It is interesting to note some of the liberties taken in this film. His wife's name was Ethel Levey, not Mary, who bore him a daughter but they were divorced. In 1907, he married Agnes Mary Nolan, who bore him 3 more children. Was she the "Mary" the song was written for? Also in the film, his mom and sister died before his dad when actually his mom died in 1928, 11 years after his dad. Of course, this doesn't take away anything from this wonderful film.
shareCohan had resisted any attempts to make a motion picture about his life for years and finally relented for "Yankee Doodle Dandy". In addition to deleting any mention of two wives, there was also no mention of the bitter feud he had with Actors Equity. The real Cohan had a dark side which was not shown in the movie.
Unlike the movie, the real Cohan never went through a period where he was forgotten by the public. When he was not appearing in his own plays, he was directing or appearing in plays written by others. One of his biggest hits was in Eugene O'Neill's "Ah Wilderness".
Interestingly, he is asked in the movie by some passing teenagers if he'd ever done any movies and tells them he hadn't. Not true; he appeared in some silent movies and one 'talkie'; "The Phantom President" 1932 with Claudette Colbert and Jimmy Durante. In his biographies, his experiences in Hollywood were so unpleasant that he never went back.
Cohan's real stage appearance in "I'd Rather Be Right" happened in the 1930s well before WWII and contained no references to Hitler's taking France or Japan pants. The timeline was changed in order to make the picture inspirational for a country that had just become involved in a war.
I'm actually glad that the movie took liberties with the real Cohan story. There wouldn't have been time in a movie to show the whole man and it would have been less entertaining.
One would have to see a production of the musical play GEORGE M! to get a better sense of Cohan's dark side. Unfortunately, it was never filmed, but I vaguely recall a TV version circa 1969 that featured Joel Grey and Bernadette Peters as George and Josie.
shareAlso he made such a big deal about being born on the 4th of july, when he was actually born the day before.
share