Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1919)

Conrad in Quest of Age "I'm not really as young as the parts I play," says Nai^cl — he's twenty-two. OF course," said Conrad Nagel, "l ni not really as young as most of the parts I pJay." Now when a ver> young person begins to tell you how ven, oM he really is. vour cue is to say •Intleed!" in a solemn and respectful manner. Unfonunately, I giggled. Whereupon. Mr. Nagel looked pained and grew more emphatic. No. but really Im not." he protested. "I "am twentytwo years old, and I ve been cast for parts younger than I am ever since I've been on the stage. There was the boy in The Man Who Came Back' and Laurie in Little Women' and now this young 'Ted' in "Forever After." He does grow up later on, of course, but most of the time he is high-school and freshman age. Now really, off the stage you'd say I looked older than a freshman." ni say he did. In his running trunks ( for the stage boat race) and big white sweater he looked ever> day a sophomore — a rather young sophomore it is true, with an ingratiating grin and supernaturally solemn blue eves, the sort of solemn eyes that make you suspect mischief behind them. When he was five, he probably was caught in the jam closet »ith strawberry preserves all over that angelic e.\pression and the clock and the hammer and the cat K-ing in wrecks around him. "The odd thing about it." he Wfnt on, "is that the first role I e\cr played was an old. old man. It was Scrooge in Dickens' -stmas Carol.' I was fourteen '•> old and I didn't know much I itiuut playing an old man I rpuldnt get it at all at first until I beto think of a terribly old fellow lived near our school— old Xmas we i him— and I twisteil mv mouth and to walk like him— like this—" and Mr -Nagel aiust rated in a most venerable mannn. ' >ou must have been ver> convincing," said I politely. "Oh, it wasn't bad and the familv liked it " he arimitted modesUy. 'But that was mv one and only old man. All thn.ugh college and »nen I first went in stock with the Princes* <-"mpaxiy m Iowa I playe<l young roles. And •?« same thing in the films Just now I'm rig two roles with Alice Brady— this Ted ^ the stage here in 'Forever After' and a ver>' The age* of a younft man. Dirrctly abovr yoiitijt .Sajtrl in hi* fir»< camrra adidy, lakrn May Ih, 1H«*7. VI i«h hi* m..«hrr. — he waa 2 moniha olj. At top — .Na^rl "ehc .Man Who Camr Back" on the mtaffr, now Iradinfl man for Alirr Brady and aharinil honor* with ihr mtar in hrr fathrr'* production ul "Jorrvrr A(trr." By Dorothy Allison wild, wealthy young man in 'Red Head.' our first film together for Paramount. Miss Brady has to reform nu and its a tough job," .said the wild, wealthy young man proudly. "At the beginning I was neariy side-tracked into musical comedy. But then I had my first big stage role and that decided me. What was the role? It was Voiit/i in 'E.xperience.' " So ever since he has gone on playing "Youth" in one form or another, and will undoubtedly continue to play it for some time to come. For he has the (luaiity that is quite indepentlent i)f time — the half-wistful, half-assured (|ualily that belongs to youth alone and is diflicult to define and impossible to simulate. It will probably be years and years before he has another chance to play Scrooge. .And then it may happen that he won't care to play Scrooge — or he won't play him with half as much enthusiasm as he did when he was fourteen. But who cares to go into the psychology of it? .■\n actor who is a Broadway success at twenty-two doesn't waste much time on that sort of thing—especially when he is in demand for his screen senices as well, and his to get up at si.v in the morninc to catch the first car o'll to Flat hush, when he is working for \itagraph : or across town to the studio where *he is working now opposite Alice Brady: work before the camera until six o'clock — that is, when he hasn't a matinee; then he justifies his tit'e of Manhattan's most promising youni; actor commuter Home an apartment on Riverside Drive, where he lives with his parents and a younger brother, for whom, by the way, he predicts a career as a comedian a little later on— for a hasty ilinner; then a dash to the theatre and into his makeup as the young chap of "Forever After" -it's a great life! Nagel isn't happy unless he is filling two or three engagements at one lime. By the time (his is read, we could not truthfully say that Nagel isn't married. For sometime in June he is to wed Miss Ruth Helms, of t'hicago. She was "Evanst<in"s prettiest co-ed " when he met hrr during the Chicago run of "The Man Who Came Back" Before Najrel's company left, they were engage<l — and they will do another "Forever After." 07