Neville Brand

He served in the US Army during World War II and was the fourth most decorated soldier of the war (Actor Audie Murphy being the first). 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. It should also be pointed out that Brand was a real life hero. 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!". One of the funnier moments was the twin episode in which gruff and dusty Reese has an immaculate and proper lookalike that confounds the other Texas Rangers. The stereotypical impression of James Cagney involves wearing a trenchcoat and a hat and sneering "You dirty rat!", a line he never said. One of the most heart wrenching scenes on TV showed Brand's character, Reese Bennet, waiting in torment when he realizes he has been stood up by the love of his life. 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.

Known also for his cowboy roles, he stared in his own TV series, Laredo, with William Smith, Peter Brown, and Claude Akins. 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. Many will remember him as Bull Hansom, the prison guard of The Birdman of Alkatraz, and as the antagonistic prisoner in Stalag 17. 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. The characterization caused an outcry from the Italian American community over stereotypes. 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. Of the hundreds of roles he has played, he is probably most well known as Al Capone in the TV show The Untouchables. 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.

However, he played a very romantic lead in the movie Return From the Sea with Jan Sterling and a heartwarming character who was brain damaged and misunderstood in an episode of the TV show Daniel Boone. He played Hoss Cartwright's (Dan Blocker) Uncle Guntur on Bonanza. He was one of the founders of the Screen Actors Guild and president of the Guild from 1942-44. I'm a loser.". 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 played the villain in so many movies, his self-image became affected, culminating in a television interview on TV's Entertainment Tonight show with the actor moving about in agitation repeating, "I'm a loser. 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). The worst career move of his life was to kill the Elvis Presley character in Love Me Tender. 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).

Gravel-voiced Neville Brand started his big screen career in D.O.A. as a henchman named Chester. He worked in vaudeville and on Broadway, marrying the dancer Frances Willard (aka: "Billie") Vernon on September 28, 1922. Neville Brand (August 13, 1920 - April 16, 1992) was a television and movie actor. Born in Yonkers, New York, Cagney graduated from Stuyvesant High School in New York City in 1918. Five Gates To Hell. James Francis Cagney, Jr. (July 17, 1899–March 30, 1986) was an American film actor. Captains Couragous.

Tora! Tora! Tora!. Charge At Feather River (the first 3-D movie). Love Me Tender. Backtrack (a compilation of a few Laredo episodes).

The Birdman Of Alcatraz. Return From The Sea. D.O.A..