MENU   

The Life of James Cagney

(book in English)

Collective

Type
Biographies
Subject
ActorJames Cagney
Keywords
James Cagney, actor
Publishing Date
2013
Publisher
CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Collection
Charles River Editors
Language
English
Size of a pocketbookRelative size of this bookSize of a large book
Relative size
Physical desc.
Paperback • 38 pages • 5,45 €
6 x 9 inches (15 x 23 cm)
Also available as an eBook.
ISBN
978-1-4944-9579-4
User Ratings
no rating (0 vote)

Average rating: no rating

0 rating 1 star = We can do without
0 rating 2 stars = Good book
0 rating 3 stars = Excellent book
0 rating 4 stars = Unique / a reference

Your rating: -

Report incorrect or incomplete information

Book Presentation:
*Includes pictures.
*Includes Cagney's own quotes about his life and career.
*Includes a bibliography for further reading.
*Includes a table of contents.

"You don't psych yourself up for these things, you do them...I'm acting for the audience, not for myself, and I do it as directly as I can." – James Cagney

A lot of ink has been spilled covering the lives of history’s most influential figures, but how much of the forest is lost for the trees? In Charles River Editors’ American Legends series, readers can get caught up to speed on the lives of America’s most important men and women in the time it takes to finish a commute, while learning interesting facts long forgotten or never known.

When the American Film Institute assembled its top 100 actors of all time at the close of the 20th century, one of the Top 10 was James Cagney, an actor whose acting and dancing talents spawned a stage and film career that spanned over 5 decades and once compelled Orson Welles to call him "maybe the greatest actor to ever appear in front of a camera." Indeed, his portrayal of “The Man Who Owns Broadway”, George M. Cohan, earned him an Academy Award in the musical Yankee Doodle Dandy, and as famed director Milos Forman once put it, "I think he's some kind of genius. His instinct, it's just unbelievable. I could just stay at home. One of the qualities of a brilliant actor is that things look better on the screen than the set. Jimmy has that quality."

Ultimately, it was portraying tough guys and gangsters in the 1930s that turned Cagney into a massive Hollywood star, and they were the kind of roles he was literally born to play after growing up rough in Manhattan at the turn of the 20th century. In movies like The Public Enemy (which included the infamous “grapefruit scene”) and White Heat, Cagney convincingly played criminals that brought Warner to the forefront of Hollywood and the gangster genre. Cagney also helped pave the way for younger actors in the genre, like Humphrey Bogart, and he was so good that he found himself in danger of being typecast.

While Cagney is no longer remembered as fondly or as well as Bogart, he was also crucial in helping establish the system in which actors worked as independent workers free from the constraints of studios. Refusing to be pushed around, Cagney was constantly involved in contract squabbles with Warner, and he often came out on top, bucking the conventional system that saw studios treat their stars as indentured servants who had to make several films a year.

American Legends: The Life of James Cagney examines the life and career of one of Hollywood’s most iconic actors. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about Cagney like never before, in no time at all.

See the complete filmography of James Cagney on the website: IMDB ...

> On a related topic:

Cagney by Cagney

Cagney by Cagney (2005)

by James Cagney
(in English)

Subject: Actor > James Cagney

Cagney

Cagney (1998)

by John McCabe
(in English)

Subject: Actor > James Cagney

Vers une théorie de l'acteur:Colloque Lev Kouléchov

Vers une théorie de l'acteur (1994)

Colloque Lev Kouléchov

Dir. François Albera

Subject: Theory

Steve McQueen:Mécanique de l'échappée

Steve McQueen (2023)

Mécanique de l'échappée

by Vincent Gautier

Subject: Actor > Steve McQueen

Robert Mitchum : L'homme qui n'était pas là

Robert Mitchum (2019)

L'homme qui n'était pas là

by Lelo Jimmy Batista

Subject: Actor > Robert Mitchum

Jean-Pierre Marielle: Le lyrique et le baroque

Jean-Pierre Marielle (2019)

Le lyrique et le baroque

by Stephane Koechlin

Subject: Actor > Jean-Pierre Marielle

Note: A book on a slightly gray background is a book that is no longer currently published or that may be difficult to find in bookstores. The shown price is that of the book at its release, the price on the second-hand market may be very different.
A book on a beige background is a book published in a language other than French.

23663 books listed   •   (c)2014-2024 livres-cinema.info   •