Honors and Legacy
In 1974, Cagney received the American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award. Charlton Heston, in announcing that Cagney was to be honored, called him "one of the most significant figures of a generation when American film was dominant, Cagney, that most American of actors, somehow communicated eloquently to audiences all over the world …and to actors as well."
He received the Kennedy Center Honors in 1980. In 1984, Ronald Reagan awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Cagney was among Stanley Kubrick's and Marlon Brando's favorite actors, and was considered by Orson Welles to be "maybe the greatest actor to ever appear in front of a camera." Warner Bros. would arrange private screenings of Cagney films for Winston Churchill.
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