Hundreds Mourn Cagney at His Final Curtain Call

Hundreds of fans gave film legend James Cagney one last round of applause today in an East Side neighborhood where “America’s Yankee Doodle Dandy” was eulogized as “a natural born song-and-dance man.”

Admirers stood and clapped outside Cagney’s private funeral at St. Francis de Sales Church on 96th Street. The area was Cagney’s old neighborhood, where he picked up the snappy street talk that made him one of Hollywood’s feistiest gangster characters.

Cagney died Easter Sunday at his Dutchess County farm in upstate New York, just over a week after he was sent home from a city hospital. He was 86.

“Jimmy Cagney was America’s Yankee Doodle Dandy--engaging and jaunty--a natural born song-and-dance man,” the Rev. John Catoir told the congregation of about 400 mourners seated in the church decorated with white bows and Easter lilies.

A handful of celebrities attended the funeral at the church where Cagney received his first communion and was an altar boy. Only close friends and parishioners were allowed inside.

Outside, hundreds of fans broke into applause as pallbearers--including actor Ralph Bellamy, ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov and Oscar-winning director Milos Forman--emerged from the hourlong service with Cagney’s flower-draped mahogany casket.

Close behind, Cagney’s wife of 64 years, Willi, sobbed as she held hands with his longtime friend and confidante Marge Zimmermann. Willi, a frail, petite woman in a black suit and dark glasses, was followed by the Cagneys’ adopted daughter, Cathleen.

Catoir said Cagney was “nothing at all like the gangster he portrayed in Hollywood movies where he brought chilling insight into the very nature of evil.”

He called Cagney “unspoiled by fame and fortune” and “a simple man” in spite of success and wealth.

Besides Bellamy, Baryshnikov and Forman--who coaxed Cagney out of a 20-year retirement to appear in “Ragtime” in 1981--other pallbearers included former heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson and Hollywood producer A. C. Lyles.

Cagney was buried at the Gate of Heaven cemetery in Hawthorne, N.Y.