Central Park West is more familiar.  The Dakota, a famed luxury co-op on the Upper West Side, has been home to many high profile luminaries, served as the setting for one of Roman Polanski's best known films, and was the site of an infamous murder in 1980.


Posh apartment houses designed expressly for the well-heeled were rare in New York in 1880, when construction of the Dakota began. Apartment housing at that time and place was mainly associated with tenements and lower class living, but in the late 1860s the Stuyvesant building opened. It attracted the reasonably well-to-do in droves and soon more such residences were in the works.

The Dakota by Richard Britell

The lot on which the Dakota would stand was in an area that was then largely undeveloped - both far north and west of what was considered the city's boundaries. And though the building would face Central Park, that region of the park had yet to be landscaped or developed. In fact, the street that was to become Central Park West was still but a dirt road. Astonishingly, all 65 of the Dakota's 4- to 20-room apartments were rented by the time its doors opened in late 1884; from that day until the stock market crash of 1929, there was not even one vacancy in the building.

Dakota railing detail

Edward Clark, an attorney who made a great fortune as partner to Isaac M. Singer in the Singer Sewing Machine Company, conceived and built the Dakota. He hired architect Henry Hardenburgh (the Waldorf-Astoria, the Plaza Hotel), then early in his career at age 32, to design the building. The project would establish Hardenburgh's reputation. Massive and extravagant, the Dakota's exterior was an eclectic interpretation of German Renaissance style while the interior reflected French architectural influences then popular in New York. In his 1970 illustrated novel Time and Again, Jack Finney wrote of the Dakota's "pale yellow brick handsomely trimmed in chocolate-colored stone," of its roof "like a miniature town...of gables, turrets, pyramids, towers, peaks" shingled in copper-trimmed slate and "peppered with uncountable windows, dormer and flush, square, round, and rectangular." Sadly, Edward Clark would not live to see the completion of the Dakota and his own sumptuous apartment in the building would be bestowed upon his 12-year-old grandson and heir.

Leonard Bernstein's piano in his Dakota apartment

Robert Ryan in his home at the Dakota (later
purchased by John Lennon and Yoko Ono)

Once the Great Depression took hold following the market crash, several of the Dakota's large apartments were broken up into smaller ones and years later, in 1961, the building became a co-operative.  Over its long history, the residence served as home to many notables of  stage, screen and other lively and literary arts. The first actor to move into the Dakota came in the late '30s; he was William Henry Pratt, better known as Boris Karloff. Others would include Lillian Gish, Judy Garland, Lauren Bacall (with and without Jason Robards, Jr.), Judy Holliday, Jose Ferrer and Rosemary Clooney, Teresa Wright, Robert Ryan, Zero Mostel, Jack Palance, Gwen Verdon, Zachary Scott and Patrick O'Neal. Composer/conductor Leonard Bernstein lived at the Dakota, as did dancer Rudolf Nureyev, playwright William Inge, director John Frankenheimer, Warner Bros. exec Ted Ashley, CBS News legend Edward R. Murrow, singer Roberta Flack, feminist/writer Betty Friedan and interior decorator Syrie Maugham, one-time wife of author W. Somerset. John Lennon, founding member of the Beatles and beloved cultural icon, is perhaps the most widely known of all the Dakota's famed residents.

John and Sean Lennon in their Dakota kitchen

As with many structures of gothic appearance, the Dakota weathered rumors of supernatural incidents and ghost stories. Movie critic and Dakota resident Rex Reed recalled that a doorman warned him early on to expect to see Boris Karloff's ghost. Strange and unexplained events were witnessed below ground, in the basement and, for a brief period, a so-called "Phantom of the Dakota" vandalized the building and spooked its inhabitants. But it was only with the release of Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby (1968), set and partially shot at the Dakota, that the building's reputation for quirkiness and opulence took on a decidedly dark facet. With the deadly 1980 shooting of John Lennon at the building's front gate, the incomprehensible and horrifying became real.

Long-time Dakota resident Lauren Bacall at home in 2011

ROSEMARY'S BABY

 

When Roman Polanski walked into the office of newly appointed Paramount Pictures production head Bob Evans for the first time in 1967, he thought he was there to discuss directing Downhill Racer, the project Evans touted when he asked for the meeting. Instead, Evans quickly admitted that, knowing Polanski loved to ski, he'd used the project, the story of a U.S. Olympic team skier, as a lure. What Evans really wanted to talk with Polanski about was directing a film adaptation of Ira Levin's soon-to-be-published horror thriller, Rosemary's Baby. Evans gave him the printer's galley proofs to take home and look over. In a sitting, Polanski read through Levin's chilling tale of a contemporary Manhattan couple who move into a fabled apartment building - with terrifying consequences. He quickly agreed to direct.

Bob Evans and Roman Polanski

Why was Evans intent upon hiring Polanski to direct Rosemary's Baby? William Castle, producer/director of low-budget horror movies, had optioned the screen rights for the book. Castle, who had an exclusive contract with the studio, hoped to direct the film himself. But Evans wasn't interested in making the grade "B" genre fare Castle turned out, pictures like The Tingler (1959), 13 Ghosts (1960) and Strait-Jacket (1964). Evans, destined to become a legendary figure in the New Hollywood era, saw Rosemary's Baby as a director's film and his interest was piqued by the Polish director of what he called "three really offbeat thrillers," Knife in the Water (1962), Repulsion (1965) and Cul-de-sac (1966). Knife in the Water, a taut psychological drama that marked Polanski's feature film debut, brought an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film and international acclaim. Repulsion starred Catherine Deneuve and Cul-de-sac starred her sister, Francoise Dorleac; both were moody, surreal films that won international awards. Evans believed Polanski's iconoclastic vision might conjure something special and unusual out of Levin's sly, dark fiction and was able to convince Castle to confine himself to the role of producer. Polanski thought Levin's book a "well-constructed thriller," cinematic in nature, and immediately began work on the script, writing from dawn to dark for days on end.

Ira Levin

In the meantime, Rosemary's Baby was published and became a #1 best-seller. The National Observer called the book "the best chiller to come down the gooseflesh trail in many a moonless night." Even the New York Times review was a rave and anticipation for the film adaptation ran high.

Tuesday Weld and Robert Redford

Polanski originally planned to cast the lead roles with actors who possessed the All-American good looks and energy depicted in Levin's book, and favored Tuesday Weld for Rosemary and Robert Redford as her husband, Guy. When Bob Evans suggested Mia Farrow, the director at first thought her too waif-like and ethereal for the title role. But after meeting and discussing the role with her he hired her without so much as a screen test. Robert Redford became unavailable and Warren Beatty turned down the role of Guy, so Polanski turned to John Cassavetes, an intense, charismatic actor who was also making a name for himself as an independent filmmaker. The hand-picked supporting cast included Hollywood troupers Ralph Bellamy, Patsy Kelly and Elisha Cook, Jr., as well as stage and screen veterans Maurice Evans, Sidney Blackmer and Ruth Gordon. Uncredited in the role Polanski characterized as "the real star of the picture,"  the Bramford apartment building, was the Dakota. Exteriors were shot on-site and Richard Sylbert, Polanski's production designer, scrupulously recreated the Dakota's interiors (off-limits to movie-makers) in Hollywood. Rosemary's Baby would begin and end with aerial views of the imposing structure.

"Bramford"/Dakota interior sketch by Richard Sylbert

Production was underway for only a week when Charles Bluhdorn, Paramount's new owner, began to have second thoughts about Polanski, whose focus on artistic values and fine details he viewed as unreasonable perfectionism. One day while on the studio lot Polanski ran into filmmaking legend Otto Preminger. Dejected, he told the older director there was talk he was going to be replaced on Rosemary's Baby. Preminger asked if the studio was happy with the rushes and when Polanski told him it was, he said: "Roman, remember this: You can go over budget as much as you like, provided the rushes are good. They only replace a director when the dailies are lousy." What Bob Evans saw in Polanski's dailies was an "ominous sense of fright" - and it thrilled him; he told Paramount, "If he goes, I go." Both stayed.

Mia Farrow and Roman Polanski on the set

Polanski was determined to recreate the exact time frame in which the story was set, mid-1965 to mid-1966, just two years before the film was made. Trends had shifted in that brief period; by 1968 styles had begun to swing from the influence of all-things-English ushered in with "the British Invasion" to a more bohemian sensibility reflecting the "flower power"/"hippie" phenomenon. His insistence on authentic detail drove costume designer Anthea Sylbert's meticulous replication of mid-'60s fashion. She captured the look of the moment with Rosemary's Mod-era shifts, mini-dresses and attire like a red chiffon pants suit to be worn on a romantic evening at home. Other time-specific touches include Rosemary's decision to have her pageboy tresses snipped into a short Vidal Sassoon cut, Rosemary relaxing on the sofa with Sammy Davis, Jr.'s book Yes, I Can (a 1965 best-seller), a glimpse on TV of the Pope's October 1965 visit to New York, and Time magazine's famous "Is God Dead?" issue (April 8, 1966) conspicuous among the reading material in her doctor's waiting room.

Costumes by Anthea Sylbert

Polanski later said the story line of Rosemary's Baby had posed one problem for him, it conflicted with his own worldview. He didn't believe in Satan. So he decided, "for credibility's sake," to add an element of ambiguity suggesting the possibility that Rosemary's imagination was the source of her fears. With careful camera placement and the use of special lenses, Polanski presented the story through Rosemary's eyes. Drawn into Rosemary's point of view, the audience easily relates to her confusion, feelings of vulnerability and increasing fright. Like Rosemary, the viewer is aware of lurking danger but wavers between believing what she begins to suspect is happening or accepting the rational explanations offered by others.

Mia Farrow and Ralph Bellamy (Dr. Saperstein)

While Rosemary remains constant as a naive and mostly defenseless young wife, those who inhabit her shrinking world are more enigmatic - from her ambitious actor husband and intrusive neighbors to her wise and kindly old doctor. Ironically, some of the characters who are revealed to be most wicked are also the most comically grotesque. In keeping with Polanski's brand of humor, the film is laced with darkly comic moments:

• Rosemary and Guy dine at the home of her friend Hutch (Maurice Evans). As Hutch carves a lamb at table, he relates the ghoulish history of the Bramford - which included a pair of sisters who, it was later charged, devoured children...

Rosemary and Guy meet The Castavets

• The aftermath of a shocking suicide introduces the Castevets, Minnie (Ruth Gordon) and Roman (Sidney Blackmer), a pair of elderly oddballs who arrive on scene decked out as if fresh from the vaudeville stage.

• Rosemary sees her baby for the first time and, uncomprehending, shrieks, "What have you done to its eyes?" Roman Castevet crows happily, "He has his father's eyes!"

Without resorting to genre gimmickry, Polanski crafted a tight, stylish psychological thriller. And a blockbuster. The last auteur-directed shocker to create such a box office sensation had been Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho in 1960. Rosemary's Baby's success would go on to inspire the wave of lavish A-budget horror films to come, notably William Friedkin's The Exorcist (1973) and Richard Donner's The Omen (1976). It would bring an Academy Award to Ruth Gordon for her supporting performance and a nomination to Roman Polanski for his adapted screenplay.

Considered a genre-transcending classic today, Rosemary's Baby remains a landmark of modern horror, as capable of jangling nerves and inducing chills as it was in its infancy 45 years ago.

 

Rosemary's Baby is available on Blu-Ray and DVD from the Criterion Collection. This special edition contains many extras, including: a documentary featuring Polanski, Mia Farrow and Bob Evans; an interview with Ira Levin; a documentary on the life and work of composer Krzysztof Komeda (who died 10 months after the film was released) and other special features.

~

Notes:
Life at the Dakota by Stephen Birmingham, Syracuse University Press (1979/1996)
Roman by Polanksi, William Morrow & Co. (1984)
The Kid Stays in the Picture by Robert Evans, Hyperion (1994)

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Happy Birthday, Tyrone Power!

artwork by Rob Kelly

99 years ago Tyrone Edmund Power was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. 22 years after that he became a movie star and would remain one for the rest of his life – another 22 years. The biggest male star at 20^thCentury Fox during the ‘30s and ‘40s, Power is remembered by most today as a charismatic leading man of extraordinary looks and resonant voice. He was also a talented and ambitious actor.

Rose of Washington Square

Today, on the 99^th anniversary of Power’s birth and the 98^th anniversary of Alice Faye’s, Turner Classic Movies will air one of their hits from the 1930s, Rose of Washington Square (1939). The film, the third and last pairing of Power and Faye, was a barely veiled fiction based on Fanny Brice’s rise to fame and her tumultuous relationship with her second husband, professional gambler Nicky Arnstein (Brice was incensed and sued Fox for defamation of character - the case was settled out of court). TCM and the Fox Movie Channel are airing a broad range of Power’s films this month – click here for a schedule.

Tyrone Power’s centenary will be celebrated in 2014 with film retrospectives in his hometown as well as in New York and Los Angeles. Click here for more information. To learn more about his life and career, click here.

Tyrone Power and Henry Fonda in Jesse James (1939)...airs on TCM May 19

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CAGNEY

Cagney, color by Claroscureaux

"...every time I see him work, looks to me like a bunch of firecrackers going off all at once."

Will Rogers 

During an era when impressionists, those performers whose gift it is to mimic the very famous, were a staple on television, Cagney was an essential in every repertoire. Cagney. An electric and singular presence, he is among the handful of Hollywood legends instantly identifiable by just one name. His film career began in 1930 and came to an end in 1981, but he is as revered by film buffs today as he was treasured by audiences throughout his active years. This tribute is my contribution to The Movie Projector's Cagney Blogathon. Click here for links to participating blogs.

James Francis Cagney came into the world in July 1899, the second of seven children, two of whom died in infancy, born to Irish-American James and Carrie Cagney on New York's Lower East Side. The elder James Cagney was a bookkeeper-turned-bartender, a charmer and a drinker who liked to play the horses and didn't hold many steady jobs. His titian-haired wife was a gritty matriarch, the linchpin who held the Cagney clan together and inspired her children to succeed. James died at age 41 in the devastating Spanish flu pandemic of 1918. Not long after, Carrie gave birth to their only surviving daughter, Jeanne. The four Cagney boys were used to working at odd jobs and contributing to the household "kitty," but now the family's survival depended on them.

The Lower East Side, early 20th Century

Jim, known in the neighborhood as "Red," took his first regular part-time job at 14 as a copyboy with the New York Sun. At 15, with his brothers Harry and Ed, he worked part-time for the New York Public Library. But he always had other small jobs on the side so he could better "feed the kitty." He never joined a neighborhood gang, but he was a street fighter, a tenacious one, and was good enough that he began training to become a pro. His mother, a staunch believer in education as the only sensible way out of poverty, put a stop to this plan the moment he mentioned it to her.

Through the years, Carrie regularly sent her boys to neighborhood settlement houses for lectures and classes. Jim developed an interest in ecology through a talk he'd attended; this passion remained with him all his life. When oldest brother Harry was studying to become a doctor, Carrie decided it would be a good idea for him to learn something about public speaking and persuaded him to join the dramatics club at the Lenox Hill Settlement House. When Harry became ill just before a performance, Jim stepped in for him. It was his first turn as an actor. He relished the approval of the audience and later recalled that 'little Jim' suddenly didn't feel quite so little.

Cagney had learned a popular dance called The Peabody at Lenox Hill and when a friend tipped him to an opening for a dancer at $35 a week in vaudeville, he took what he knew of dancing to the audition and was hired. The show was called Every Sailor and, to young Cagney's surprise, he would be performing in a dress. He later wrote, "And that is how I began to learn dancing - as a chorus girl." A quick study, he watched the other dancers and practiced what he saw. After the revue closed he toiled briefly as a runner for a Wall Street brokerage house and was grateful when he got a job as a chorus boy in the 1920 musical Pitter Patter. Eventually he was offered a spot as a specialty dancer in the show and for the next few years worked in vaudeville performing specialty routines. One of the acts Cagney joined for a time was a "3-act" known as Park, Rand & Leach. He took the place of Archie Leach (later Cary Grant) who was moving on. Park, Rand & Cagney didn't last long either.

Cagney and Joan Blondell onstage, Penny Arcade

In 1925 Cagney won the role of "Little Red," one of two leads in Maxwell Anderson's new drama, Outside Looking In. The play co-starred Charles Bickford and opened at the Greenwich Village Theatre. Receiving good reviews, the show moved uptown where it ran for four months. Of Cagney's first performance on the legitimate stage, critic Robert Benchley cited his 10-minutes of silence during a kangaroo-court scene as "something that many a more established actor might watch with profit." When Outside Looking In closed, it was back to vaudeville for Cagney, but from 1928 - 1929 he worked steadily on Broadway. Then, in early 1930 he was cast, with Joan Blondell, in a new show, Penny Arcade. Though its Broadway run ended in just three weeks, Al Jolson happened to catch it and bought the movie rights. When he sold the rights to Warner Brothers, he recommended Cagney and Blondell to Jack Warner and they were cast in their original roles. A crime story about bootlegging, murder and a frame-up, the film - re-titled Sinners' Holiday (1930) - launched Cagney's film career. A New York Times critic reviewed the film positively, observing that "the most impressive acting is done by James Cagney..."

The picture that made Cagney a star was his fourth for Warners, The Public Enemy (1931). Esquire's Dwight McDonald would write that Cagney's heartless and brutal thug, Tom Powers, made Humphrey Bogart look like a "conscience-stricken Hamlet." Though the actor always regarded his Hollywood career as transitory, Cagney would never have to look back after the break-out success of The Public Enemy. He received star billing thereafter.

Cagney and Jean Harlow, The Public Enemy (1931)

Cagney's memories of The Public Enemy included the on-the-set hazards of making gangster films before the use of prop ammunition. Real bullets were routinely used and he had a close call in a scene involving machine-gun fire. Dodging bullets wouldn't be Cagney's only grievance with Hollywood. He'd become a headliner in less than a year, but his contract didn't mirror his popularity at the box office. Early on he vocally objected to the low pay and unholy hours the studio imposed. He called it a "factory approach." When the Screen Actors Guild was founded in 1933, Cagney joined and was elected to its board of directors. He later served a term as SAG president. With the help of his youngest brother Bill, who he had enlisted as his business manager (Harry and Ed had both become doctors), he doggedly battled Warners. Jack Warner referred to him as "the professional againster." Production head Hal Wallis called him "our house rebel."

During a contentious separation from Warners in 1936, Cagney traveled east with a friend and spent time on Martha's Vineyard. Years earlier, as a boy, he had fallen in love with the countryside while visiting relatives who lived in rural New York. Now he could afford to buy a country property of his own. The Vineyard seemed the ideal location - he would own a farm surrounded by the sea. He purchased a 100-year-old farmhouse on 100 acres that was only accessible by dirt road for $7,500; annual taxes totaled just $39. Cagney's Chilmark Farm  became a much-loved retreat where he could enjoy a tranquility his life in Hollywood lacked. The stand-offish Vineyard locals came to know and admire him and would call him, with sincerity, a good neighbor.

Irish Mafia, l -r, seated: Tracy, O'Brien, McHugh, Cagney; standing: Overman

In Hollywood, Cagney concocted another form of respite. With a close-knit band of actor friends, he started The Boys Club. An industry columnist nicknamed the informal group "The Irish Mafia." Its core members were Cagney, Pat O'Brien, Frank McHugh, Spencer Tracy, Lynne Overman, Ralph Bellamy and Frank Morgan. They sometimes talked shop but, according to McHugh, their nights out were more concerned with stimulating conversation and laughs than the movie business.

Cagney began work on Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) after his latest problems with Warners had been ironed out.  For this film, a crime thriller about childhood friends whose lives go in different directions, the studio afforded a generous budget. A tenement set covered four city blocks and street scenes included authentic push carts and hurdy-gurdies. Even Cagney was impressed, "...when the studio put its heart into doing a thing, they went all the way." This time out Cagney refused to work with live bullets. Though director Michael Curtiz assured him he was safe, the actor insisted on a process shot for a shoot-out scene. It was a good thing he stood his ground. The machine-gun fire, supplied by the same gunner who had worked on The Public Enemy, hit precisely where Cagney would've been standing in the shot.

Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), Cagney surrounded by The Dead End Kids

For the role of archetypal gangster Rocky Sullivan, Cagney based his portrayal in part on a local character he'd seen on the streets as a kid. He was "a hophead and a pimp" who stood on a corner all day, hitching up his pants, pulling at his necktie, moving his shoulders, snapping his fingers and smacking his hands together. The mannerisms with which Cagney endowed Sullivan would provide the material for a legion of impressionists years later. An exact replica of Sing Sing's death cell and corridor to the electric chair were created for the film. As Rocky Sullivan walked from the cell to his fate, James Cagney was thinking of the neighborhood boy he knew best in his youth, Peter Hessling, known as "Bootah." In his autobiography, the actor wrote he would always remember July 21, 1927. On that night he was performing on Broadway, Jack Dempsey KO'ed Jack Sharkey, and Bootah went to the electric chair at Sing Sing. "I wept when I heard about him," he recalled. The irony that art was imitating his life - with a twist - in Angels with Dirty Faces was not lost on him. Cagney received his first Best Actor nomination from the Academy for his performance and was named Best Actor by the New York Film Critics Circle.

Cagney's Chilmark property, Martha's Vineyard, photo by David Welch

By the time he marked his first decade in Hollywood, Cagney was on his way to becoming a wealthy man. Not only did he have a more lucrative deal with Warners, but he had also begun buying real estate. His properties would include a small island at the tip of Southern California's Balboa Island, acreage in the desert town of Twentynine Palms, California, his home on 10 acres in Beverly Hills, the Martha's Vineyard estate, a farm in Northridge, California, and the vast Verney Farm in Dutchess County, New York.  Also at this time, his entire family - mother, sister and all three brothers - relocated to Los Angeles. His wife, Willie (aka/"my Bill"), a dancer he'd met on Pitter Patter in 1920 and married in 1922, didn't mix with the Cagney clan, but Jim was nevertheless thrilled to have everyone close at hand. In 1940 Jim and Willie adopted a son, Jim, Jr., and in 1941 they adopted a baby girl known as Casey.

Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)

Because of his ongoing disputes with Warner Brothers and his progressive politics, Cagney had been tagged a "radical." The Dies Committee (1938 - 1944) was the first incarnation of HUAC and in 1940 when the LA County District Attorney named Cagney as a person with an interest in the Communist Party, the actor met the accusation head-on. First he called a press conference and passionately denied the charge. Next he met with Rep. Martin Dies, head of the Congressional committee, and stated his case in person. Dies effectively put the matter to rest. Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) began making its way toward production soon afterward. The role of Broadway's legendary and multifaceted George M. Cohan was a perfect fit for Cagney, who said of himself, "once a song-and -dance man, always a song-and-dance man" and neatly described his own style as "flash, with always a dash of the eccentric and a bit of humor." The film lifted his career to another peak; his performance earned him an Academy Award and his second Best Actor award from the New York Film Critics. Yankee Doodle Dandy, released in the early days of World War II, also cemented his reputation as a good and patriotic American.

On behalf of the war effort, Cagney took part in many war bond drives, traveled with the USO and gave the U.S. Army access to his Vineyard property for use in its maneuvers. Also during the war years, Jim and his brother Bill established Cagney Productions. The company produced three features before it was absorbed into Warner Brothers as a production unit.

White Heat (1949)

John McCabe's 1997 biography, Cagney, opens with a disturbing domestic scene. Young Jim sits in the kitchen closely watching his father across the dining table. The elder Cagney starts rocking from side to side and then begins a "low keening" that will build to a wail. These episodes were called "Dad's fits" and would portend Cagney's Cody Jarrett in White Heat (1949). The actor considered it "a good picture in a number of ways." The original script had been typical formula, what he called "the old knock-down-drag-'em-out," so, as he he often did, he set about making improvements. He suggested to the writers that the story be modeled on Ma Barker and her boys and that Jarrett be psychotic. This, Cagney reasoned, would be a natural set-up to his character's climactic demise. It was also his notion that Jarrett be a mama's boy and proposed a scene with Cody sitting on his mother's lap. "Let's see if we can get away with this," he said to director Raoul Walsh. They did. Virginia Mayo, who played Cagney's mistress, remembered of working with him that, "he always gave to you more than you gave to him" and was astonished that he wasn't Oscar-nominated for his performance.

Doris Day and Cagney, Love Me or Leave Me (1955)

Cagney would receive his final Academy Award nomination for Love Me or Leave Me (1955), the film that revealed Doris Day's dramatic potential, and most of his later film performances were well received. The making of Billy Wilder's One, Two, Three (1961) was a frustrating, unhappy experience for Cagney and during filming he decided to retire when the picture wrapped. For the next 20 years he would spend most of his time on his working farm in New York and on Martha's Vineyard. His cherished pastimes included raising Morgan horses, sailing and painting.

Ragtime (1981)

In 1974 he became the first actor to receive the American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement Award. He was accorded Kennedy Center honors in 1980, and in 1981 returned to the screen for a high-profile cameo role in Ragtime, Milos Forman's film adaptation of E. L. Doctorow's best-seller. In 1984 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Of Cagney, Orson Welles said, "He always played right at the top of his bent, but he was always true. Sure, acting can be too broad. Broad is wide - spread out. Cagney was focused. Christ, like a laser beam! Cagney was one of the biggest actors in the whole history of the screen. Force, style, truth, and control - he had everything. He pulled no punches. God, how he projected! And yet nobody could call Cagney a ham. He didn't bother about reducing himself to fit the scale of the camera; he was much too busy doing his job."

Elia Kazan, who'd had a small role in City for Conquest (1940), recalled Cagney as "a completely honest actor." Kazan erroneously assumed that Cagney had fully worked out his performance in advance, at home, and marveled that "what he did always seemed spontaneous."

Late in life Cagney looked back on working with a young actor who went through intense preparation before every scene. When a scene had to be re-shot, Cagney viewed the second take. "There I realized what the difficulty was...he was doing it for himself, not the audience. He was psyching himself up to be the character, instead of just understanding the character and playing it for the audience." Cagney's philosophy on acting was simply stated and often quoted, "You walk in, plant yourself squarely on both feet, look the other fella in the eye and tell the truth." Those who worked with him would doubtless agree that is exactly what he did.

James Cagney died at Verney Farm in 1986 at age 86. His pallbearers included a former heavyweight champion (Floyd Patterson), a ballet legend (Mikhail Baryshnikov), an Academy Award winning film director (Milos Forman), movie producer A.C. Lyles, and one of his closest long-time friends, actor Ralph Bellamy. He was eulogized by the President of the United States and his New York Times obituary mourned the passing of the "Master of Pugnacious Grace."

CAGNEY ACCEPTING THE AFI's LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD IN 1974

Cagney's AFI ceremony was said to be "the most star-studded gathering in Hollywood history" and that "if a bomb had been dropped on the assemblage, Hollywood would have been wiped out."

Still life paintings by James Cagney

Notes:
Cagney by Cagney by James Cagney, Doubleday (1976)
Cagney by John McCabe, Knopf (1997)

 The Classic Movie Blog Association honored this post with

 the 2013 CiMBA Award for Best Profile of a Performer

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