Elliott [John] Nugent

Nugent, Elliott [John] (1899–1980), actor and playwright. A theatrical jack‐of‐all‐trades, he was the son of vaudevillians and made his debut in Los Angeles two‐a‐day at the age of four. Born in Dover, Ohio, he temporarily abandoned the stage to study at Ohio State University. His first New York appearance was in a minor role in Dulcy (1921), then he won fame the next year when he collaborated with his father, J. C. Nugent, on Kempy and assumed the title role of the naive plumber of the title. The Nugents wrote another hit in 1925, The Poor Nut, in which Elliott played the shy student John Miller who suddenly finds himself an important campus figure. After some time in films he scored another major hit with his collaboration with James Thurber, The Male Animal (1940), playing the central role of the idealistic professor Tommy Turner. Nugent played Bill Page, the soldier on a weekend pass, in John van Druten's The Voice of the Turtle (1943) and that same year staged the hit play, Tomorrow the World. His final success came when he re‐created the role of Tommy Turner in a 1952 revival of The Male Animal. Autobiography: Events Leading Up to the Comedy, 1965.