If John Agar had resigned his Universal contract . . . in '50s Horror and Sci-Fi Forum

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If John Agar had resigned his Universal contract . . .

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Mora	If John Agar had resigned his Universal contract . . .	Lead	[-]
Mar 1 12 12:20 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Both Tom Weaver and I interviewed actor Agar and of course it is common knowledge that he walked away from Universal-International after "The Mole People", refusing to sign a new contract with the studio, because he could not be guaranteed to be offered parts in films other than sci-fi. Based on Universal's response, it seems they did want John Agar exclusively for genre offerings. Agar mentioned to both Tom and myself in our respective interviews that decision not to sign a new contract may have been a mistake. So had he decided to stay at the studio, would he have replaced Craig Stevens in "The Deadly Mantis", Arthur Franz in "Monster on the Campus", Jock Mahoney in "The Land Unknown"? Speculation, I know, but interesting to consider . . .
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TomWeaver999		#1	[-]
Mar 1 12 12:58 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	>> Agar mentioned to both Tom and myself in our respective interviews that decision not to sign a new contract may have been a mistake. << Yeah, he went from doing fairly good sci-fi flicks at a cushy major studio to doing crappy ultra-low-budget indie sci-fi flicks inside people's private houses -- and standing on the unemployment line between each lowly gig. Not a great move!
Mora		#2	[-]
Mar 1 12 1:12 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Ultimately, yes. Although he did say that he made more money from "Daughter of Dr. Jekyll" than what he was earning at U-I. Man, his studio salary must have been low . . .
skelton knaggs		#3	[-]
Mar 1 12 3:21 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Like I always tell my pals in the Arts....."Make sure you've got a GOOD agent'! Agar took a chance to walk away from Universal, but I can kinda understand his frustration.Unfortunately the move did not pay off. Literally.... "You can't smell any reefer, can you"?
Mora		#4	[-]
Mar 2 12 1:47 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	John remarked to me that he changed agents numerous time and none of them really delivered. Sounds similar to what Lugosi did during his later 30s career drought.
CucamongaDan		#5	[-]
Mar 2 12 4:32 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	TomWeaver999 wrote: >> Agar mentioned to both Tom and myself in our respective interviews that decision not to sign a new contract may have been a mistake. << Yeah, he went from doing fairly good sci-fi flicks at a cushy major studio to doing crappy ultra-low-budget indie sci-fi flicks inside people's private houses -- and standing on the unemployment line between each lowly gig. Not a great move! but he gave the world Zontar, Curse of the Swamp Creature and more, I thank him for his sacrifice. I remember hearing a radio interview with him on the George Putnam show a year or two before he died, nice guy. There is a thread that never ends. Yes, it goes on and on my friends. Some people started it not knowing that a tree can walk, And they'll keep posting forever about a movie they can mock...
Mora		#6	[-]
Mar 2 12 5:32 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Super-nice guy, as I'm sure Tom will attest. Although I had heard at one time he could be pretty blunt in his opinions, in his later years he seemed to have mellowed to the point where he would not say a bad word about ANYONE.
clore103051		#7	[-]
Mar 2 12 7:07 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I was just looking at Agar's trivia page at IMDb. Is it true that Famous Monsters reported him as dead in 1972? I had given up on the magazine a few years earlier, so this was the first that I heard of this.
Vertigo		#8	[-]
Mar 2 12 7:18 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I can't imagine the oeuvre of 50's Sci-Fi without The Brain from Planet Arous. And I mean that seriously. I loved that movie as a kid.
TomWeaver999		#9	[-]
Mar 2 12 7:50 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	<< John remarked to me that he changed agents numerous time and none of them really delivered. << Consider the large number of credits on his resume and the kind of drinker he was, I'd say his agents worked miracles!
skelton knaggs		#10	[-]
Mar 2 12 10:07 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	TomWeaver999 wrote: << John remarked to me that he changed agents numerous time and none of them really delivered. << Consider the large number of credits on his resume and the kind of drinker he was, I'd say his agents worked miracles! Now if he only stuck with those Shirley Temples.... "You can't smell any reefer, can you"?
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Monsterpal		#11	[-]
Mar 3 12 12:15 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	He was certainly more successful than the vast majority of actors.
TomWeaver999		#12	[-]
Mar 3 12 3:47 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I "love" how you can either resign (quit your job) or resign (sign a new contract to keep your job). What a useless word!
Mora		#13	[-]
Mar 4 12 12:34 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Yes clore103051, FM did print John Agar's premature obituary. Upon discovering that Agar was not dead, running into him at some fan convention, FJA decided to run the article anyway as a tribute to Agar (I recall the infamous Ron Leeds letter printed some issues later where he declared this as "bad taste"). I remember in the story Agar saying that he intended to be around in 2021 to celebrate his 100th birthday, but such was not to be. A heavy smoker troughout most of his life, he finally succumbed to the emphysema that plagued him throughout later years. Well, Monsterpal, he did have a successful run for a while, but in later years he sold insurance (which he said he hated) and drove a meat truck. Guess he sorta made a brief comeback thanks to Monsterkid filmmakers, but really nothing to write home about. Still, it was always nice to see him pop up in stuff like "Fear" and "Nightbreed".
DonM435		#14	[-]
Mar 4 12 11:12 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Mora wrote: Yes clore103051, FM did print John Agar's premature obituary. Upon discovering that Agar was not dead, running into him at some fan convention, FJA decided to run the article anyway as a tribute to Agar (I recall the infamous Ron Leeds letter printed some issues later where he declared this as "bad taste"). I remember in the story Agar saying that he intended to be around in 2021 to celebrate his 100th birthday, but such was not to be. A heavy smoker troughout most of his life, he finally succumbed to the emphysema that plagued him throughout later years. Well, Monsterpal, he did have a successful run for a while, but in later years he sold insurance (which he said he hated) and drove a meat truck. Guess he sorta made a brief comeback thanks to Monsterkid filmmakers, but really nothing to write home about. Still, it was always nice to see him pop up in stuff like "Fear" and "Nightbreed". I thought it was irresponsible to run the obit the way they did (straight-faced, with a disclaimer at the end, like a kid shouting " . . . Not!" Some journalism that. They were too cheap to re-do the pages and used the tribute as an excuse, in my opinion.
TomWeaver999		#15	[-]
Mar 4 12 11:27 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Squirrelly Early Fandom strikes again. "I think I heard John Agar died. I'll do an obit story on him even though I haven't got enough get-up-and-go to look for any details, haven't got enough smarts to wonder why it wasn't in the papers (not that I read the papers), haven't got enough professionalism to make any effort to find out if it's true." And people sometimes (not often!) ask me why I'm pretty much always dubious about "information" first found in the OLD-old monstuh mags and fanzines. If I need to know (for instance) the budget of DRACULA'S DAUGHTER, the last place I'm lookin' is the article by 19-year-old Joey Joe-Joe Junior Shabadoo in the summer 1968 issue of MONSTUHS AND MORE MONSTUHS (cover price, five cents). Last Edited By: TomWeaver999 Mar 5 12 12:10 AM. Edited 1 times.
Reegs		#16	[-]
Mar 5 12 11:41 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	But Joey did use one of them new-fangled IBM Selectrics.
Mora		#17	[-]
Mar 5 12 12:01 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Famous Monsters of Filmland --- Journalism????? Fortunately, nice guy that John was, he was a good sport about it. Wonder how another less-accomodating celebrity would have reacted to seeing his or her name printed in a premature obituary.
TomWeaver999		#18	[-]
Mar 5 12 12:14 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	My memory is that, within the "obit article" was the fact that he was still alive "but we thought we'd run his obit anyway, as a tribute"; it wasn't a case where they ran his obit in one issue and then had to admit their mistake in the next. Still, it shows that FM operated about 75 steps down from a high school newspaper -- presumably even high school newspapers had at least one adult of normal intelligence giving the thing the once-over before it went to press. IMHO, pretty much everything in the old FM should be taken with not a grain of salt but the whole salt shaker.
Mora		#19	[-]
Mar 5 12 12:28 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Wish I still had a copy of that issue. If I recall correctly, did not a cover line brazenly declare that John Agar had died? That's the first thing (besides the Hideous Sun Demon painting) that caught my eye when I saw that particular issue of FM at my fave drug store. Was a HUGE Agar fan as a kid and remember riding home on my bike with palpitating heart thinking that my movie hero had truly died. Was relieved to see it was not so, but that was a mighty misleading thing to print on the cover of a kid fan-fave magazine. LOVED FM as a young'un but looking at it today from a different perspective your comments are pretty much dead-on, Tom. . . . And I still wonder about the validity of that infamous Ron Leeds letter.
Kosmo13		#20	[-]
Mar 5 12 1:12 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I no longer have my copy of that issue either. My hazy recollection is that the retraction did appear in the same issue, but was a separate article. The obituary ran intact, but, once readers got a little further into the issue, they encountered a second article telling them to disregard the earlier article announcing Agar's death.
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If John Agar had resigned his Universal contract . . .

If John Agar had resigned his Universal contract . . .