Edward Woods

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For the engineer, see Edward Woods (engineer)

Edward Woods (July 5, 1903, Los Angeles -- October 8, 1989, Salt Lake City) was an American actor who was playing the lead in the screen classic The Public Enemy, with James Cagney portraying his best friend, but director William Wellman switched the actors' roles after viewing Cagney's electric performance in the dailies. In the flashback sequences, the children's appearances are reversed because those scenes were filmed before the switch and the studio opted not to pay to refilm them, which confuses viewers to this day.

The studio promised Woods that they'd make it up to him, then dropped him when his contract expired. Woods found acting work for several more years in tiny roles or in grade Z movies until he left the film business in 1938, while Cagney went on to become one of the cinema's towering legends.