Jimmy Cagney — or Does the Way We Fight Make Us Strong or Weak?

The False Fight That Ruins Love

Aesthetic Realism is definitive and so kind about love. It shows that we will be more by caring honestly for what is not ourselves. And in the class discussion I learned that much of what I saw as being "sharp" was really the hope to have contempt, and contempt makes us incapable of love.

Ellen Reiss spoke to me about a big interference with my loving truly the woman I cared for very much—and who now, I am very grateful to say, I am married to—Meryl Nietsch-Cooperman, who is studying to teach Aesthetic Realism. She asked, "Do you like the idea of feeling wonder?" I answered, "I think I'm too suspicious." And Ellen Reiss made this distinction, on which my happiness would depend: "You should be suspicious if it's warranted. But have you hoped to be suspicious of Meryl Nietsch?" "Yes," I said. And she continued: "Does that make you unsure of yourself? Are you more comfortable being affected by her—or finding things wrong with her?"

Then the Class Chairman asked me this, about a grand emotion for a woman: "How would you do with the Marlowe line about Helen of Troy, 'Was this the face that launched a thousand ships?'?" I answered, "I think I'd like it."

She asked: "How about the line, 'Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss'—do you like that idea?" I said, "I do, but I'm a little afraid." Then Ellen Reiss explained: "The purpose of life is to have a large, true feeling about the world. Bennett Cooperman wants to have those two things together: sweeping feeling, and simultaneously the feeling he has never been more accurate."

I felt described, relieved, and tremendously grateful. I love Meryl Nietsch! I am very proud to need her.

Jimmy Cagney was married to Willard Vernon for 64 years, and I believe there was something kind in their relation. They met in the chorus of a Broadway show in 1920. She was 16, from Iowa, and Jimmy Cagney was affected by her prettiness and the freshness of her mid-west background, so different from his tough city life. He saw strength in her, too, and speaks with gratitude for her "rock solid honesty," her encouragement. She believed early that Jimmy Cagney had true art in him, and when things were tough and work was scarce, she would not let him sink or give up.

I think it is possible that Cagney, as men have been, was uncomfortable with the more feminine and delicate aspect of woman. For all their married life he called his wife Bill. It is notable, too, that in his films his relations with women are mostly battling and sparring. In no film I saw did he have a deep, full and rich relation to a woman, and perhaps he wasn't cast that way because the fighter in him seemed so predominant, rather than the grateful man, melting and strong at once.

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