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Agnes Moorehead (1900 - 1974)
Agnes Moorehead showed an early aptitude towards acting and public performance. She sang "The Lord Is My Shepherd" during one of her father's church services when she was only three years old. After reading The Poor Little Match Girl, she took to imitating the title character, lying in a corner, crying and shivering as if she were actually cold. A favorite game that she and her sister would play would be to mimic members of their father's congregation at the dinner table, much to their parents's amusement. The actress would later remark that her mother often asked, "And who are you today, Agnes?" In 1912, the Mooreheads moved to St. Louis, and Agnes joined the chorus and ballet of the St. Louis Municipal Opera Company. She enrolled at Muskingum College in 1919, where she performed in numerous stage productions, and graduated in 1923. After a stint as an English teacher, she attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, where she met her first husband, John Griffith Lee. Graduating from AADA in 1929, she and John were married in 1930. After a period as a starving actress, during which she lived on "hot water for breakfast, a roll for lunch, and rice for dinner," Agnes finally found work acting on the radio, though she found she had to do several different programs in order to earn a regular living. At one point she averaged six different radio shows a day at fifteen dollars per show. Among the programs she performed in were Bringing Up Father and The Seth Parker Family Hour. In a foreshadowing to her later fame, she provided the voice for the Wicked Witch in an NBC radio presentation of The Wizard of Oz. In 1937 Agnes Moorehead joined Orson Welles's Mercury Theater and appeared in his modern dress production of Julius Caesar, and also performed as an uncredited "screamer" in his War of the Worlds Halloween broadcast in 1938. It was through Orson Welles that Agnes received her first film role, that of the title character's mother in Citizen Kane. This was shortly followed by a role as Aunt Fanny Minafer in Welles's The Magnificent Ambersons, for which she received an Academy Award nomination. Additional films included Jane Eyre; Since You Went Away; Dragon Seed; Mrs. Parkington, for which she received a second Academy Award nomination; and Our Vines Have Tender Grapes. She refused a small part in the film version of Sorry, Wrong Number in 1948 after Barbara Stanwyck was cast in the lead role, which Agnes had originally played in the 1943 radio drama version and which in fact had been written for Agnes by the story's creator, Lucille Fletcher. Despite this disappointment, Agnes Moorehead enjoyed a healthy and prosperous film career during the 1940s, including a third Academy Award nomination for Johnny Belinda, and even bought an alfalfa farm in Ohio which she managed with her husband. They also adopted a son, Sean, in 1949. The 1950s brought a return to the stage by Agnes Moorehead. In 1951 she appeared with Charles Laughton, Charles Boyer, and Cedric Hardwicke in Don Juan in Hell, which proved a great popular and critical success. That same year she appeared in a new color version of the film Showboat as the stern wife of Joe E. Brown. However, the following year, after years of estrangement and amid allegations of physical and mental abuse, Agnes divorced John Lee. She married her second husband, Robert Gist, a man twenty years her junior, in 1953, but separated from him amid allegations of infidelity the following year. They finally divorced in 1958. Agnes Moorehead's first television appearance came in 1953 with a role in The Revlon Mirror Theater production of "Lullaby." That same year she appeared in the film, Those Redheads from Seattle. In 1958 she toured with a one woman show, The Fabulous Redhead, in which she gave readings from the Bible, Don Juan in Hell, and Sorry,Wrong Number. In 1960 she appeared in the Disney film Pollyanna and also played the part of the witch Mombi in The Shirley Temple Show's presentation of The Marvelous Land of Oz. Her cockney voiced portrayal of Mombi later led the creators of Bewitched to consider her for the role of Endora. In 1961 she appeared in the episode, "The Invaders" of The Twilight Zone, playing a lonely hermit whose home is invaded by miniature spacemen. Many still consider this to be the best episode in the entire series. She appeared with fellow Mercury Theater alumnus Joseph Cotten in a 1962 production of Prescription: Murder, a play which inspired the Columbo television series of the 1970s. After appearing with Jerry Lewis and Jill St. John in Who's Minding the Store? and with Bette Davis in Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte in a role which earned her a fourth Academy Award nomination, Agnes Moorehead was cast in what became her most well known role, Endora on Bewitched . While she professed a general disliking for television, describing most of the scripts presented to her as "hack," Agnes Moorehead did seem to enjoy her eight years on Bewitched and got along very well with stars Elizabeth Montgomery, Dick York, and, later, Dick Sargent. As the disapproving mother of witch-turned-housewife Samantha Stephens (Montgomery), Agnes appeared in nearly every episode of the series, and by the broadcast of the last episode had become almost completely identified with the role of Endora. With a performance that blended characterizations from Shakespeare, Noel Coward, Auntie Mame, Kabuki, and even, some say, a sizable dose of her own personality, Agnes quickly became a favorite among the viewing public, and garnered six Emmy nominations. She eventually did win an Emmy, but not for Endora. Instead, she was awarded an Emmy for her role in an episode of The Wild, Wild West, "Night of the Vicious Valentine," in which she played a scheming society matchmaker who plotted to seize control of the country's largest fortunes and thus of the country itself. Following the cancellation of Bewitched in 1972, Agnes Moorehead returned to the stage, appearing in a revival of Don Juan in Hell, co-starring with Ricardo Montalban, Paul Henreid, and Edward Mulhare, and directed by former Mercury Theater member John Houseman. Opening in 1973, the revival met with mixed critical and popular response and closed after a limited run. That same year, Agnes provided one of the voices for the animated feature Charlotte's Web, with Bewitched co-star Paul Lynde. She also appeared with Ruth Buzzi as a witch in a comical vignette on Night Gallery as a favor to friend Rod Serling, and had a small role in the two-part television movie Frankenstein: The True Story as Dr. Frankenstein's landlady, a character largely suggested by the housekeeper played by Una O'Connor in The Bride of Frankenstein in 1935. While performing in the revival of Gigi in late 1973, Agnes fell ill and was forced to leave the show. It was at this time that she learned one of her previous roles had cost her her health and life. In 1956 Agnes Moorehead appeared with John Wayne and Susan Hayward in The Conqueror, Howard Hughes' epic about the ascension of Temujin Genghis Khan over the Mongol tribes. The film was shot on location in the Utah desert, where winds had blown radioactive dust and sand from the Nevada nuclear test sites. Windstorms almost daily stirred the dust, which cast and crew breathed in, got into their hair and eyes, and ingested in food and drink. By 1973, Susan Hayward had already been diagnosed with brain cancer, one cast member had committed suicide upon learning of his cancer diagnosis, and several cast and crew members had also been diagnosed with various forms of cancer and leukemia. Now Agnes Moorehead had been diagnosed with lung cancer. After seeking treatment at the Mayo Clinic and later checking into a Rochester, Minnesota hospital, Agnes Moorehead died on 30 April, 1974. At her request she was buried near her father in Dayton, Ohio. Speculation on Agnes Moorehead's sexuality was rampant both during her life and after her death. Many noted that both her marriages ended in divorce and her only child was adopted. Rumors circulated concerning her close relationship with actress Debbie Reynolds, with whom she co-starred in The Singing Nun in 1966 and Charlotte's Web in 1973. And some speculated if her nickname, "The Lavender Lady," was not just due to her near fanatical fondness for that color. A scene in The Opposite Sex (1956), in which she sported a rather "butch" cowgirl outfit and delivered the line, "I wouldn't know about that; it was before I came out," may have been a joke on Agnes by those who were in the know. While Elizabeth Montgomery and Dick Sargent both said they never saw or heard anything to indicate Agnes's lesbianism, Paul Lynde matter-of-factly declared that Agnes was indeed "one of the all-time Hollywood dykes." Like another "Hollywood dyke," Alla Nazimova, Agnes Moorehead may not have been open about her sexuality but was certainly open about her religious convictions and conservative opinions, the result of her upbringing. A self-described Fundamentalist, she was always known to keep a copy of the Bible as well as the script with her on the set, and would often retire to read Scripture during breaks. While renowned for the fabulous parties she would host at her home, she was also known for the stirring sermons she would give in her living room every Sunday morning. Agnes was also very vocal about her displeasure at what she saw as growing moral laxity in both society and the arts during the sixties. She was highly critical of the works of Edward Albee and Tennessee Williams, and her displeasure with modern trends extended to her son as well, who had begun drinking and sporting long hair. Unable to make Sean conform to her standards, she finally threw him out of the house. And as with Endora, people learned almost immediately if Agnes liked them or not. Yet despite her reserved and opinionated nature, Agnes seemed to be admired and respected by all who worked with her. She was known for her good heart, which extended to helping young actors. Agnes Moorehead ran an acting school out of her home and also taught seminars at the University of Southern California. And no one could deny her talent as an actress or the strength of her personality. In many ways, Agnes Moorehead, "The Lavender Lady," was one of the grande dames of the dramatic craft. Note: Agnes Moorehead: A Bio-Bibliography, by Lynn Kear (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1992) was the primary source for this article. Agnes Moorehead's stage credits include Don Juan In Hell (1951, 1952); The Fabulous Redhead (1958); Lord Pengo (1962); Don Juan In Hell (revival, 1973); and Gigi (1973-1974). Her film credits include Citizen Kane (1941); The Magnificent Ambersons (1942); Journey Into Fear (1942); The Big Street (1942); The Youngest Profession (1943); Jane Eyre (1944); Dragon Seed (1944); Since You Went Away (1944); The Seventh Cross (1944); Mrs. Parkington (1944); Keep Your Powder Dry (1945); Her Highness and the Bellboy (1945); Our Vines Have Tender Grapes (1945); Dark Passage (1947); The Lost Moment (1947); Summer Holiday (1948); The Woman in White (1948); Johnny Belinda (1948); The Stratton Story (1949); Caged (1950); Without Honor (1950); Adventures of Captain Fabian (1951); Show Boat (1951); The Blue Veil (1951); Scandal at Scourie (1953); Main Street to Broadway (1953); Those Redheads from Seattle (1953); The Story of Three Loves (1953); Magnificent Obsession (1954); All That Heaven Allows (1955); The Conqueror (1956); Meet Me in Las Vegas (1956); The Swan (1956); The Opposite Sex (1956); The True Story of Jesse James (1957); Raintree County (1957); The Story of Mankind (1957); La Tempesta (1958); The Bat (1959); Pollyanna (1960); Twenty Plus Two (1961); Bachelor in Paradise (1961); Jessica (1962); How the West Was Won (1962); Who's Minding the Store? (1963); Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964); The Singing Nun (1966); What's the Matter with Helen? (1971); Dear Dead Delilah (1972); and Charlotte's Web (1973). Her television credits include not only her eight years as Endora on Bewitched (1964 - 72); A Tale of Two Cities (1958); Alice Through the Looking Glass (1966); Mr. Blackwell Presents (1968); Marriage: Year One (1971); Suddenly Single (1971); The Strange Monster of Strawberry Cove (1971); Rolling Man (1972); Night of Terror (1972); Frankenstein: The True Story (1973); and Rex Harrison Presents Stories of Love (1974), as well as numerous guest appearances on Climax!; Playhouse 90; The Rebel; Shirley Temple Storybook (aka The Shirley Temple Show); Chevy Mystery Theater; Adventures in Paradise; Rawhide; The Rifleman; The Twilight Zone; Burke's Law; The Wild, Wild, West; The Virginian; Night Gallery; Love, American Style; and Marcus Welby, MD. Links:
Internet Movie Database: Agnes Moorehead Bewitched Beography on Agnes Moorehead Find A Death: Elizabeth Montgomery and the Cast of Bewitched Agnes Moorehead - encyclopedia article from Britannica.com Agnes Moorehead: She Bewitched Us With Charm & Talent Agnes Moorehead Video Clips From Password Agnes Moorehead is God; The Church of Endora
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