Conrad Nagel was born on March 16, 1897 in Keokuk, Iowa, United States. He was the son of Frank Nagel and Frances Murphy, both musicians. Frank Nagel, a pianist, composer, and teacher, became dean of music at Highland Park College in Des Moines, Iowa, when his son was two.
At the age of fifteen he was admitted to his father's college, from which he graduated in 1914 with a bachelor of oratory.
Immediately after graduation he went to work for a local stock company, where in his first year he acted in forty-five plays. In 1916 Nagel went to New York City and quickly found employment in bit roles in vaudeville. He was spotted and given a position with the touring company of Experience, a modern version of the morality play Everyman.
In 1918 he opened on Broadway in Forever After, which established his reputation as an actor.
Near the end of World War I he enlisted in the navy, but he was stationed in the New York area and able to continue performing in the play. Forever After was produced by William Brady, whose daughter, Alice, was a stage and film star. Brady, pleased with the success of the play, cast Nagel opposite his daughter in a film version of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women (1919), which was shot on location at Alcott's home. Nagel continued to perform in Forever After at night and in films during the day.
In 1919 he joined the Actors' Equity Association, which had been trying to unionize Broadway actors. He believed strongly in its cause and devoted much of his energy for the next decade and a half to actors' interests.
In 1919 Nagel went to Hollywood to make the film The Fighting Chance for Famous Players-Lasky. Its success prompted Lasky to offer him a five-year contract at a salary large enough to persuade him to settle in California. In 1921 Cecil B. DeMille cast him in Fool's Paradise. He appeared in another of Cecil DeMille's films and in three directed by William DeMille, experiences that greatly enhanced his reputation.
While popular with both fans and the Hollywood community, Nagel avoided the sensational life of film stars; he even was an usher each week at services of the Christian Science church.
Early in 1927 Nagel joined with L. B. Mayer and Fred Niblo in forming the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which brought into one organization all who worked in motion pictures. This new group soon came into conflict with Actors' Equity, with which Nagel was also still affiliated. Mayer and the Producers' Association dropped a proposed pay cut, which the actors had opposed; but they made it appear that they had done so at the request of the academy, not Equity. Equity's prestige was hurt and Nagel was blamed for the failure, causing the national office of Equity to dissolve the Hollywood office. Nagel was then free to devote his time to the activities of the academy. Nagel claimed that Mayer was angry over his role in the dispute and to punish him lent him to the struggling Warner Brothers studio. He was working on Glorious Betsy (1928) at the time Warner Brothers released The Jazz Singer, starring Al Jolson. This latter film was the first widely released movie with sound, but the sound was limited to Jolson's musical numbers. Warner executives, pleased with the public response to sound pictures, quickly inserted talking scenes into Glorious Betsy, giving Nagel the distinction of starring in the first movie with spoken dialogue.
In 1932, despite his heavy acting schedule, he accepted the presidency of the academy.
When the Great Depression caused motion picture producers to propose that all employees take a 50 percent pay cut to keep the studios in operation, the academy and its president found a compromise by which the brunt of the burden would fall on highly paid employees, and then only for a few weeks. When, at the end of the period, two studios refused to return all employees to full salary, the split between the producers and the rest of the academy was complete. Nagel was caught in the middle and could find no solution that would hold the academy together as a political force. On April 20, 1933, he resigned as president. The academy never recovered and soon became little more than a society for awarding Oscars. Nagel's life and career were seriously damaged by the controversy.
Nagel left Hollywood in 1933 to devote himself again to the theater. He returned to New York City in The First Apple (1933) and then took such plays as The Petrified Forest and The Male Animal on tour.
From 1937 to 1949, Nagel was also director and host for the Columbia Broadcasting System's radio drama series "Silver Theater. "
He became host for the American Broadcasting Company's television show "Celebrity Time" in 1948. During the next several years he appeared often on television. He continued to take time from his stage and television activity to act in the movies until the late 1950's, but he thought of New York as home during the latter part of his life; he died in New York City.
He became one of the most popular actors in America, averaging over 3, 000 fan letters every week. In the early 1930's he made thirty-one movies in twenty-four months. In 1940 he was presented with an Oscar for his work in behalf of actors for the Motion Picture Relief Fund. Nagel appeared in at least 111 movies and in more than twenty theatrical productions. His popularity was widespread, although he never achieved superstar status. His major contribution, however, lay in his unflagging service to his fellow actors.
He was a handsome man with an extraordinary voice.
On June 24, 1919, he married Ruth E. Helms, whose father had been a colleague of the elder Nagel. The couple had one child. In 1935 his wife divorced him. He married Lynn Merrick in 1945 and Michael Coulson Smith in 1955; both marriages were short-lived.
