Background

George Nader was born on October 19, 1921, in Pasadena, California, United States. He was the son of George G. and Alice Nader.

Education

George Nader received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Occidental College and studied acting at the Pasadena Playhouse.

Career

In 1950 George Nader began appearing in films. In the early days, he was largely a bit-part player both on the stage and in minor, low budget films. His big break arrived, however, with a leading role in sci-fi movie Robot Monster, which was released in 1953. The movie has developed a reputation as one of the worst ever made but was financially successful at the time.

Later he earned a contract with Universal Films. His first film for Universal was a Western, Four Guns to the Border (1954), wherein he was billed beneath Rory Calhoun and Colleen Miller. He followed it with Six Bridges to Cross (1955), supporting Tony Curtis and Julie Adams in a role that Chandler had turned down.

He starred in Congo Crossing (1956) and was second-billed to Chandler in Universal's expensive war epic Away All Boats (1956). He was Esther Williams's leading man in The Unguarded Moment (1956), which starred a young John Saxon. He had top billing in Four Girls in Town (1957) and Man Afraid (1957). Nader supported Audie Murphy in Joe Butterfly (1957), a military comedy. He played as Chris Farley in The Female Animal (1958).

Nader left for Europe, where he made one film in the United Kingdom, a bleak but gripping film noir, Nowhere to Go (1958), co-starring Maggie Smith. In the United States, he starred in two television series, Ellery Queen (1958-59) and Man and the Challenge (1959-60), but most of his later career as an actor was spent in Europe, where he had particular success when he took on the role of the smooth FBI agent Jerry Cotton in Der Tod in roten Jaguar ("Death in a Red Jaguar", 1968), the first of a highly profitable series. He returned to Hollywood in the 1970s, appearing mostly in television series, such as Laramie (1960), The Andy Griffith Show (1961), Shannon (1961), Burke's Law (1965), Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law (1972), The F.B.I. (1972), etc.

Following a car accident in the early 1970s, Nader suffered an eye injury which caused him to become particularly sensitive to the bright lights of movie sets. That curtailed his acting career in 1974 and saw him start to write. His most notable written work was probably his 1978 science fiction novel, Chrome, which dealt positively with a same-sex relationship.

Nader was admitted to hospital in Woodland Hills, California in late 2001 with a number of different ailments, including pneumonia. He died on the 4th February 2002 and had his ashes scattered at sea. He is now commemorated on a cenotaph in Forest Lawn Cemetery near Palm Springs, along with partner Mark Miller and their long-time friend Rock Hudson.

Achievements

• George Nader is remembered for his first starring role, in the low-budget 3D sci-fi film Robot Monster, that once was named one of the 50 worst movies in history. He was also famous for his role as FBI agent Jerry Cotton. In 1955, he won a Golden Globe Award for "Most Promising Newcomer."
  
  After retirement, Narder was best known as the author of Chrome. A critic for Publishers Weekly noted that "this is probably the first homosexual robot love story."

Works

More photos

• book

  • Chrome

    (Chrome was meant to be the first science-fiction novel of...)

    1978

• movie

  • Beyond Atlantis

    (A band of adventurers on the search for a reported fortun...)

    1973
  • Nowhere To Go

    (In London, a Canadian serving prison time for grand theft...)

    1958
  • The Trap Snaps Shut At Midnight

    (A big shipment of Nitroglycerine, enough to make a shambl...)

    1966
  • Sins of Jezebel

    (The aging Ahab, king of Israel, comes under the influence...)

    1953
  • House of 1,000 Dolls

    (When a vacationing couple in Tangiers run into an old fri...)

    1967
  • The Human Duplicators

    (An alien is dispatched from a faraway galaxy to take over...)

    1965
  • Secret Mark Of D'Artagnan

    (Cardinal Richelieu, advisor to Louis XIII of France, inst...)

    1962
  • Rustlers On Horseback

    (A harmless-seeming book salesman is really the master-min...)

    1950
  • Robot Monster

    (A Schlock Classic! Ro-Man, an alien that looks remarkably...)

    1953
  • The Million Eyes of Sumuru

    (Two years before The Girl From Rio, Shirley Eaton also st...)

    1967
  • Carnival Story

    (A German girl joins a carnival and becomes a high-wire st...)

    1954
  • Lady Godiva of Coventry

    (Fictionalized account of events leading up the famous nud...)

    1955
  • The Unguarded Moment

    (A beautiful teacher is protective of a high school boy wh...)

    1956
  • Four Guns To The Border

    (Outlaws, Indians and a sultry, hot-to-trot femme fatale s...)

    1954
  • Six Bridges to Cross

    (The emotional story of a lifelong friendship between a Bo...)

    1955
  • Death and Diamonds

    (Agent Jerry Cotton infiltrates a big crime syndicate that...)

    1968
  • Joe Butterfly

    (American soldiers in occupied Tokyo get mixed up with a c...)

    1957
  • Murderers' Club of Brooklyn

    (A rich capitalist is blackmailed and threatened with the ...)

    1967
  • Away All Boats

    (The story of a United States naval ship and its crew in t...)

    1956
  • The Female Animal

    (An aging film star and her alcoholic daughter compete for...)

    1958
  • Tip Not Included

    (George Nader, Yvonne Monlaur, Walter Rilla, Heinz Weiss, ...)

    1966
  • Manhattan Night of Murder

    (A ring of gangsters has been terrorizing New York City. S...)

    1965

Personality

George Nader stayed in shape most of his life by lifting weights and swimming. Although Nader was not openly gay during his film career, he generally did not feign relationships with women to conceal it. Nader publicly acknowledged his sexual orientation after 1985.

Physical Characteristics: George Nader weighed 180lbs (81 kg) and was 6ft 1in (185 cm).

Interests

• swimming

Connections

George Nader lived with his life partner, Mark Miller, whom he met in 1947 while they were acting in a play together.

Father:

George G. Nader

Mother:

Alice Nader

life partner:

Mark Miller

nephew:

Michael Nader

Friend:

Rock Hudson

References

• Contemporary Authors
  2000