Biografía

Father, with Shirley Temple, of daughter Susan Agar (Linda Susan Agar) (born on January 30, 1948).

Was one of the dozens of Hollywood celebrities who made regular weekend visits to renowned animal trainer and Hollywood animal behaviorist Ralph Helfer's Africa U.S.A. Exotic Animal Ranch in Soledad Canyon, California, to play with the animals and pitch in with the chores.

After Universal put Agar into a third horror film, Bajo el signo de Ishtar (1956), he became disillusioned with the studio, especially since he had to compete with Tony Curtis, Rock Hudson, George Nader and Jeff Chandler for choice leading man roles, and he left the studio.

His marriage to actress Shirley Temple started his film career in the 1940s.

In 1972 "Famous Monsters of Filmland" Magazine reported John Agar "Dead"!! Agar lived to autograph several copies of the articles.

I don't resent being identified with B science fiction movies at all. Why should I? Even though they were not considered top of the line, for those people that like sci-fi, I guess they were fun. My whole feeling about working as an actor is, if I give anybody any enjoyment, I'm doing my job, and that's what counts.

To me it's much easier to play in something that's real -- a natural situation -- than it is to deal with abstracts and the unknown. It's sort of difficult to make them come to life! I always had the feeling that when people looked at some of these science fiction things we were going to get a big laugh. On a couple of occasions some of the things that were supposed to frighten people really looked rather ludicrous -- funny, rather than scary. I feel it's more natural to deal in something that people understand, rather than something that human beings don't come in contact with.

[in a 1991 interview] Acting is something that I love to do, but it's a part of me that's often dormant. So, when I get an opportunity to go on a film set it's like somebody's pushing a button that has been idle for a long time and right away I'm ready to get going at it. It's fun for me to be able to get back into it because it's a part of my life that I've really enjoyed.

To me the idea of just working is what's fun, I don't give a doggone what kind of part. Walter Huston said it years ago: "I don't care about billing. If the show is good and I'm good in it, people are going to say, 'Who was that?' And if it's not, I don't want 'em to know I was in it!"

Who wants to shake the hand of the first man to put it to America's sweetheart?