James Cagney height - How tall is James Cagney?

He was voted the 14th Greatest Movie Star of all time by Entertainment Weekly.

He was voted the 11th Greatest Movie Star of all time by Premiere magazine.

"Cagney! The Musical", an original biographical stage work written by Peter Colley and directed by Bill Castellino, had its world premiere in March 2009 at the Florida Stage theatre in Manalapan, Florida. Robert Creighton starred as Cagney, both he and the show received good to excellent reviews and the run soon sold out, setting a record for the theatre.

Pictured on a 33¢ USA commemorative postage stamp in the Legends of Hollywood series, issued 22 July 1999.

Ranked #45 in Empire (UK) magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list. [October 1997]

His widow Frances (nicknamed 'Bill') outlived Cagney by eight years, dying aged 95 in 1994.

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.".

Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Ronald Reagan at a ceremony at the White House on March 26, 1984.

He emerged from retirement to star in the 1981 screen adaptation of E. L.

Doctorow's novel "Ragtime" (Ragtime (1981)), in which he was reunited with his frequent co-star of the 1930s, Pat O'Brien, and which was his last theatrical film and O'Brien's as well).

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.

Received the American Film Institute Life Achievement Award (1974).

Turned down Stanley Holloway's role as Eliza's father in My Fair Lady (1964).

He was the father-in-law of screenplay writer Jack W. Thomas, who married his daughter Cathleen on February 17, 1962.

One of Hollywood's preeminent male stars of all time, James Cagney was also an accomplished dancer and easily played light comedy. James Francis Cagney was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City, to Carolyn (Nelson) and James Francis Cagney, Sr. , who was a bartender and amateur boxer. Cagney was of Norwegian (from his maternal grandfather) and Irish descent. Ending three decades on the screen, he retired to his farm in Stanfordville, New York (some 77 miles/124 km. north of his New York City birthplace), after starring in Billy Wilder's One, Two, Three (1961).

Wrote that of the sixty-two films he made, he rated Love Me or Leave Me (1955) co-starring Doris Day among his top five.

At the time of filming of White Heat (1949), Special Effects were not yet using squibs (tiny explosives that simulate the effects of bullets). The producers employed skilled marksmen who used low velocity bullets to break windows or show bullets hitting near the characters. In the factory scene, Cagney was missed by mere inches.

Turned down the lead role in The Jolson Story (1946), which went to Larry Parks.

(1942-1944) President of Screen Actors Guild (SAG).

To protest the quality of scripts he was given at Warner Brothers, instead of violating his contract by refusing to appear in a picture he reputedly used his appearance to get even. In Jimmy the Gent (1934), he got an ugly crewcut to make himself look like the hoodlum Warners wanted him to play. In movies like He Was Her Man (1934), he grew a thin mustache to upset thin-mustachioed studio boss Jack L. Warner.

His performance as Tom Powers in The Public Enemy (1931) is ranked #57 on Premiere magazine's 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time.

Originally a very left-wing Democrat activist during the 1930s, Cagney later switched his viewpoint and became progressively more conservative with age. He supported his friend Ronald Reagan's campaigns for the Governorship of California in 1966 and 1970, as well as his Presidential campaigns in 1980 and 1984. President Reagan delivered the eulogy at Cagney's funeral in 1986.