Cagney Honored As Hasty Pudding Man of the Year

The pit orchestra broke into a feisty rendition of "Yankee Doodle Dandy," and the audience, dressed in formal attire, set down their champagne glasses to clap in accompaniment. The colorful constant was raised, and James Cagney, learning lightly on a came, smiled and thanked the crowed for his routing welcome.

Katherine C. Williams '83 and Reade L. Fahs '82, producers of the Hasty Pudding's 134th production. "Sealed With a Quiche," presented Cagney with the 16th annual Man of the Year Award before a packed audience at the Pudding last night.

Williams and Fabs gave the 82 year-old Cagney an engraved pudding pot and a large picture of Marilyn Monroe, with Cagney's face posted on--a reference to the actor's early career as a burlesque performer. When he appeared as a woman in the Keefe theater in 1919.

In a short acceptance--speech, Cagney told the audience an anecdote about Jack Lemmon '47, a former Hasty Pudding member and winner of the Man of the Year Award in 1973, whom Cagney met in 1955 when the two were starring in "Mister Roberts."

Cagney began his career as a burlesque actor in the early part of the 20th century, and made his first movie. "Sinners' Holiday," in 1930. He won an Academy Award in 1942 as George M. Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy." and returned from a 20 year retirement in 1981 to film "Ragtime."

Former recipients of the award include Robert Redford Alan Akla and Warten Beatty.