Anne Nagel

Anne Nagel (born Anna Marie Dolan; September 29, 1915 – July 6, 1966) was an American actress. She played in adventures, mysteries, and comedies for 25 years. She also appeared in television series in the 1950s. One book described her as "one of Hollywood's true hard-luck gals".

Born in Malden, Massachusetts, Nagel was enrolled by her parents in Notre Dame Academy, with the expectation that she would become a nun. Membership in the Shubert Theatre company turned her away from religious life. In the meantime, Nagel's mother had divorced and re-married. 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 step-daughter in several experimental Technicolor shorts he had been asked to direct.^{[citation needed]}

In 1932 Nagel secured a bit part as a ballet girl in the Mack Sennett comedy feature Hypnotized, her "first documented feature credit". 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. Nagel spent the next few years making uncredited appearances as a dancer or chorus girl.

In 1936, she signed with Warner Bros. and followed the usual path for young actresses under studio contract: incidental roles in major features, featured roles in minor features, and ingenue roles in westerns. She appeared in Here Comes Carter with Warner leading man Ross Alexander; they were married that year. A reviewer wrote "she was just one of those girls who has learned to croon for the microphone, and let the rest of the world go hang".

Warner did not pick up her option after one year, and she began freelancing. Most of her appearances in 1937 and 1938 were for Monogram Pictures, where she usually played leads.

Anne Nagel was signed by Universal Pictures in 1939, and worked there steadily for four years. Her most famous Universal credits are probably the W.C. Fields comedy Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (1941, as Gloria Jean's movie-stuntwoman mother) and the serials The Green Hornet (1940) and The Green Hornet Strikes Again! (1941), reprising her radio role of Lenore Case. She also was featured in Black Friday (1940), The Invisible Woman (1940), and Man Made Monster (1941), among many other films.

From 1942 she worked mostly for the lower-budget independent companies: PRC, Monogram, Republic. She had two assignments with Columbia, the 1943 serial The Secret Code and the 1947 comedy feature Blondie's Holiday. By the late 1940s her roles were smaller and she often worked without screen credit. Nagel later worked on television in episodes of The Range Rider (1951) and Circus Boy (1957).

Vintage-radio buffs best know Anne Nagel as Britt Reid's confidante Lenore Case in The Green Hornet. In 1943, she was the vocalist on the audience-participation musical quiz program Scramby Amby.