Anne Nagel

Born in Malden, Massachusetts,[note 1][3] Nagel was enrolled by her parents in Notre Dame Academy, with the expectation she would become a nun.[2] But part-time work in her teens as a photographer's model and membership in the Shubert Theatre company turned her away from religious life.[2] Meantime Nagel's mother had divorced and remarried. When Nagel's new stepfather, Curtis Nagel, a Technicolor expert, was hired by Tiffany Pictures in Hollywood, he moved the family to California, where he employed his stepdaughter in several experimental Technicolor shorts he had been asked to direct.

Placed under contract by Warner Brothers in 1932, Nagel secured a bit part as a ballet girl in Hypnotized, her "first documented feature credit".[2] She was one of 14 young women "launched on the trail of film stardom" August 6, 1935, when they each received a six-month contract with 20th Century Fox after spending 18 months in the company's training school. The contracts included a studio option for renewal for as long as seven years.[4] Nagel spent the next few years making uncredited appearances as a dancer or chorus girl. In 1936, she appeared in Here Comes Carter with Ross Alexander. A reviewer remarked of her performance, "she was just one of those girls who has learned to croon for the microphone, and let the rest of the world go hang." Her early roles were in such films as Footloose Heiress, Three Legionnaires, Guns of the Pecos, Torchy Blane, the Adventurous Blonde (all from 1937). She was in Romance Road (1938), Mystery House (1938), Unexpected Father (1939), and Legion of Lost Flyers (1939).

In 1940, she appeared with W.C. Fields and Mae West in My Little Chickadee. Other feature movies from 1940 in which she had parts are Black Friday, Hot Steel, and Diamond Frontiers. She was often a heroine in horror films. Late in the 1940s she made The Spirit of West Point (1947). The film starred Doc Blanchard and Glenn Davis. Nagel later worked on television in episodes of The Range Rider (1951) and Circus Boy (1957).

On radio, Nagle was a vocalist on the Scramby Amby game show.[5] She had the role of Miss Case in The Green Hornet radio series, [6] a role she reprised for both of the filmed serials, The Green Hornet and The Green Hornet Strikes Again!.

On September 17, 1936, Nagel married actor Ross Alexander;[7] he committed suicide in 1937.[note 2][2] Nagel then wed Air Force Lt. Col. James H. Keenan on December 4, 1941.[8] That marriage ended in divorce on May 22, 1951.[9]

In December 1947, Nagel filed a lawsuit in Superior Court against Hollywood physician and surgeon Franklyn Thorpe (former husband of actress Mary Astor). In the suit Nagel demanded $350,000 in damages and alleged that, while performing an appendectomy on her in 1936, Thorpe had removed other organs without her knowledge or consent, rendering her infertile. [10] [2]^:21 Nagel claimed she was unaware of her infertility until January 1947, but Thorpe countered that she "well aware of the nature of the surgery."[2]^:21

Nagel died at Sunray North Convalescent Hospital in Hollywood, California in 1966, aged 50, following surgery for liver cancer. She is buried, with no marker, in Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.[2]^:22–23