- Herself - Actress: [Joan Leslie on Cagney's performance in "Yankee Doodle Dandy"] There was a scene that he did that was so remarkable. Everyone on the lot, I think, as affected by it. It was when he said goodbye, as it were, to his dying father... Mike Curtiz spoiled a take because of crying so loud he couldn't control it. The script girl cried so much that she blurred the ink on the notes on her script. It was quite a moment.
- Herself - Actress: [Virginia Mayo on Cagney] He wasn't actually a Gene Kelly type. I mean, he was short, pugnacious. You never thought of him as a dancer. Somehow, he got into that gangster mould and it just seemed to *fit* him. And they would never change that.
- James Cagney: Over there, where we grew up, one had to be able to take care of oneself with the fists.
- Host: People that knew him said he was quiet, introspective. Others said he was a fighter. He fought against big things: poverty, injustice, this studio.
- Host: In one of his movies he said, "I don't take nothin' from nobody." With Cagney, that wasn't just a line. That was a way of life.
- Host: Was he really that tough? That's the first question everyone asks about James Cagney. Well, he didn't go around shooting cops and slugging women like he did here in the backlot of Warner Brothers. And this was a guy who cried if he had to spank his kids.
- Host: In just about all of his 63 films, one thing was certain. It was Cagney who set things in motion. Whether he was a vicious gangster, a hard-nosed G-man, or Broadway star George M. Cohan, Jimmy never sat around waiting for things to happen. He made them happen. And it was the same in his life.
- Self - Actress: [Mae Clarke on "Public Enemy"] I was in my dressing room, preparing to take my make-up off, when knock-knock-knock, and it's Jimmy at the door. "Yes, come in Jim." He sat down, he said, "May goodness if we had just thought to do that little thing and pick up that grapefruit and smash it in your face, at the end of the scene, what would that have done to the crew?" He said, "Would you come back and do it one more time and do that?" Now, this was not, my understanding, to be used in the picture.
- James Cagney: In the old days, they used real machine gun bullets in the scenes. The scene in "Public Enemy," when I ducked behind the stone wall, the machine gun on a platform cut loose with the bullets and took the edge off the wall were I had been.
- Host: Warner's had him fill out this questionnaire. Under pet peeves he wrote, "aggressive dumbbells and silly questions." This one's even better. Reason for going into acting: "needed a job."
- Self - Actress: [Mae Clarke on "Public Enemy"] Sixty years I've been answering this question, "How did it feel to have that grapefruit pushed in your face by James Cagney?" I said, "Wet."
- Self - Daughter: He went to bed early. He was up at the crack of dawn. Preferred reading and didn't do socializing.
- Host: In 1933, he finally got the chance to do something he'd been pushing for: a big budget Busby Berkeley musical, "Footlight Parade." With Ruby Keeler, movie audiences finally saw Jimmy as he saw himself: a song-and-dance man.
- Self - Daughter: [Mae Clark on Cagney] "Lady Killer" had him pulling me by the hair of the head across the length of two floors. Pulled my hair, only he didn't pull my hair. He got ahold of my hair. But, I got ahold of his wrist. And when he just walked away, I went with it. Now, I wouldn't have known that; but, he did. He was a dancer, essentially. Everything that James Cagney did was choreographed.
- James Cagney: They had a couple of people on the lot who were stars and they were getting $125,000 a picture. And here I was, up above the title just as they were, and I was getting $400 a week. That didn't last long. I walked out.
- James Cagney: Early on, we discovered that anytime I hit anybody my own size, it looked as though I was taking advantage of them. So, I always insisted on having a man bigger than myself.
- Herself - Actress: [Virginia Mayo on "White Heat"] One scene, Jimmy said, "If I kick the chair out from under you, will you be all right? Will you fall back on the bed and not hurt yourself?" I said, "Yes, I can do it. It's easy!" So, we did it! We did it in one take... It wasn't in the script. It was just these little additions that Jimmy would make to every scene.
- Herself - Actress: [Joan Leslie on the set "Yankee Doodle Dandy"] It was the day after Pearl Harbor and President Roosevelt came on the radio and we tuned it on on the set and listened to him declare war. I remember we all stood around dead still, a lot of extras on the set, you know, and we all became quiet. And Jimmy said, "I think - I think this is a good place for a little pray."
- Self - Actor: [David Huddleston on Cagney] Pat O'Brien called him: the faraway fella. Cause he was - kind of a dreamer, you know. He loved sitting and watching it rain.
- Herself - Actress: [Virginia Mayo on Cagney] I remember the first day on the set. He didn't seem too anxious. I don't think he cared about doing another gangster film, which this was, "White Heat".
- Self - Daughter: My mother one day said, "Let's go see your Dad in a movie." Because, we'd never seen one. It was "Midsummer's Night Dream" at a theater in Beverly Hills. And I think I was five or six or something like that. And they come to the scene where Mickey Rooney, playing Puck, and when he spreads the stardust on Dad's head and he suddenly has the head of a donkey. And I - freaked out. And I started screaming, as loud as I could, "I don't want a donkey for a father!" You know, took off out of my seat, ran up to the screen, and I'm pounding on it. "I don't want a donkey for a father! I don't want a donkey for a father!" And they had to find my father and make me realize that he was not a donkey.
- Host: This was the only time Jimmy ever let the studio make an ass out of him.
- Host: In 1985 I was lucky enough to meet James Cagney. He was 86, but, when we shook hands his grip was so strong, it was like he was saying, "Kid, I could still knock you on your ass."
- Self - Actor: [Jack Lemmon on Cagney] I love acting. That was not true of Jimmy. Acting was a blessing to Jimmy because it gave him the income and the ability to pursue other interests. He loved to write. He loved to paint. He was nuts about horses, as we know. And he could live the life that he wanted to with other interests - because of the acting.
- Self - Actor: [Jack Lemmon on Cagney on the set of "Mister Roberts"] We talked about everything under the sun. One of the crew members wasn't asking him about acting and Jimmy said, "You make it so complicated." He said, "Look, learn your lines. Plant your feet. Look the other actor in the eye. And say the words. But, mean them."