I had an unusual role—I portrayed my own mother’s father. Michael Curtiz directed Yankee Doodle Dandy, with the screenplay by Robert Buckner, Edmund Joseph, Julius J. Epstein and Philip G. Epstein. The cast includes James Cagney, Joan Leslie, Walter Huston, Richard Whorf, Irene Manning, George Tobias, Rosemary DeCamp and Jeanne Cagney. The film presents a biographical account of the life of George M. Cohan—pla…