William Cagney
American actor and producer (1905–1988)

William Jerome Cagney (March 26, 1905 – January 3, 1988) was an American film producer and actor, remembered for roles in the Monogram Pictures films Lost in the Stratosphere and Flirting with Danger, both filmed in 1934.
Career
He produced several of his older lookalike brother James Cagney's films, including City for Conquest (1940), Johnny Come Lately (1943), Blood on the Sun (1945), The Time of Your Life (1948), Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (1950), and A Lion Is in the Streets (1953). He was credited as an associate producer on The Bride Came C.O.D. (1941) and Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), and he also handled his brother's business affairs, negotiating several of his Hollywood studio contracts.
Personal life
Cagney was married to actress Boots Mallory; they had two children together, Jill and Stephen, before their divorce in 1946. He next married Nadine Parker, and they had one child together, William Jr., before their divorce in 1954. Cagney died on January 3, 1988, in Newport Beach, California, aged 82.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “William Cagney” is american actor and producer (1905–1988). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through William, Cagney and American, not as a finished interpretation.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1509535. VIAF identifies the subject as 14985182. The Library of Congress control number is no2003014861. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1905, 1988, 1934 and 1940.
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This entry incorporates text from “William Cagney” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.