James Cagney

James Cagney died of a heart attack while ill with diabetes in Stanfordville, New York at the age of 86 and is interred in the Cemetery of the Gate of Heaven in Hawthorne, New York. Other comic roles include the lead role in sitcom The Peter Principle and occasional guest appearances in Not The Nine O'Clock News. The origin of this is from the 1931 film Taxi! where Cagney delivered the line "Come out and take it, you dirty, yellow-bellied rat, or I'll give it to you through the door!" often misquoted as "Come out, you dirty rat, or I'll give it to you through the door!". He had originally been offered the lead role of Del Trotter in the series, but turned it down due to other commitments. The stereotypical impression of James Cagney involves wearing a trenchcoat and a hat and sneering "You dirty rat!", a line he never said. The character appeared in three episodes over an eight-year period. As a tribute to the myriad talents and interests James Cagney had in life, his pallbearers included boxer Floyd Patterson, dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov, actor Ralph Bellamy, and film director Milos Forman. He is best known to television audiences as DCI Roy 'The Slag' Slater, an associate character in the enormously popular sitcom Only Fools and Horses.

Cagney's health deteriorated substantially after 1979, and the role in Ragtime, as well as a later television appearance in 1984, was designed to aid in his convalescence. He is regarded as the one of the cinema's most reliable character actors and has a reputation of being very easy to work with. In 1974 he received the Lifetime Achievement Award of the American Film Institute and in 1984 his friend Ronald Reagan awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. 2001 proved to be a breakthrough year for Broadbent, who starred in three of the year's most succesful films: Bridget Jones' Diary (2001), Moulin Rouge (2001), for which he won a BAFTA and Iris (2001), for which won an Oscar for his portrayal of John Bayley. During this hiatus Cagney rebuffed all film offers, including a substantial one in My Fair Lady, to devote time to learning how to paint (at which he became very accomplished), and tending to his beloved farm in Stanfordville, New York. He proved his ability as a character actor in films including The Crying Game (1992), Enchanted April (1992), Bullets Over Broadway (1994), The Borrowers (1997) and Little Voice (1998) before taking a leading role in another Mike Leigh film, Topsy-Turvy (1999). Cagney's final appearance on film was in Ragtime in 1981, capping a career that covered over seventy films, although his film prior to Ragtime had been in 1961 with One, Two, Three. He went on to work with Stephen Frears (for television, and in The Hit (1984)) and Terry Gilliam (in Time Bandits (1981) and Brazil (1985)) before establishing himself in Mike Leigh's Life is Sweet (1990).

He was one of the founders of the Screen Actors Guild and president of the Guild from 1942-44. He made his film debut in 1978 with a tiny role in Jerzy Skolimowski's The Shout, and made his television debut the following year. He went on to better things including Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), an Academy Award-winning role in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), White Heat (1949, "Made it, Ma! Top of the world!"), and Mister Roberts (1955). He also founded the comedy group, the National Theatre of Brent with Patrick Barlow. Cagney went on to star in numerous films, making his name as a 'tough guy' in a series of crime films such as The Public Enemy (1931), Blonde Crazy (1931) and Hard to Handle (1933). He graduated in 1972 and went on to work for the Royal National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company as well as acting in Ken Campbell's epic Illuminatus (1976). When Warner Brothers bought the film rights to the play Penny Arcade they took Cagney and his co-star Joan Blondell from the stage to the screen in Sinner's Holiday (1930). Born in Lincoln, Lincolnshire, the son of a furniture maker (his twin sister died at birth), he was educated at a Quaker school in Reading and briefly attended art college before transferring to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.

He worked in vaudeville and on Broadway, marrying the dancer Frances Willard (aka: "Billie") Vernon on September 28, 1922. Jim Broadbent (born May 24, 1949) is an English television and film actor. Born in Yonkers, New York, Cagney graduated from Stuyvesant High School in New York City in 1918. James Francis Cagney, Jr. (July 17, 1899–March 30, 1986) was an American film actor.