Conrad Nagel

John Conrad Nagel (March 16, 1897 – February 24, 1970) was an American film, stage, television and radio actor. He was considered a famous matinée idol and leading man of the 1920s and 1930s. He was given an Academy Honorary Award in 1940 and three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960. Early life Born in Keokuk, Iowa, into an upper-middle-class family, he was the son of a musician father, Dr. Frank L. Nagel, who was of German descent, and a mother, Frances (née Murphy), who was a locally praised singer. Nagel's mother died early in his life, and he always attributed his artistic inclination to growing up in a family environment that encouraged self-expression. When Nagel was three, his father, Frank, became dean of the music conservatory at Highland Park College in Des Moines, and the family moved there. After graduating from Highland Park College, Nagel left for California to pursue a career in the relatively new medium of motion pictures where he garnered instant attention from the Hollywood studio executives. With his frame, blue eyes, and wavy blond hair; the young, Midwestern Nagel was seen by studio executives as a potentially wholesome matinee idol whose unpretentious all-American charm would appeal to the nation's nascent film-goers. Film career