Biography
Anne Nagel's life could be described in two words: quite tragic. Born to deeply religious parents from Boston who hoped she would become a nun, she was enrolled in a preparatory school with that goal in mind. As a young teenager, she worked part-time as a photographer's model, but by her mid-teens, she had grown more interested in pursuing a career in Hollywood than entering a convent and joined a Boston theater company. By then, her mother had remarried, and her stepfather, a Technicolor expert, was employed by Tiffany, a low-tier Poverty Row studio. The family moved to California, where Anne's initial film experience came from several Technicolor experimental shorts directed by her stepfather. She soon progressed to feature films as a dancer. Her striking looks and pleasant voice made her well-suited for talkies. She secured a contract with Warner Brothers and debuted in 1932, appearing in a series of steady, though modest, roles in lower- and mid-budget films. Her life began to fall apart in 1936 when she married Ross Alexander, who tragically took his own life in 1937, deeply affecting her. By 1941, under contract with Universal, she appeared in serials and several of the studio’s lower-tier horror films and B westerns. She eventually left Universal to work independently but managed to find parts only at Poverty Row studios like Republic, Monogram, and the lowest tier, PRC. Ironically, her final film, Armored Car Robbery (1950), a tight, well-regarded thriller now considered a genre classic, was the best work she had done in years and a fitting final role. She had married Army Air Corps officer James H. Keehan in 1941, but their marriage grew increasingly unhappy, ending in divorce in 1951. Rumors of her struggling with alcoholism circulated, and she spent her final years nearly penniless. Tragically, she died of cancer on July 6, 1966, at just 50 years old.
