James Cagney

His voice and mannerisms in his early gangster movies were so distinctive that every comedy impersonator in the world “did” Jimmy Cagney. He made dozens of movies as a snarling, vicious little thug. He was only 5'6" but could be absolutely scary as a really bad guy. And yet, his variety of starring roles is remarkable.
To start at the start, there are at least a dozen Cagney gangster flicks. The best and most famous is White Heat (1949). The clip of Cagney smashing half a grapefruit into the pretty face of Virginia Mayo has been shown millions of times, and has tended to pigeonhole him. Another good one in this line is Angels With Dirty Faces (1938), with a 39-year-old Cagney convincing as a teen-age hoodlum and being nominated for an Oscar in the bargain. Also good is The Public Enemy (1931), co-starring Jean Harlow as a tough-talking gun moll. 
Mr. Cagney could also do crazy. Mr. Roberts (1955) features Henry Fonda as the seasoned officer who’s seen it all and Jack Lemmon as his excitable protégé. James Cagney is the observably insane Captain Morton, making life miserable for all hands on deck.
Jimmy Cagney’s most surprising role to me was as song and dance man George M. Cohan in the enormously entertaining Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942). Yes, he could sing and he could dance and he did both and won the Oscar for this part. 
Mr. Cagney reprises his gangster persona in the so-so biopic Love Me Or Leave Me (1955). He plays gangster-manager “Moe The Gimp” Snyder and Doris Day plays songstress Ruth Etting. He was nominated for an Oscar (puzzlement here-not even in his top five performances) but lost out to Ernest Borgnine for Marty.
James Cagney  was an unlikely choice to play Lon Chaney in The Man Of A Thousand Faces (1957), because his own face was by then so well known. But he brilliantly pulled off a role in which he appeared as at least a dozen different characters. 
Billy Wilder picked Mr. Cagney as Coca-Cola magnate C.R. McNamara in the hilarious One, Two, Three (1961). Mr. Cagney has his hands more than full when the boss’s visiting daughter decides to marry a Communist. Fun ensues. 
That was Mr. Cagney’s last appearance on the silver screen until director Milos Forman talked him into coming out of retirement to play police commissioner Rhinelander Waldo in Ragtime (1981). Mr. Forman knew what he was doing- Mr. Cagney almost steals the movie though he’s only on the screen a few minutes. 
All of the movies in this column are available on DVD and for streaming. Factoring in the boredom quotient, all (except Ragtime- adults only) are fine for all ages. 
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