Nixon was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1915. He studied journalism the University of Richmond but left college to play football professionally. He was signed to the Washington Redskins but only played in the exhibition season. After a stint with a farm team in Norfolk, Virginia, he wrestled professionally, and then went to New York to become a reporter. Instead, 6'6 and attractive Nixon ended up modeling and was scouted by MGM. He was drafted during World War II, but his wife, Marie Wilson, saw to it that he was assigned guard duty. Nixon also starred in the sex hygiene filmThree Cadets made by the First Motion Picture Unit. Republic Pictures had been interested in putting him in westerns, but this interest had faded by the end of the war. RKO considered Nixon for the role of Tarzan following the retirement of Johnny Weissmuller, but the role went to Lex Barker. He is most known for his leading role in the independent filmPrehistoric Women. He appeared in the Carleton Holmes play Free for All in Los Angeles in 1947, with a review stating that he had played his role with "effective sincerity." He appeared in the playKitty Doone by Aben Kandel in 1949. He was also on stage in Miranda, You Only Twinkle Once, Rain, School for Scandal, Three Out of Four, and Anna Lucasta; the latter was a touring production in which Ann Dvorak costarred. Shortly after being signed by Columbia and performing in the successful Hugo Haas film Pickup, Nixon began refusing the small roles in B pictures offered to him. He was blacklisted by Harry Cohn and months later asked to be released from his contract. He claimed that all of the studios banded together to keep him from working. Nixon, by then divorced from Wilson, worked in construction for several years. Producer Ron Ormond cast him in such films as Outlaw Women and Mesa of Lost Women and as the lead inGulliver and the Little People, a modern take on Gulliver's Travels, but the series was not picked up. Nixon appeared on various television shows in the 1950s and early 1960s. Nixon was an informant for Confidential Magazine; this became public knowledge during the Confidential trial in 1957. Nixon became a writer in the early 1960s, publishing novels with such titles as The Sex Symbol and The Bitch Goddess. He wrote under his own name and the pseudonyms Nick Allen as well as several Shaft novels under the pen name Don Romano, finding more success as a writer than as an actor. He later reflected on his career as an actor, "Things went wrong, just put it that way. I'm not bitter. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the people I met and the fun I had."
Nixon met actress Marie Wilson while they were filming Rookies on Parade. Wilson was still engaged to director Nick Grinde when she and Nixon eloped in 1942. After two separations and reconciliations, they divorced in 1950 following years of stress due to Nixon's underemployment, and public embarrassments due to Nixon's tendency to get into violent altercations and drive under the influence of alcohol. Nixon married three more times. His second marriage, to Alma Hammond, was annulled shortly after it took place in 1954. He and his third wife, Velda May Paulsen, got into a violent altercation that made headlines in early 1958. Paulsen went to visit an old boyfriend, Burt Lancaster, in the hospital. Nixon, displeased that his wife went to see Lancaster, reportedly struck Paulsen, and Paulsen attacked him with kitchen knives Nixon had given her for Christmas. The fight resulted in Paulsen being arrested for attempted murder, but Nixon refused to press charges and the two reconciled. She died of burns suffered in an explosion later that year. Nixon's fourth wife was Maria Magda. He was a longtime friend of Arthur Kennedy and John Lund, the latter of whom had played Wilson's boyfriend in the My Friend Irma films. Nixon died of emphysema in 1995.
