John Agar: Movies & Box Office

John Agar was an American film and television actor whose career spanned more than five decades, beginning in the late 1940s and concluding in the early 2000s. Born on January 31, 1921 in Chicago, Illinois, he was the son of Lillian Rogers and meat‑packer John George Agar, and he later claimed a notable great‑aunt, Edna Gladney, among his relatives. After attending the Harvard School for Boys, Lake Forest Academy, and Trinity‑Pawling Preparatory School, he moved with his family to Los Angeles in 1942, where he would soon enter the entertainment world. His early adult years were marked by military service: he first joined the U.S. Navy Air Corps in 1941, was medically discharged in 1943, and then served as a sergeant and physical‑training instructor in the U.S. Army Air Corps until 1946.\n\nAgar’s entry into Hollywood was facilitated by his meeting with Shirley Temple in 1943, a connection that led to their 1945 marriage and a five‑year acting contract with David O. Selznick. He debuted opposite Temple in Fort Apache (1948) and soon appeared in celebrated John Ford westerns such as She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) and the WWII drama Sands of Iwo Jima (1949), both alongside John Wayne. While his early studio work showed promise, a series of personal setbacks—including arrests for drunk driving and a 1952 termination by Selznick—pushed him toward B‑movies, where he became a cult favorite in science‑fiction, horror, and western titles like Tarantula! (1955), The Mole People (1956), and Revenge of the Creature (1955). Throughout the 1960s and 1970s he continued to appear in low‑budget genre fare and occasional supporting roles in major productions, such as The Undefeated (1969) and Big Jake (1971).\n\nHis personal life saw two marriages: after divorcing Temple in 1950, he wed model Loretta Barnett Combs in 1951, a union that produced two sons and lasted until her death in 2000. Agar struggled with alcoholism and cigarette addiction—habits he later blamed on John Wayne—yet he remained active on television into the 1990s. He died on April 7, 2002 in Burbank, California, from complications of emphysema, leaving behind a legacy of beloved B‑movie performances and a reputation for embracing the joy of entertaining genre fans.