During World War I, he served as a lieutenant (junior grade) and was an officer aboard USS Cyclops before it disappeared.

[1][2][3] Immediately after retiring from the Navy in 1922,[3] Nervig began work at Goldwyn Pictures as a film lab assistant, and remained with the studio after its merger to form Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) in 1924.

He won a second Oscar (shared with Ralph E. Winters) for the film King Solomon's Mines (1950).

These include "The Cyclops Mystery", an article published in 1969 by the US Naval Institute,[6] as well as the 1971 documentary film, "The Devil's Triangle".

[9] Nervig died at Palomar Memorial Hospital in Escondido, California on November 26, 1980.