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Oct 10, 1994 · Wife of actor James Cagney, married from 1922 until his death in 1986. ----- Frances Cagney, actor James Cagney's beloved Billie, his wife for 64 years, died Oct. 10 in the rural Upstate New York farmhouse where she and her husband found respite from his fame.
Oct 17, 1994 · Oct. 17, 1994 12 AM PT. Frances Cagney, actor James Cagney’s beloved “Billie,” his wife for 64 years, died Oct. 10 in the rural Upstate New York farmhouse where she and her husband found ...
- James Cagney
- Show Biz
- Vaudeville and Stardom
- Farmer Cagney
- Parenthood, Sort of
- Estrangement, and Sad Endings
- Death
- Martha’s Vineyard
James Cagney’s early life explains, in part, how he ended up on Martha’s Vineyard for nearly 20 years. He was born July 17, 1899 on New York’s Lower East Side to poor parents. His father was an Irish bartender, his mother a half-Irish homemaker. His childhood, he wrote, was marked by trouble, illness and his father’s alcoholism. “I was very much a ...
He had no intention of going into acting, but someone suggested he try out for a vaudeville drag show called Every Sailor. He got the part. His mother didn’t approve, though, so when the show ended he went to work in a brokerage house as a runner. But then he tried out for a Broadway musical called Pitter Patter, and got a part as a specialty dance...
He played the vaudeville circuit for the next decade. “Life seemed just a never-ending sequence of damned dingy, badly furnished rooms with a one-burner plate,” he wrote. He finally got his break in 1930 in a play called Penny Arcade. Warner Brothers decided to make it into a movie starring James Cagney. He went to Hollywood with a three-week contr...
“In 1936 I attained one of my best and fondest dreams – I bought a farm,” he wrote. “Martha’s Vineyard then was uncluttered with developers (which is too gracious a designation for those gentlemen; developers actually develop nothing but their own bankrolls). I couldn’t think of anything more satisfactory, more life-fulfilling, than living on a far...
At home in Chilmark, Billie doted on her increasingly famous husband. She made sure he always had a hot meal and enforced his privacy. No one could make noise while he concentrated on studying his lines. Over the next 20 years, he would make 30 films and become one of the leading Hollywood film stars. He would earn nominations for three Academy Awa...
Cagney’s efforts at farming his Chilmark estate didn’t work out too well. He found the soil poor, and he couldn’t get help. So in 1955, when the children reached their teens, he bought a farm in Dutchess County, New York, and called it Verney Farm. There he raised cattle and Morgan horses. His friends on Martha’s Vineyard began to age and die, and ...
James Cagney died at Verney Farm on March 30, 1986. He left his personal belongings to Billie and nothing to his children. He had written the will in 1982, two years before Jim died. Cagney added Article VI to his will:
In 2017, the house that once belonged to James Cagney went on the market with an asking price of $13.5 million. The description of the property noted it had 69 acres, the house where the late actor lived and a “guesthouse.” It left out the sad fact the guesthouse, 200 feet away, had been home for his two small children. Images: James Cagney summer ...
In 1920, Cagney was a member of the chorus for the show Pitter Patter, where he met Frances Willard "Billie" Vernon. They married on September 28, 1922, and the marriage lasted until his death in 1986. Frances Cagney died in 1994. In 1940 they adopted a son whom they named James Francis Cagney III, and later a daughter, Cathleen "Casey" Cagney.
Name variations: Billie Vernon; Frances Willard Vernon. Born Frances Willard Vernon, June 19, 1901; died Oct 10, 1994, in Fishkill, NY; m. James Cagney (actor), Sept 28, 1922 (died Mar 30, 1986).In vaudeville, had a sister act with Wynne Gibson, then toured with husband. Source for information on Cagney, Frances (1901–1994): Dictionary of ...
Oct 10, 1994 · Death: October 10, 1994 (95) Sharon, Litchfield County, Connecticut, USA. Place of Burial: Gate of Heaven Cemetery, Hawthorne, Westchester County, New York, USA. Immediate Family: Daughter of Lewis Lynn Vernon and Alta V. Vernon. Wife of James Cagney. Mother of James Cagney, Jr; Casey Cagney (adopted) and James Cagney, Jr. (adopted)
In 1922, he met a chorus line girl named Frances “Billie” Vernon. They married and moved to Hollywood. ... Cagney remained married to wife Frances for 64 years until his death from a heart ...
