INTERVIEW BY GREGORY SPECK
Gregory Speck is a freelance writer who has written for The News World, Interview magazine, the New York Tribune, and various other publications. He is currently based in New York City.
James Cagney will forever remain one of the immortals of the Hollywood pantheon. A veteran of nearly seventy films, many of them classics, he grinned, punched, danced, and sang his way from the lurid underworld of crime and corruption all the way to the summit of American showmanship and patriotism, bringing high energy, good humor, and cavalier grace along in a style that even today seems breathtakingly original.
Born in New York City at the close of the last century, Jimmy Cagney soon found himself on Broadway making his mark in vaudeville. Success and recognition on the fabled Great White Way led him in 1930 out West to the silver screen and stardom during the golden Age of Hollywood. With The Public Enemy (1931) he introduced a new persona to the world of cinema: the bad boy all America loved to hate, hated to love, and couldn’t get enough of–no matter what. He would go on to make many more unforgettable films during the Depression, such as Foot-light Parade (1933), Jimmy the Gent (1934), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935), and The Roaring Twenties (1939). But it was his characterization of George M. Cohan in Yankee Dodle Dandy (1942), his masterpiece, that revealed him as the consummate talent whose bravura ability as actor, singer, and dancer was unrivaled in the business of show business.
In white Heat (1949), a classic study of derangement, he painted a psychological portrait of the human as a animal, while in Mister Roberts (1955) he showed once again his versatile nature and his gift for cynical comedy. Having worked under many of the greatest directors and in the company of many of the other top stars for three decades, he retired from filmmaking in 1961, only to return as a cult figure of monumental proportion twenty years later in Regtime (1981), having published his autobiography, Cagney by Cagney, several years earlier. Until his recent death an eldest statesman of the American screen, James Cagney is revered as a dashingly handsome leading man who never gave a damn what others thought of him, and who soon emerged as the highest-paid actor in Hollywood.
I met with James Cagney in his Manhattan hotel suite during a visit to town, shortly before his death, and found him to be as modest a gentleman as he was accomplished as a performer. Reluctant to say anything unkind about even the most notoriously impossible of his colleague from the stage and screen, this legend guarded his memories as closely as his staff has guarded his privacy. To be granted the honor of an audience with this hero of the American dream was a rare privilege, and one which never will be granted again, for this was the last interview Jimmy Cagney gave before his death on march 30, 1986.
Gregory Speck: Growing up in the rough-and-tumble world of turn-of-the century New York City must have been colorful.
James Cagney: It was basically no different then than it is today. It was just everyday living. With me, it was fighting, more fighting, and more fighting. Life then was simply the way it was: ordinary, not bad, not good, just regular. No stress, no strain. Of course, no one had much of anything, but we didn’t know that we were poor.
We certainly didn’t feel poor. My family lived mostly in a variety of tenement apartments in Yorkville on the Upper East Side, which at that point still had a lot of ethnic flavor: Irish, German Zech, Hungarian, and so forth. On address I remember was 81st Street and York Avenue, where my father had a saloon. Yes, it was rough, and it was tough, but since I was a fighter, and a good one at that, it was not really so hard. In fact, you could say that it was easy for me, for I guess I was a pretty tough little kid. For my brothers Harry and Eddie, though, who eventually became doctors, it was not so easy. They were athletic, but didn’t like to fight, so I had to stick up for them, which I was glad to do. My brother Bill, who became my Hollywood business manager, didn’t mind a fight either, so we made a pretty strong family. We stuck together; We had to, because it was a “knock’em down, drag’em out” kind of world. It built character and made us strong. I learned how to take care of myself by fighting in the streets, and it was all part of the game. It helped me later in Hollywood, too.
Speck: In pursuit of your lineage, have you traced your roots back to Ireland and Norway?
Cagney: My father was totally Irish, and so I went to Ireland once. I found it to be very much like New York, for it was a beautiful country, and both the women and men were good-looking. They were great people. My mother’s father, my Grandpa Nelson, was a Norwegian sea captain, but when I tried to investigate those roots I didn’t get very far, for he had apparently changed his name to another one that made it impossible to identify him within the rest of the population. I never visited Norway.
Speck: Among you first jobs as a performer, you did female impersonations.
Cagney: Yes, I got a part as a chorus girl in a show called Every Sailor and I had fun doing it. Mother didn’t really approve of it, through. Of course, when you’re starting out, you do what you have to do to make a buck. It was basically just a job. You know, the period of World War I and the Roaring Twenties were really just about the same as today. You worked, and you made a living if you could, and you tired to make the best of things. For an actor or a dancer, it was no different then than today. It was a struggle.
Speck: By 1920 you had landed a chorus-boy part on Broadway in a show called Pitter Patter.
Cagney: Yes, and it was fun to be singing and dancing in the footlights, and getting paid for it. It was exciting and brand-new to me to be working in the Longacre Theater. It was also the beginning for me of dancing before an audience, which always made me terribly nervous. I used to get butterflies nervous. I used to get butterflies in my stomach, and often threw up. But the, when I got out onto the stage, everything calmed down and I felt at home. Of course, those early attempts at dancing on stage were immature, but the style of those early efforts became the pattern for the eccentric kind of dancing I did later on. I used it throughout my career, and in fact it became my trademark. Twenty years later I used it to some acclaim as George M. Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy. Though I soon became typecast in Hollywood as a gangster and hoodlum, I was originally a dancer, an Irish hoofer, trained in vaudeville tap dance. I always leapt at the opportunity to dance in films later on. The 1920s were essentially the time when I learned the business of performing. It was my initiation into the world of show business. It was also during this period that I came into contact with Cary Grant. His real name was Archibald Leach, and the was part of a team called Parker, Rand, and Leach. He wanted out, so I replaced him, and we were known as Parker, Rand, and Cagney.
Speck: I How did you and your wife Frances meet?
Cagney: We met backstage during Pitter Patter. She had been part of a group known as Vernon and Nye, and so she could dance, but I could not. She was also cute. I said “Hello,” and she said “Hello,” and that was the beginning of a love relationship that spanned sixty-three years and still exists today. Because her first name is Willard, I call her Willie, or Bill, for short. So as not to confuse her with my brother Bill, she is “My Bill.” If you want to call it love at first sight, then I guess that’s what it was.
Speck: I believe that Al Jolson bought the rights to Penny Arcade and sold them to Warner Brothers, which led to your move to Hollywood to star in the film remake, entitled Sinners’ Holiday.
Cagney: It’s true that I went out West to Hollywood to act in the remake of the show, but not in any star capacity. I was just a guy doing a job, and Joan and I had only supporting roles. With the exception of the climate, Hollywood was really not much different from Broadway, for the hours were long, and though it may have looked glamorous from the outside, on the inside it was hard work. We still had work. We still had deadlines, and the same kind of script concerns, and we still were working with show-business people, who are a special breed.
Speck: In 1931 you created a sensation in The Public Enemy, directed by William Wellman.
Cagney: I don’t know about this sensation business, but The Public Enemy was the film that really launched my career. I played a mean, mixed-up hood, a tough kid who tried to throw his weight around and ended up dead. It was a good part. I don’t think I took anything away from it. It just kind of flowed along. As you may know, the first title was Beer and Blood. It was one of the first of many chances I had to portray that kind of person, the fist-swinging gangster who becomes ruthless in order to succeed. There were many tough guys to play in the scripts that Warner kept assigning me. Each of my subsequent roles in the hoodlum genre offered the opportunity to inject something new, which I always tired to do. One could be funny, and the next one flat. Some roles were mean, and others were meaner. A few roles among them were actually sympathetic and kind-hearted, and I preferred them, but generally did not get to do many of those parts until much later in my career, for the public seemed to prefer me as a bad guy. Since I was most frequently cast as a criminal, constantly on the prod, I rarely to do the comedy roles I really would have preferred. I am really not at all like the character I played in The Public Enemy. I’m chiefly pretty quiet and reserved and private. Nervertheless, I had lots of gangster roles then, and in The roaring Twenties and in White Heat,and too much of the same thing gets to be too much. I don’t understand why the public never tired of those awful hoodlums. William Wellman did a good job on The Public Enemy I thought, as he did on the earlier picture I did with him, Other Men’s Women , in which I played opposite Joan Blondell and Mary Astor. He let me go my way and develop my own interpretation whenever it was possible. With other members of the cast of The Public Enemy such as Jean Harlow and Joan, however, he was less understanding. Having this kind of discernment makes for a good director. It was he who suggested that I squash that half a grapefruit into Mae Clarke’s face in the famous scene, and it set a precedent in the abuse of women in films. In my next film, Smart Money, which starred Edward G. Robinson, I again had to hit a lady in the face.
Speck: How did the Depression affect your life in Hollywood as a contract player for Jack Warner, and eventually as his highest-paid star?
Cagney: The Depression really didn’t have any effect at all on my life, for I was under contract, and I had a job to do. For the first year I was making around $500 a week and turning out about five pictures a year. In 1931, after walking out on them after making Blonde Crazy with Joan Blondell and Ray Milland, I found myself overnight making about $1,000 a week. The, walking out again in 1932 after doing Winner Take All I moved up into the league of Edward G. Robinson and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., making $3,000 a week. Later still, in 1935, I walked out on Warner for breach of contract, when I saw that they were advertising a film of mine and giving Pat O’Brien top billing. It was Ceiling Zero, the sixth Cagney picture released in 1935, but my contract stipulated that they could release only four per year, and that in all of them I was to receive top billing. It gave me the leverage I needed to fight the studio, which no one had ever done before. I sued and took off for Martha’s Vineyard for six months, which was the thing to do. when I won I could pretty much dictate the terms of my contract. That kind of defiance later led to the fights Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, and Miriam Hopkins waged against Warner. The studios were so rich and powerful, and so accustomed to exploiting their players, that everyone was astonished when I walked out. But my pictures were their biggest moneymakers, taking in millions. After I won, Jack Warner cam courting me again, for his desire to make money was stronger than his pride. Finally, in 1938, Warner agreed to $150,000 per picture for me, plus a percentage of the profits. As for the Depression, we knew that it existed, but it has no effect on us personally, for we were insulated form its effects. Since we had a demanding job to do, it was secondary to the task at hand, and that was to learn my craft. We had to get to the studio early in the morning and make pictures all day long, seven days a week, twelve hours a day, often starting a new film the day after the previous one was finished, without any break at all. I did what had to be done–nothing more, nothing less. The old mogul system was not a good system, but it worked, and the so-called moguls weren’t good or bad, but they were doing their job, which was producing, just as I was, which was acting. We all had families to support. Back then it was much easier to make a movie, for there was much more room and much less publicity. There seems to be a lot more money available to day. People are paid $5 million to star in a piece of entertainment without much substance or character or message. The costs are unbelievable to me, but when you see forty people standing around doing nothing for hours on end on a set and getting paid union scale it’s no wonder that movies have gotten so expensive to make. That’s why we went to England to shoot Ragtime at the Shepperton Studios outside London.
Speck: You made a total of fine pictures with Lloyd Bacon, such as Picture snatcher and Footlight Parade both in 1933, and then The Irish in Us in 1935.
Cagney: Yes, Lloyd, was a “knock’em down, drag’em out” director who kept the pace tight and rapid. He allowed us to act as we liked, to ad-lib, and to have a good time. In Picture Snatcher I played an ex-con opposite my friend Ralph Bellamy, and did Footlight Parade with Joan Blondell, Dick Powell, whom I liked a lot, and lovely Ruby Keeler, whom I adored. That film was choreographed by the great Busby Berkeley, too. For The Irish in Us I got to work with Pat O’Brien and Frank McHugh, my two best friends, and Olivia de Havilland, who was my favorite and most beautiful leading lady. Pat and Frank were my dear friends, and for nearly fifty years Pat was number one, right up until he died. He was kind and funny, and we complemented each other in our performances. I made nine pictures with Pat, and nine with Frank, and among those there are five that the three of us did together. In one of them, Boy Meets Girl in 1938, we three teamed with Ralph Bellamy, also a close friend, and Ronald Reagan, who I liked a great deal. What a nice man, and a good actor! I remember one night, at a Screen Actors Guild function, Ronnie made a speech, forty-five minutes long, and all of it was ad-libbed. Well, it was brilliant. I came home to my Bill afterwards and told her that that man was fated, and not as an actor. I was right, too, for he became president, and a great one. Because Pat, Frank, and I were Irish, and we stuck together, we became known as the “Irish Mafia.” We rejected that term, though, and then got to be called the “Boys’ Club.” Spencer Tracy was a member of our group, too, and what a talented man he was. He was an actor’s actor.
Speck: In 1934 you played Jimmy the Gent with Bette Davis under Michael Curtiz. That film revealed your gift for comedy.
Cagney: It is true that Jimmy the Gent was my first film with comedic overtones. Very few people know this, but roles of that type were my favorites, and I always wished that they would give me more like them.
Speck: For William Keighley in 1935 you made G-men and in 1939 Each Dawn I Die with George Raft.
Cagney: G-Men was the first of five films I made with Keighley. It was a straight part, as an FBI agent, and was without any opportunity to cut up, which I like to do. As you may know, Keighley assumed a sort of French affectation in his speech, which was kind of funny, since there was a large British film community in Hollywood at the time. After the war he and his wife left for France, and I never heard form them again. My costar in G-Men, Margaret Lindsay, pretended she was British, although she was from Iowa, and that annoyed me, too. As for Each Dawn I Die, I played a bad guy again, but it was a fairly straight part, and there wasn’t much to it. I don’t consider either of these films to have much durability. In my mind, they are more easily forgotten than remembered. George Raft, though, was a very pleasant fellow and a good actor. Of course, he was truly a very tough man, who must have had some sort of association with the underworld of the time, which the rest of us did not, even though we were always playing thugs and hoods.
I remember on incident in particular that happened on the set with Raft and Edward G. Robison. Robinson liked to give directions to everyone all the time and was something of a “know-it-all,” which made him difficult to take at times. Well, Robinson, was giving his usual dictatorial instructions to Raft and touched him on the arm to point him in a certain direction. Raft told him never to touch him again, but Robinson didn’t take heed to this warning. Shortly thereafter he was telling Raft again what to do, and so he walked over to Raft to grab him by the arm to usher him to where he wanted him to stand. Raft belted him, and down went Robinson, halfway across the room. That was the last he told Raft what to do. Very few people realize it, but George Raft was one of the finest dancers in Hollywood, too. I rank him up there with Fred Astaire, he was not good. On only a couple of occasions was he allowed to show what he could do, and it was remarkable. Once he even saved my life.
After I won the Oscar for Yankee Doodle Dandy I was elected president of the Screen Actors Guild, during a time that accusations of leftist influence were being made about the film industry. The mob had targeted me for liquidation, and I was to have a klieg light dropped on my dead when I walked on to the set. Well, Raft heard about the hit contract, and made a call to the right man, demanding that the plan be stopped, or they would have to answer to him. It worked.
Speck: In 1935 you also made A Midsummer Night’s Dream under Max Reinhardt and William Dieterle.
Cagney: I played the role of Bottom in that one, alongside Mickey Rooney as Puck. Bottom was set apart from the other roles, and Shakespeare himself depicted Bottom as a ham. Bottom wanted to play all of the parts, so I played him as a ham, with that ass head on my head. The critics didn’t seem to like my portrayal, though. That film had a great cast, too, with Olivia de Havilland, Joe E. Brown, Dick Powell, and others.
Speck: Over the years you did a number of films with military subjects, such as Here Comes the Navy and Devil Dogs of the Air, both of which Lloyd Bacon directed, and in which you starred with both Pat O’Briedn and Frank McHugh. Did patriotism lead you to these projects?
Cagney: No, they were just jobs to be done–nothing more, nothing less, We did the first one in San Diego in 1934 aboard the battleship USS Arizona, which was later sunk in Pearl Harbor. The second one was filmed the next year and led to my being named one of the ten top moneymakers in Hollywood. The three of us teamed up again in 1940 with George Brent under William Keighley to make The Fighting 69th, which was about an Irish regiment in World War I. In 1946 I made 13, Rue Madeleine, a World War II spy film in which I ended up in Gestapo headquarters, tortured and about to be executed, when we bomb the hell out of the Nazis, and I go out in blaze. My last military role was much later, in 1960, when I played Admiral Bull Halsey in The Gallant Hours. My friend Robert Montgomery talked me into doing that one, but I didn’t like the role, although I am very much a patriot.
Speck : Perhaps the ultimate patriot, as George M. Cohan, through whom you revealed numerous new dimensions to your character and talent.
Cagney: Well, I could dance, so I landed the part. It was my favorite role as the All-American Boy. Hal Wallis, the producer, accepted my request to have final approval, so we went to work on the script and got it into shape. Then we prepared to shoot the movie. Cohan and I were about the same height, weight, and build. Both of us had light hair, freckles, and blue eyes, too, so in appearance we shared an Irish look. Same facial structure and features. Actually, we rewrote and reworked the script throughout the production. They now say Yankee Doodle Dandy is a classic. It had everything in it, as well as a good story line and honest family relationships. Humor and some emotional impact were added along the way to round out the song-and-dance scenes. To arrive at the proper dance style, a friend was brought in to help. He was Johnny Boyle, who had worked on Cohan’s 1916 Broadway Revue, and also on my 1937 film something to Sing About. He knew the Cohan stiff-leg technique, and was able to teach it to me. All in all, it was a good movie, for not only was it well-written and well-acted, but most of all it had heart. As a matter of fact, I met Cohan once when I was still young. I was trying to get a larger part in a play of his, and he refused to advance me. In fact, he threw me out of the play altogether. But that didn’t bother me, for I know that he liked the film we made of his life. I made $ 850,000 doing Yankee Doodle Dandy, and it was the highlight of my career.
Speck: White Heat, made in 1949, was another of your most distinguished films. How did you develop the persona of the psychopath Cody Jarrett?
Cagney: Originally, Jarrett was to be portrayed as the standard gangster type. I decided to give Cody some flesh, and to develop the role as homicidal maniac. So, we made him nuts, with a mother fixation, occasional fits, and incapacitating headaches. It worked, and the movie was a success.
Speck: In 1957 you played Lon Chaney in Man of a Thousand Faces.
Cagney: It too, was just another movie to me. Of course, Chaney’s life was interesting, and my little sister Jeanne played his second wife. That role provided me with an opportunity to explore his different characterizations in the early monster films he made, such as Frankenstein, The Mummy, and The Wolfman.
Speck: In 1961 you worked under Billy Wilder in One, Two, Three.
Cagney: That was the film that convinced me to retire from show business. We were making the picture in Berlin inside a dark studio. I walked outside into the beautiful sunshine, and decided then, that was it. The thought of stopping was wonderful, so I resolved that that was my last film. Of course, I went back to work later on. My last film was Terrible Joe Moran in which I played an irascible old codger who was straightforward and true to his nature, consistent in his ways. I guess I’m like that.
Speck: How did you participation in Ragtime come about?
Cagney: Well, I surprised everyone by agreeing to play a role in that film, which Milos Forman was directing, because I had already read E.L. Doctorow’s novel. There were only two roles I could have played, and the one I liked was the police commissioner, Rhinelander Waldo. At the turn of the century such a job commanded respect and prestige. It was a very high honor to be named commissioner of police, and so they though I could do it. I had had a stroke by that time, but the doctor said that work would be good for me, and that doing nothing would encourage my batteries to go down. Of course, I was still painting in my studio, but otherwise doing very little. So, I agreed to do it. It was my friend Carroll O’Connon who suggested that I get Forman to enlarge the role for me, and he was willing. The rest is history. Pat O’Brien was in the picture, too, and I was happy to be working with him again. Since the Morgan Library wouldn’t let us shoot the scene there we had to go to England. It was just as well, for I got to meet the Queen Mother at the London Palladium then.
Speck: Are there any people from your sixty-five years in and out of show business whom you particularly admired?
Cagney: Oh, my, yes, many. I told you about Pat and Frank and Ralph and Spencer. Well, I also liked Doris Day very much. She was a lovely girl and had a lot of talent. I made Love me Or Leave Me with her in 1955 and thought it was a shame that she went the route of Pillow Talk. Steve McQueen was another fine, fine actor, and a dear friend. What a shame that he died so young. You know, I knew many “stars,” but I also liked being around the regular people, the crews on the sets. With them I could be myself, for they were street people, easy to be with, easy to know, easy to say things to. You could be yourself with them.
Speck: What advice would you give someone just coming into the profession?
Cagney: Just walk in , plant your feet, look’em in the eye, and tell the truth. When you’re an actor, you go out on the stage, or the set, and you act. But if you’re a dancer, you’re everything, for you have to act and often sing as well when you’re dancing. I did all three. Luckily, I started to learn it at an early age, and I could make my body behave as I wanted it to. I heard everything I could when I was still young.
Speck: In addition to your work as an actor-singer-dancer you are also a poet, a painter, and a yachtsman, I believe.
Cagney: Well, I get seasick a lot, but I love sailing. Once in 1978 out on Martha’s Vineyard, where I used to keep a place, I decided to take some guests out on my forty-two-foot ketch. We drove down to the dock, but the captain wasn’t there, so I piloted the boat myself, and it was wonderful. It helped me to recover somewhat from my illness. As for painting, I am often asked to sell my paintings. I always refuse, even though they sometimes offer me $65,000. The reason is that I feel I would be depriving a struggling young artist of money he might be able to obtain for his work. I don’t regret not becoming a professional painter, though, for it all happened as it happened. I’ve always enjoyed painting, but the only way I part with paintings is to give them away to charities, so they can be sold to benefit a cause I support. I still write poems, too, but used to do much more-humorous limericks, love verse, and other things–back in the old days. I wrote a poem for Willie Nelson the other night, too, to help him with his aid to the American farmer. The way I see it, we’ve done a benefit for Africa, so what about one for America? I think that the farmers in this country have gotten a raw deal. Many of them are unable to make ends meet, even as they work day and night. I know what a hard life it is, because I operate a farm in upstate New York, where we keep about 175 head of cattle. If I had to make a living farming I’d be bankrupt.
Speck: I know that you were always very close with and devoted to your own family, your parents and brothers and sisters especially. Do you see the family institution collapsing today?
Cagney: What is happening is tragic, but I think that soon families will grow back together, for people need each other, and the family is meant to make its members stronger by being together. I was regarded as the tentpole of my family by some, but I wanted to help them with my good fortune in any way I could. If the American family has seemed in danger of disintegration, I believe and hope it will survive, and I think America will return to old values. That’s what Willie Nelson’s Farm Aid benefit and concern and movement are all about.
Speck: When are they going to do a film about your own life?
Cagney: Well, Misha Baryshnikov has been wanting to play me in a movie, but I told him that with that ancient he wouldn’t be too convincing. He’s a great dancer, no question about it. Actually Treat Williams wanted to portray me as well, but the part is going to Michael J. Fox, who is such a talented young man. We get along real well, and I hope the film can be started while I’m still around to help with it. Some producers were trying to get John Travolta to play me, but even Travolta to play me, but even Travolta, who’s quite a fine actor and dancer, said, “What? Are you nuts? He was the one who suggested Mike Fox, in fact. I keep my fingers crossed in the hope that it will all work out, because Mike is just about the first one who hasn’t been afraid to take my role. But if I had the gumption to play George M. Cohan, then why shouldn’t young Fox play Jimmy Cagney?
Speck: What makes the Irish so feisty?
Cagney: They aren’t feisty!! [He holds up a pair of clenched fists like a boxer ready to land a punch, his eyes twinkling with benevolent mischief, his famous grin flashing.] One thing that troubles me is that they say that my portrayals of gangsters and hoodlums led to a tolerance of the criminal element by society. Well, I certainly hope they didn’t, because I’m firmly opposed to crime. I won’t even tell a lie. I saw friends killed in violent fights during my childhood in Yorkville, so I always tired to avoid crime, even though many of my roles made it look as if I got a kick out of it. I was never arrested, although once a cop kicked me in the ass. [He winks.]
Speck: I often get the feeling that American doesn’t believe in herself any longer.
Cagney: When the chips are down, she believes. Perhaps people, and kids especially, are spoiled today, because all the kids today have cars, it seems. When I was young you were lucky to have a bike. That hardship made people strong and resolute. The same thing has happened with the making of movies today: they’ve been spoiled by too much money. But I’m glad Ed Koch has done a lot to bring filmmaking back to New York. The current head of his office for film development, Patricia Scott, is an awfully nice gal, and she’s doing a great job. We met her when she came up to ask if I would throw the ball out to George Steinbrenner at the opening of one season. She had been married to George C. Scott, who had done me a favor when I was selling some of my Morgan horses. He bough two of them. Actually, I used to raise Morgans in California years ago, but I sold them. In fact, I kept what amounted to a small farm of twelve acres in the middle of coldwater Canyon near Baverly Hills. But I had to give all that up years ago. Now Marge and Don Zimmermann take care of me like I’m one of those Morgans.
