Yiddish poster for 1932 Cagney film Taxi! (1932). Cagney was proud of his ability to incorporate his knowledge of the language into his performances.
While reading Tender Comrades, A Backstory of the Hollywood Blacklist (1999) I came across a remark that James Cagney's wife Frances was somewhat hostile to left-leaning actors. In his autobiography, Cagney did not shy away from discussing politics, but treats the topic carefully and doesn't allow it to dominate his life story. It is indeed an enjoyable and uplifting tale of a family man who liked to "dance the lard off" and spent his whole life waiting to retire to his beloved home in the country with his horses. His New York childhood was peopled with characters he never forgot and whose mannerisms and experiences he would draw on as an actor (though he complains that people often confused the role with the man, and of being interrupted from a nice steak dinner because some jackass wanted to take a punch at him to see how tough he really was). The grit of his childhood "it was only in 1912 or so when the neighborhood began to sour under the infiltration of scabrous drug pushers" was real enough that many of his acquaintances were unable to escape their upbringing. One fried in the electric chair.
Cagney does nothing to dispel any Irish stereotypes and goes on at length about his gorgeous red-haired, quick tempered mother, his dear old da who liked to drink and gamble on the ponies and of course the art of street fighting, or: scrapping, dogging it, licking, slugging away, punching, sundaying, etc (it goes on for pages, which is not just a little bit hilarious). At which point my own mother, who was washing dishes at the sink, asked in all seriousness if I was making fun of her side of the family.
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