Agnes Moorehead
Encyclopedia
Agnes Robertson Moorehead (December 6, 1900 – April 30, 1974) was an American actress. Although she began with the Mercury Theatre
, appeared in more than seventy films beginning with Citizen Kane
and on dozens of television shows during a career that spanned more than thirty years, Moorehead is most widely known to modern audiences for her role as the witch Endora in the series Bewitched
.
While rarely playing leads in films, Moorehead's skill at character development and range earned her one Emmy Award
and two Golden Globe awards in addition to four Academy Award and six Emmy Award nominations. Moorehead's transition to television won acclaim for drama and comedy. She could play many different types, but often portrayed haughty, arrogant characters.
, of English
, Irish
, Scottish
and Welsh
ancestry, to a Presbyterian clergy
man, John Henderson Moorehead, and his wife, the former Mildred McCauley, who had been a singer. Moorehead later shaved six years off her age by claiming to have been born in 1906. Moorehead recalled her first public performance was at the age of three, reciting "The Lord's Prayer" in her father's church. The family moved to St. Louis, Missouri
, and Moorehead's ambition to become an actress grew "very strong". Her mother indulged her active imagination often asking, "Who are you today, Agnes?", while Moorehead and her sister would often engage in mimicry, often coming to the dinner table and imitating parishioners. Moorehead noted and was encouraged by her father's amused reactions. She joined the chorus of the St. Louis Municipal Opera Company
, known as "The Muny". In addition to her interest in acting, she developed a lifelong interest in religion; in later years actors such as Dick Sargent
would recall Moorehead arriving on the set with "the Bible
in one hand and the script in the other".
Moorehead graduated from Central High School in St. Louis in 1918. Although her father did not discourage Moorehead's acting ambitions, he insisted that she obtain a formal education. In 1923, Moorehead earned a bachelor's degree
, with a major in biology
, from Muskingum College
in New Concord, Ohio
, and while there she also appeared in college stage plays. She later received an honorary doctorate
in literature from Muskingum, and served for a year on its board of trustees. When her family moved to Reedsburg, Wisconsin
, she taught public school for five years in Soldiers Grove
, Wisconsin, while she also earned a master's degree
in English and public speaking at the University of Wisconsin (now University of Wisconsin–Madison
). She then pursued post-graduate studies at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts
, from which she graduated with honors in 1929. Moorehead received an honorary doctoral degree from Bradley University
in Peoria, Illinois
.
who encouraged her to try to enter films, but her first attempts were met with failure. Rejected as not being "the right type", Moorehead returned to radio.
and by 1937 was a member of his Mercury Theatre Group
, along with Joseph Cotten
. She appeared in his radio production Julius Caesar, had a regular role in the serial The Shadow
as Margo and was one of the players in his The War of the Worlds
production. In 1939, Welles moved the Mercury Theatre Group to Hollywood, where he started working for RKO Studios. Several of his radio performers joined him, and Moorehead made her film debut as his mother in Citizen Kane (1941), considered one of the best films ever made. She also appeared in his films Journey into Fear (1943), based on a novel
by Eric Ambler
and The Magnificent Ambersons
(1942), based on a novel
by Booth Tarkington
. She received a New York Film Critics Award and an Academy Award nomination for her performance in the latter film.
Moorehead played another strong role in The Big Street (1942) with Henry Fonda
and Lucille Ball
, and then appeared in two films that failed to find an audience, Government Girl with Olivia de Havilland
and The Youngest Profession
with the adolescent Virginia Weidler
.
; she inaugurated the role on CBS Radio.
Moorehead skillfully portrayed puritanical matrons, neurotic spinsters, possessive mothers, and comical secretaries throughout her career. She played Parthy Hawks, wife of Cap'n Andy and mother of Magnolia, in MGM's hit 1951 remake of Show Boat
. She was in many important films, including Dark Passage and Since You Went Away
, either playing key small or large supporting parts. Moorehead was in Broadway
productions of Don Juan in Hell in 1951-1952, and Lord Pengo in 1962-1963.
s, especially on the CBS
show Suspense
. During the 946 episodes run of Suspense, Moorehead was cast in more episodes than any other actor or actress. She was often introduced on the show as the "first lady of Suspense". Moorehead's most successful appearance on Suspense was in the legendary play Sorry, Wrong Number
, written by Lucille Fletcher
, broadcast on May 18, 1943. Moorehead played a selfish, neurotic woman who overhears a murder being plotted via crossed phone wires who eventually realizes she is the intended victim. She recreated the performance six times for Suspense and several times on other radio shows, always using her original, dog-eared script. In 1952, she recorded an album of the drama, and performed scenes from the story in her one-woman show in the 1950s. (Barbara Stanwyck
played the role in the 1948 film version.)
, Charles Laughton
, and Cedric Hardwicke
.
Sorry, Wrong Number also inspired writers of the CBS television series The Twilight Zone
to script an episode with Moorehead in mind. In "The Invaders
" (broadcast 27 January 1961) Moorehead played a woman whose isolated farm is plagued by mysterious intruders. In "Sorry, Wrong Number" Moorehead offered a famed, bravura performance using only her voice, and for "The Invaders" she was offered a script where she had no dialogue at all.
starring Shirley Bonne
and Elaine Stritch
as Eileen (an aspiring actress) and Ruth Sherwood, respectively, two single sisters living in New York City. That same season, she appeared in Pat O'Brien
's ABC
sitcom Harrigan and Son
.
In the 1963-1964 season, she appeared in an episode of the ABC series about college
life, Channing
. In 1967, she portrayed an Indian
named Watoma on the ABC military-western series Custer
with Wayne Maunder
in the title role.
She appeared as the nosy do-gooder "Miss Bertie" in the show The Rifleman
.
, which became one of the most famous episodes of the series.
. She later commented that she had not expected it to succeed and that she ultimately felt trapped by its success. However, she had negotiated to appear in only eight of every twelve episodes made, therefore allowing her sufficient time to pursue other projects. She also felt that the television writing was often below standard and dismissed many of the Bewitched scripts as "hack" in a 1965 interview. The role brought her a level of recognition that she had not received before as Bewitched was in the top 10 programs for the first few years it screened.
Moorehead received six Emmy Award
nominations, but was quick to remind interviewers that she had enjoyed a long and distinguished career. Despite her ambivalence, she remained with Bewitched until its run ended in 1972. She commented to the New York Times in 1974, "I've been in movies and played theater from coast to coast, so I was quite well known before Bewitched, and I don't particularly want to be identified as a witch." Later that year she said that she had enjoyed playing the role, but that it was not challenging and the show itself was "not breathtaking" although her flamboyant and colorful character appealed to children. She expressed a fondness for the show's star, Elizabeth Montgomery
, and said that she had enjoyed working with her. Co-star Dick Sargent
, who in 1969 replaced the ill Dick York
as Samantha's husband, Darrin Stephens, had a more difficult relationship with Moorehead, caustically describing her as "a tough old bird."
episode "Certain Shadows on the Wall." She also reprised her role in "Don Juan in Hell" on Broadway and on tour, in an all-star cast which also featured Edward Mulhare.
Moorehead also memorably supplied the voice of the mother Goose in Hanna-Barbera
's 1973 adaption of the E. B. White
children's book Charlotte's Web
In January 1974, three months before her death, Moorehead performed in two episodes (including the very first) of CBS Radio Mystery Theater
, the popular series produced by old-time radio master Himan Brown
.
; they divorced in 1958.
In the years since her death, rumors about Moorehead's being of lesbian or bisexual orientation have been widespread. Light was shed regarding her sexuality most clearly in a book of personal interviews titled Hollywood Lesbians by Boze Hadleigh
. Hadleigh's source was Agnes Moorehead herself, in an interview that was (like all the interviews) recorded verbatim from tape recorder to print. On pages 192-194, Agnes said that marriage and love didn't often go together, and that marriage was often a duty. When asked point-blank about her sexuality, she surprisingly replied with a wry half-smile, "You apparently have your own informants. I don't know what you've heard, and I don't want to hear, and some of it may be true." Hadleigh explained that "truth gets around," to which Moorehead even more surprisingly responded, "Somehow." She then went on to say why she felt she could not discuss the issue; she deeply feared malice, mockery, sensationalism, a wrong-minded masculine reduction of love between women equated to mere lust and sex, and moral condemnation: "If I make a statement to you now, it will be used one way or another to represent me [sensationally, without regard to illuminating and understanding such romantic love, its emotional intricacy, beauty, spirituality element, or perspective--these are also her exact words], if it's controversial or shocking enough, in who knows how many future books? [Whether] onscreen or in a book, a supporting actress never receives the same in-depth, the same amount of time, that any star receives." Her eyes then welled up, and Hadleigh did not press her in her distress.
Earlier in the interview, Moorehead says, "A woman may love a person who is this or that, male or female. Love doesn't have a sex. Women operate on a different plane; our feelings are emotional, not physical...why always bring up sex?" She felt that men were more sexual and physical in loving, and that by contrast, women were more emotional and even spiritual in loving each other.
Hadleigh asks, "Have you loved many women?" Agnes answers, "Well I have loved women. Of course."
Also in Hadleigh's interview, Agnes said that she had considered writing her memoirs to keep what was not acceptable or misunderstood during her lifetime from being disclosed and exposed to leering ridicule. Moorehead biographer Charles Tranberg (I Love the Illusion: The Life and Career of Agnes Moorehead, 2005) interviewed several of the actress's closest friends, who claimed that Agnes was heterosexual. Debbie Reynolds
--about whom rumors of bisexuality have also been widespread--stated that Moorehead was very religious, and denied to film historian Robert Osborne
that "best friend" Moorehead was lesbian or bisexual.
Moorehead was a devout Presbyterian as she grew older, and, in interviews, often spoke of her relationship with God
. In one of her last films, What's the Matter with Helen?
(1971, costarring Debbie Reynolds), she played an evangelist
. Shortly before her death, Moorehead sought Christian causes to benefit after her death through her estate.
on April 30, 1974 in Rochester, Minnesota
. Her mother, Mary M. Moorehead (August 25, 1883 – June 8, 1990) survived her by 16 years, dying at the age of 106 in 1990.
Moorehead appeared in the 1956 movie The Conqueror
, which was shot near Saint George, Utah-- downwind
from the Yucca Flat, Nevada nuclear test site. She was one of over 90 (of 220) cast and crew members--including costars Susan Hayward, John Wayne, and Pedro Armendariz, as well as director-producer Dick Powell--who, over their lifetimes, all developed cancer(s); at least 46 from cast and crew have since died from cancer(s), including all of those named above. No bombs were tested during the actual filming of The Conqueror, but 11 explosions occurred the year before. Two of them were particularly "dirty," depositing long-lasting radiation over the area. The 51.5-kiloton shot code-named "Simon" was fired on April 25, 1953, and the 32.4-kiloton blast "Harry" went off May 19. (In contrast, the bomb dropped on Hiroshima was 13 kilotons.) "Fallout was very abundant more than a year after Harry," says Dr. Pendleton, a former AEC researcher. "Some of the isotopes, such as strontium 90 and cesium 137, would not have diminished much." Pendleton points out that radioactivity can concentrate in "hot spots" such as the rolling dunes of Snow Canyon, a natural reservoir for windblown material. It was the place where much of The Conqueror was filmed. Pendleton also notes that radioactive substances enter the food chain. By eating local meat and produce, the Conqueror cast and crew were increasing their risk. Says Dr. Robert C. Pendleton, director of radiological health at the University of Utah stated, "With these numbers, this case could qualify as an epidemic. The connection between fallout radiation and cancer in individual cases has been practically impossible to prove conclusively. But in a group this size you'd expect only 30-some cancers to develop. With 91, I think the tie-in to their exposure on the set of The Conqueror would hold up even in a court of law."
Agnes was one of the first members of the company to make a connection between the film and the fallout. Her close friend Sandra Gould, who was featured with her on Bewitched, recalls that long before Moorehead developed the uterine cancer that killed her in 1974, she recounted rumors of "some radioactive germs" on location in Utah, observing: "Everybody in that picture has gotten cancer and died." As she was dying, she told best friend Debbie Reynolds: "I should never have taken that part."
Moorehead is entombed at Dayton Memorial Park in Dayton
, Ohio.
Moorehead bequeathed her 1967 Emmy Award
statue for The Wild Wild West
, her private papers, and her home in Rix Mills, Ohio, to her alma mater Muskingum College
. She left her family's Ohio estate and farmlands, Moorehead Manor, to Bob Jones University
in Greenville, South Carolina
, as well as some biblical studies books from her personal library. Her will stipulated that BJU should use the farm for retreats and special meetings "with a Christian emphasis", but the distance of the estate from the South Carolina campus rendered it mostly useless. In May 1976, BJU traded the Moorehead farmlands with an Ohio college for $25,000 and a collection of her library books. Moorehead also left her professional papers, scripts, Christmas cards and scrapbooks to the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research at the Wisconsin Historical Society
.
In 1994, Moorehead was posthumously inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame
.
Short Subjects:
Mercury Theatre
The Mercury Theatre was a theatre company founded in New York City in 1937 by Orson Welles and John Houseman. After a string of live theatrical productions, in 1938 the Mercury Theatre progressed into their best-known period as The Mercury Theatre on the Air, a radio series that included one of the...
, appeared in more than seventy films beginning with Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film, directed by and starring Orson Welles. Many critics consider it the greatest American film of all time, especially for its innovative cinematography, music and narrative structure. Citizen Kane was Welles' first feature film...
and on dozens of television shows during a career that spanned more than thirty years, Moorehead is most widely known to modern audiences for her role as the witch Endora in the series Bewitched
Bewitched
Bewitched is an American situation comedy originally broadcast for eight seasons on ABC from 1964 to 1972, starring Elizabeth Montgomery, Dick York and Dick Sargent , Agnes Moorehead, and David White. The show is about a witch who marries a mortal and tries to lead the life of a typical suburban...
.
While rarely playing leads in films, Moorehead's skill at character development and range earned her one Emmy Award
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
and two Golden Globe awards in addition to four Academy Award and six Emmy Award nominations. Moorehead's transition to television won acclaim for drama and comedy. She could play many different types, but often portrayed haughty, arrogant characters.
Early life
Moorehead was born in Clinton, MassachusettsClinton, Massachusetts
Clinton is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 13,606 at the 2010 census.For geographic and demographic information on the census-designated place Clinton, please see the article Clinton , Massachusetts....
, of English
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
, Irish
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
, Scottish
Scottish people
The Scottish people , or Scots, are a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland. Historically they emerged from an amalgamation of the Picts and Gaels, incorporating neighbouring Britons to the south as well as invading Germanic peoples such as the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse.In modern use,...
and Welsh
Welsh people
The Welsh people are an ethnic group and nation associated with Wales and the Welsh language.John Davies argues that the origin of the "Welsh nation" can be traced to the late 4th and early 5th centuries, following the Roman departure from Britain, although Brythonic Celtic languages seem to have...
ancestry, to a Presbyterian clergy
Clergy
Clergy is the generic term used to describe the formal religious leadership within a given religion. A clergyman, churchman or cleric is a member of the clergy, especially one who is a priest, preacher, pastor, or other religious professional....
man, John Henderson Moorehead, and his wife, the former Mildred McCauley, who had been a singer. Moorehead later shaved six years off her age by claiming to have been born in 1906. Moorehead recalled her first public performance was at the age of three, reciting "The Lord's Prayer" in her father's church. The family moved to St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
, and Moorehead's ambition to become an actress grew "very strong". Her mother indulged her active imagination often asking, "Who are you today, Agnes?", while Moorehead and her sister would often engage in mimicry, often coming to the dinner table and imitating parishioners. Moorehead noted and was encouraged by her father's amused reactions. She joined the chorus of the St. Louis Municipal Opera Company
The Muny
The Muny, short for The Municipal Theatre Association of St. Louis, is an outdoor musical theatre, located in Forest Park, St. Louis, Missouri...
, known as "The Muny". In addition to her interest in acting, she developed a lifelong interest in religion; in later years actors such as Dick Sargent
Dick Sargent
Richard Stanford Cox , known professionally as Dick Sargent, was an American actor, notable as the second actor to portray Darrin Stephens on the television series Bewitched...
would recall Moorehead arriving on the set with "the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
in one hand and the script in the other".
Moorehead graduated from Central High School in St. Louis in 1918. Although her father did not discourage Moorehead's acting ambitions, he insisted that she obtain a formal education. In 1923, Moorehead earned a bachelor's degree
Bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for three or four years, but can range anywhere from two to six years depending on the region of the world...
, with a major in biology
Biology
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
, from Muskingum College
Muskingum College
Muskingum University is a private four-year comprehensive college with a strong liberal arts tradition located in New Concord, Ohio, approximately sixty miles east of the state capital of Columbus. Founded in 1837, Muskingum University is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church , although since the...
in New Concord, Ohio
New Concord, Ohio
New Concord is a village in Muskingum County, Ohio, United States. The population was 2,651 at the 2000 census. New Concord is the home of Muskingum University and is served by a branch of the Muskingum County Library System.-Geography:...
, and while there she also appeared in college stage plays. She later received an honorary doctorate
Doctorate
A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder to teach in a specific field, A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder...
in literature from Muskingum, and served for a year on its board of trustees. When her family moved to Reedsburg, Wisconsin
Reedsburg, Wisconsin
Reedsburg is a city in Sauk County, Wisconsin, along the Baraboo River. The population was 10,014 at the 2010 census. The city is in the Town of Reedsburg, but is politically independent...
, she taught public school for five years in Soldiers Grove
Soldiers Grove, Wisconsin
Soldiers Grove is a village located alongside the Kickapoo River in Crawford County, Wisconsin, in the United States. As of the 2000 census, the village population was 653.-Claim to fame:...
, Wisconsin, while she also earned a master's degree
Master's degree
A master's is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice...
in English and public speaking at the University of Wisconsin (now University of Wisconsin–Madison
University of Wisconsin–Madison
The University of Wisconsin–Madison is a public research university located in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. Founded in 1848, UW–Madison is the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin System. It became a land-grant institution in 1866...
). She then pursued post-graduate studies at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts
American Academy of Dramatic Arts
The American Academy of Dramatic Arts is a fully accredited two-year conservatory with facilities located in Manhattan, New York City – at 120 Madison Avenue, in a landmark building designed by noted architect Stanford White as the original Colony Club – and in Hollywood, California...
, from which she graduated with honors in 1929. Moorehead received an honorary doctoral degree from Bradley University
Bradley University
Bradley University, founded in 1897, is a private, co-educational university located in Peoria, Illinois. It is a small institution with an enrollment of approximately 6,100 undergraduate and postgraduate students and a full-time faculty of approximately 350....
in Peoria, Illinois
Peoria, Illinois
Peoria is the largest city on the Illinois River and the county seat of Peoria County, Illinois, in the United States. It is named after the Peoria tribe. As of the 2010 census, the city was the seventh-most populated in Illinois, with a population of 115,007, and is the third-most populated...
.
Career
Moorehead's early career was unsteady, and although she was able to find stage work she was often unemployed and forced to go hungry. She later recalled going four days without food, and said that it had taught her "the value of a dollar." She found work in radio and was soon in demand, often working on several programs in a single day. She believed that it offered her excellent training and allowed her to develop her voice to create a variety of characterizations. Moorehead met the actress Helen HayesHelen Hayes
Helen Hayes Brown was an American actress whose career spanned almost 70 years. She eventually garnered the nickname "First Lady of the American Theatre" and was one of twelve people who have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony Award...
who encouraged her to try to enter films, but her first attempts were met with failure. Rejected as not being "the right type", Moorehead returned to radio.
Mercury Theatre
Moorehead met Orson WellesOrson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
and by 1937 was a member of his Mercury Theatre Group
Mercury Theatre
The Mercury Theatre was a theatre company founded in New York City in 1937 by Orson Welles and John Houseman. After a string of live theatrical productions, in 1938 the Mercury Theatre progressed into their best-known period as The Mercury Theatre on the Air, a radio series that included one of the...
, along with Joseph Cotten
Joseph Cotten
Joseph Cheshire Cotten was an American actor of stage and film. Cotten achieved prominence on Broadway, starring in the original productions of The Philadelphia Story and Sabrina Fair...
. She appeared in his radio production Julius Caesar, had a regular role in the serial The Shadow
The Shadow
The Shadow is a collection of serialized dramas, originally in pulp magazines, then on 1930s radio and then in a wide variety of media, that follow the exploits of the title character, a crime-fighting vigilante in the pulps, which carried over to the airwaves as a "wealthy, young man about town"...
as Margo and was one of the players in his The War of the Worlds
The War of the Worlds (radio)
The War of the Worlds was an episode of the American radio drama anthology series Mercury Theatre on the Air. It was performed as a Halloween episode of the series on October 30, 1938, and aired over the Columbia Broadcasting System radio network. Directed and narrated by actor and future filmmaker...
production. In 1939, Welles moved the Mercury Theatre Group to Hollywood, where he started working for RKO Studios. Several of his radio performers joined him, and Moorehead made her film debut as his mother in Citizen Kane (1941), considered one of the best films ever made. She also appeared in his films Journey into Fear (1943), based on a novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
by Eric Ambler
Eric Ambler
Eric Clifford Ambler OBE was an influential British author of spy novels who introduced a new realism to the genre. Ambler also used the pseudonym Eliot Reed for books co-written with Charles Rodda.-Life:...
and The Magnificent Ambersons
The Magnificent Ambersons (film)
The Magnificent Ambersons is a 1942 American drama film written and directed by Orson Welles. His second feature film, it is based on the 1918 novel of the same name by Booth Tarkington and stars Joseph Cotten, Dolores Costello, Anne Baxter, Tim Holt, Agnes Moorehead and Ray Collins...
(1942), based on a novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
by Booth Tarkington
Booth Tarkington
Booth Tarkington was an American novelist and dramatist best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning novels The Magnificent Ambersons and Alice Adams...
. She received a New York Film Critics Award and an Academy Award nomination for her performance in the latter film.
Henry Fonda
Henry Jaynes Fonda was an American film and stage actor.Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor. He also appeared in 1938 in plays performed in White Plains, New York, with Joan Tompkins...
and Lucille Ball
Lucille Ball
Lucille Désirée Ball was an American comedian, film, television, stage and radio actress, model, film and television executive, and star of the sitcoms I Love Lucy, The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour, The Lucy Show, Here's Lucy and Life With Lucy...
, and then appeared in two films that failed to find an audience, Government Girl with Olivia de Havilland
Olivia de Havilland
Olivia Mary de Havilland is a British American film and stage actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1946 and 1949. She is the elder sister of actress Joan Fontaine. The sisters are among the last surviving leading ladies from Hollywood of the 1930s.-Early life:Olivia de Havilland...
and The Youngest Profession
The Youngest Profession
The Youngest Profession is a 1943 film, directed by Edward Buzzell, and starring Virginia Weidler, John Carroll, Edward Arnold, Scotty Beckett, and Agnes Moorehead. It contains cameos by Greer Garson, Lana Turner, William Powell, Walter Pidgeon, and Robert Taylor....
with the adolescent Virginia Weidler
Virginia Weidler
Virginia Weidler was an American child actress, popular in Hollywood films during the 1930s and 1940s.-Early life and career:...
.
MGM
By the mid 1940s, Moorehead joined MGM, negotiating a $6,000-a-week contract with the provision to perform also on radio, an unusual clause at the time. Moorehead explained that MGM usually refused to allow their actors to play on radio as "the actors didn't have the knowledge or the taste of the judgment to appear on the right sort of show." In 1943-1944, Moorehead portrayed "matronly housekeeper Mrs. Mullet", who was constantly offering her "candied opinion", in Mutual Radio's The Adventures of Leonidas WitherallThe Adventures of Leonidas Witherall
The Adventures of Leonidas Witherall was a radio mystery series broadcast on Mutual in the mid-1940s.Based on the novels of Phoebe Atwood Taylor , the 30-minute dramas were produced by Roger Bower and starred Walter Hampden as Leonidas Witherall, a New England boys' school instructor in Dalton,...
; she inaugurated the role on CBS Radio.
Moorehead skillfully portrayed puritanical matrons, neurotic spinsters, possessive mothers, and comical secretaries throughout her career. She played Parthy Hawks, wife of Cap'n Andy and mother of Magnolia, in MGM's hit 1951 remake of Show Boat
Show Boat (1951 film)
Show Boat is a 1951 Technicolor film based on the musical by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II and the novel by Edna Ferber....
. She was in many important films, including Dark Passage and Since You Went Away
Since You Went Away
Since You Went Away is a 1944 film distributed by United Artists, a big-budget epic about the American home front during World War II. It was directed by John Cromwell and adapted and produced by David O. Selznick from the novel Since You Went Away: Letters to a Soldier from His Wife by Margaret...
, either playing key small or large supporting parts. Moorehead was in Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
productions of Don Juan in Hell in 1951-1952, and Lord Pengo in 1962-1963.
Radio
During the 1940s and 1950s, Moorehead was one of the most in demand actresses for radio dramaRadio drama
Radio drama is a dramatized, purely acoustic performance, broadcast on radio or published on audio media, such as tape or CD. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine the characters and story...
s, especially on the CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
show Suspense
Suspense (radio program)
-Production background:One of the premier drama programs of the Golden Age of Radio, was subtitled "radio's outstanding theater of thrills" and focused on suspense thriller-type scripts, usually featuring leading Hollywood actors of the era...
. During the 946 episodes run of Suspense, Moorehead was cast in more episodes than any other actor or actress. She was often introduced on the show as the "first lady of Suspense". Moorehead's most successful appearance on Suspense was in the legendary play Sorry, Wrong Number
Sorry, Wrong Number
Sorry, Wrong Number is a 1948 American suspense film noir directed by Anatole Litvak. It tells the story of a woman who overhears a plot for murder. It stars Barbara Stanwyck, Burt Lancaster, Ann Richards, Wendell Corey, Ed Begley, Leif Erickson and William Conrad.The film was adapted by Lucille...
, written by Lucille Fletcher
Lucille Fletcher
Lucille Fletcher was an American screenwriter of film, radio and television. Her full name was Violet Lucille Fletcher...
, broadcast on May 18, 1943. Moorehead played a selfish, neurotic woman who overhears a murder being plotted via crossed phone wires who eventually realizes she is the intended victim. She recreated the performance six times for Suspense and several times on other radio shows, always using her original, dog-eared script. In 1952, she recorded an album of the drama, and performed scenes from the story in her one-woman show in the 1950s. (Barbara Stanwyck
Barbara Stanwyck
Barbara Stanwyck was an American actress. She was a film and television star, known during her 60-year career as a consummate and versatile professional with a strong screen presence, and a favorite of directors including Cecil B. DeMille, Fritz Lang and Frank Capra...
played the role in the 1948 film version.)
Later film
In the 1950s, Moorehead continued to work in films and to appear on stage across the country, including a national tour of Shaw's Don Juan in Hell, co-starring Charles BoyerCharles Boyer
Charles Boyer was a French actor who appeared in more than 80 films between 1920 and 1976. After receiving an education in drama, Boyer started on the stage, but he found success in movies during the 1930s. His memorable performances were among the era's most highly praised romantic dramas,...
, Charles Laughton
Charles Laughton
Charles Laughton was an English-American stage and film actor, screenwriter, producer and director.-Early life and career:...
, and Cedric Hardwicke
Cedric Hardwicke
Sir Cedric Webster Hardwicke was a noted English stage and film actor whose career spanned nearly fifty years...
.
Sorry, Wrong Number also inspired writers of the CBS television series The Twilight Zone
The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series)
The Twilight Zone is an American anthology television series created by Rod Serling, which ran for five seasons on CBS from 1959 to 1964. The series consisted of unrelated episodes depicting paranormal, futuristic, dystopian, or simply disturbing events; each show typically featured a surprising...
to script an episode with Moorehead in mind. In "The Invaders
The Invaders (The Twilight Zone)
"The Invaders" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.-Synopsis:An old woman is apparently living alone in a very rustic cabin. She is dressed shabbily and there are no modern conveniences in evidence...
" (broadcast 27 January 1961) Moorehead played a woman whose isolated farm is plagued by mysterious intruders. In "Sorry, Wrong Number" Moorehead offered a famed, bravura performance using only her voice, and for "The Invaders" she was offered a script where she had no dialogue at all.
Television
In the 1960-1961 season, Moorehead made guest appearances as Aunt Harriet in the short-lived CBS sitcom My Sister EileenMy Sister Eileen
My Sister Eileen originated as a series of short stories by Ruth McKenney that eventually evolved into a book, a play, a musical, a radio play , two films, and a CBS television series in the 1960-1961 season....
starring Shirley Bonne
Shirley Bonne
Shirley Bonne is a former actress who portrayed Eileen Sherwood in the CBS television situation comedy My Sister Eileen, which aired during the 1960-1961 season. Bonne played an aspiring actress in New York City sharing an apartment with her older sister, Ruth Sherwood, a magazine writer played by...
and Elaine Stritch
Elaine Stritch
Elaine Stritch is an American actress and vocalist. She has appeared in numerous stage plays and musicals, feature films, and many television programs...
as Eileen (an aspiring actress) and Ruth Sherwood, respectively, two single sisters living in New York City. That same season, she appeared in Pat O'Brien
Pat O'Brien (actor)
Pat O’Brien was an American film actor with more than one hundred screen credits.-Early life:O’Brien was born William Joseph Patrick O’Brien to an Irish-American Catholic family in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He served as an altar boy at Gesu Church while growing up near 13th and Clybourn streets...
's ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
sitcom Harrigan and Son
Harrigan and Son
Harrigan and Son is an ABC sitcom about a father-and-son team of lawyers, played by Pat O'Brien and Roger Perry as Jim Harrigan, Sr., and Jim, Jr. In supporting roles, as secretaries, are Georgine Darcy as Gypsy and Helen Kleeb as Miss Claridge. The series aired 34 episodes at 8 p.m. Eastern Time...
.
In the 1963-1964 season, she appeared in an episode of the ABC series about college
College
A college is an educational institution or a constituent part of an educational institution. Usage varies in English-speaking nations...
life, Channing
Channing (TV series)
Channing is an American drama series that aired on American Broadcasting Company from September 18, 1963 to April 8, 1964...
. In 1967, she portrayed an Indian
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
named Watoma on the ABC military-western series Custer
Custer (TV series)
Custer, also known as The Legend of Custer, is a 17-episode military-western television series which ran on ABC from September 6 to December 27, 1967, with Wayne Maunder in the starring role of then Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer. During the American Civil War, Custer had risen to the...
with Wayne Maunder
Wayne Maunder
Wayne E. Maunder is a retired actor, originally from Canada, who starred in three American television series between 1967 and 1974.-Three television series:...
in the title role.
She appeared as the nosy do-gooder "Miss Bertie" in the show The Rifleman
The Rifleman
The Rifleman is an American Western television program that starred Chuck Connors as homesteader Lucas McCain and Johnny Crawford as his son, Mark McCain. It was set in the 1880s in the town of North Fork, New Mexico Territory. The show, filmed in black-and-white with a half hour running time, ran...
.
Twilight Zone
Moorehead starred in the Twilight Zone episode "The Invaders"The Invaders (The Twilight Zone)
"The Invaders" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.-Synopsis:An old woman is apparently living alone in a very rustic cabin. She is dressed shabbily and there are no modern conveniences in evidence...
, which became one of the most famous episodes of the series.
Bewitched
In 1964, Moorehead accepted the role of Endora, in the situation comedy BewitchedBewitched
Bewitched is an American situation comedy originally broadcast for eight seasons on ABC from 1964 to 1972, starring Elizabeth Montgomery, Dick York and Dick Sargent , Agnes Moorehead, and David White. The show is about a witch who marries a mortal and tries to lead the life of a typical suburban...
. She later commented that she had not expected it to succeed and that she ultimately felt trapped by its success. However, she had negotiated to appear in only eight of every twelve episodes made, therefore allowing her sufficient time to pursue other projects. She also felt that the television writing was often below standard and dismissed many of the Bewitched scripts as "hack" in a 1965 interview. The role brought her a level of recognition that she had not received before as Bewitched was in the top 10 programs for the first few years it screened.
Moorehead received six Emmy Award
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
nominations, but was quick to remind interviewers that she had enjoyed a long and distinguished career. Despite her ambivalence, she remained with Bewitched until its run ended in 1972. She commented to the New York Times in 1974, "I've been in movies and played theater from coast to coast, so I was quite well known before Bewitched, and I don't particularly want to be identified as a witch." Later that year she said that she had enjoyed playing the role, but that it was not challenging and the show itself was "not breathtaking" although her flamboyant and colorful character appealed to children. She expressed a fondness for the show's star, Elizabeth Montgomery
Elizabeth Montgomery
Elizabeth Victoria Montgomery was an American film and television actress whose career spanned five decades. She is perhaps best remembered for her roles as Samantha Stephens in Bewitched, as Ellen Harrod in A Case of Rape and as Lizzie Borden in The Legend of Lizzie Borden.-Early life:Born in Los...
, and said that she had enjoyed working with her. Co-star Dick Sargent
Dick Sargent
Richard Stanford Cox , known professionally as Dick Sargent, was an American actor, notable as the second actor to portray Darrin Stephens on the television series Bewitched...
, who in 1969 replaced the ill Dick York
Dick York
Richard Allen "Dick" York was an American actor. He is best remembered for his role as the first Darrin Stephens on the ABC television fantasy sitcom Bewitched...
as Samantha's husband, Darrin Stephens, had a more difficult relationship with Moorehead, caustically describing her as "a tough old bird."
Later years
In 1970, Moorehead appeared as a dying woman who haunts her own house in the early Night GalleryNight Gallery
Night Gallery is an American anthology series that aired on NBC from 1970 to 1973, featuring stories of horror and the macabre. Rod Serling, who had gained fame from an earlier series, The Twilight Zone, served both as the on-air host of Night Gallery and as a major contributor of scripts, although...
episode "Certain Shadows on the Wall." She also reprised her role in "Don Juan in Hell" on Broadway and on tour, in an all-star cast which also featured Edward Mulhare.
Moorehead also memorably supplied the voice of the mother Goose in Hanna-Barbera
Hanna-Barbera
Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc. was an American animation studio that dominated North American television animation during the second half of the 20th century...
's 1973 adaption of the E. B. White
E. B. White
Elwyn Brooks White , usually known as E. B. White, was an American writer. A long-time contributor to The New Yorker magazine, he also wrote many famous books for both adults and children, such as the popular Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little, and co-authored a widely used writing guide, The...
children's book Charlotte's Web
Charlotte's Web (1973 film)
Charlotte's Web is a 1973 American animated musical film produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions and Sagittarius Productions and based upon the 1952 children's book of the same name by E. B. White...
In January 1974, three months before her death, Moorehead performed in two episodes (including the very first) of CBS Radio Mystery Theater
CBS Radio Mystery Theater
CBS Radio Mystery Theater was a radio drama series created by Himan Brown that was broadcast on CBS affiliates from 1974 to 1982....
, the popular series produced by old-time radio master Himan Brown
Himan Brown
Himan Brown , also known as Hi Brown and Mende Brown, was an American producer of radio programs. Producing for the major radio networks and also for syndication, Brown worked with such actors as Helen Hayes, Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, Gregory Peck, Frank Sinatra and Orson Welles while creating...
.
Private life
Moorehead married actor John Griffith Lee in 1930; they divorced in 1952. She and Lee adopted an orphan named Sean in 1949, but it remains unclear whether the adoption was legal, although Moorehead raised the child until he ran away from home. Moorehead herself did not bear any children. In 1954, she married actor Robert GistRobert Gist
Robert Gist was an American actor and film director. He was married to actress Agnes Moorehead from 1954 to 1958, although they separated in 1955. They met during the filming of The Stratton Story .- Biography :...
; they divorced in 1958.
In the years since her death, rumors about Moorehead's being of lesbian or bisexual orientation have been widespread. Light was shed regarding her sexuality most clearly in a book of personal interviews titled Hollywood Lesbians by Boze Hadleigh
Boze Hadleigh
Boze Hadleigh aka George Hadley-Garcia is an American journalist writer of celebrity gossip and entertainment.-Biography:...
. Hadleigh's source was Agnes Moorehead herself, in an interview that was (like all the interviews) recorded verbatim from tape recorder to print. On pages 192-194, Agnes said that marriage and love didn't often go together, and that marriage was often a duty. When asked point-blank about her sexuality, she surprisingly replied with a wry half-smile, "You apparently have your own informants. I don't know what you've heard, and I don't want to hear, and some of it may be true." Hadleigh explained that "truth gets around," to which Moorehead even more surprisingly responded, "Somehow." She then went on to say why she felt she could not discuss the issue; she deeply feared malice, mockery, sensationalism, a wrong-minded masculine reduction of love between women equated to mere lust and sex, and moral condemnation: "If I make a statement to you now, it will be used one way or another to represent me [sensationally, without regard to illuminating and understanding such romantic love, its emotional intricacy, beauty, spirituality element, or perspective--these are also her exact words], if it's controversial or shocking enough, in who knows how many future books? [Whether] onscreen or in a book, a supporting actress never receives the same in-depth, the same amount of time, that any star receives." Her eyes then welled up, and Hadleigh did not press her in her distress.
Earlier in the interview, Moorehead says, "A woman may love a person who is this or that, male or female. Love doesn't have a sex. Women operate on a different plane; our feelings are emotional, not physical...why always bring up sex?" She felt that men were more sexual and physical in loving, and that by contrast, women were more emotional and even spiritual in loving each other.
Hadleigh asks, "Have you loved many women?" Agnes answers, "Well I have loved women. Of course."
Also in Hadleigh's interview, Agnes said that she had considered writing her memoirs to keep what was not acceptable or misunderstood during her lifetime from being disclosed and exposed to leering ridicule. Moorehead biographer Charles Tranberg (I Love the Illusion: The Life and Career of Agnes Moorehead, 2005) interviewed several of the actress's closest friends, who claimed that Agnes was heterosexual. Debbie Reynolds
Debbie Reynolds
Debbie Reynolds is an American actress, singer, and dancer.She was initially signed at age 16 by Warner Bros., but her career got off to a slow start. When her contract was not renewed, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer gave her a small, but significant part in the film Three Little Words , then signed her to...
--about whom rumors of bisexuality have also been widespread--stated that Moorehead was very religious, and denied to film historian Robert Osborne
Robert Osborne
Robert Jolin Osborne is an American actor and film historian best known as the primary host for Turner Classic Movies, and previously a host of The Movie Channel.-Life and career:...
that "best friend" Moorehead was lesbian or bisexual.
Moorehead was a devout Presbyterian as she grew older, and, in interviews, often spoke of her relationship with God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
. In one of her last films, What's the Matter with Helen?
What's the Matter with Helen?
What's the Matter With Helen? is a 1971 thriller film starring Debbie Reynolds and Shelley Winters.-Plot:The movie starts with a Hearst Metrotone newsreel from the 1930s that tells of the Iowa murder of Ellie Banner by Leonard Hill and Wesley Bruckner...
(1971, costarring Debbie Reynolds), she played an evangelist
Evangelism
Evangelism refers to the practice of relaying information about a particular set of beliefs to others who do not hold those beliefs. The term is often used in reference to Christianity....
. Shortly before her death, Moorehead sought Christian causes to benefit after her death through her estate.
Death
Moorehead died of uterine cancerCancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
on April 30, 1974 in Rochester, Minnesota
Rochester, Minnesota
Rochester is a city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and is the county seat of Olmsted County. Located on both banks of the Zumbro River, The city has a population of 106,769 according to the 2010 United States Census, making it Minnesota's third-largest city and the largest outside of the...
. Her mother, Mary M. Moorehead (August 25, 1883 – June 8, 1990) survived her by 16 years, dying at the age of 106 in 1990.
Moorehead appeared in the 1956 movie The Conqueror
The Conqueror (film)
The Conqueror is a 1956 CinemaScope epic film produced by Howard Hughes and starring John Wayne as the Mongol conqueror Genghis Khan. Other performers included Susan Hayward, Agnes Moorehead, and Pedro Armendáriz. Directed by actor/director Dick Powell, the film was principally shot near St...
, which was shot near Saint George, Utah-- downwind
Downwinders
Downwinders refers to individuals and communities who are exposed to radioactive contamination or nuclear fallout from atmospheric or underground nuclear weapons testing, and nuclear accidents...
from the Yucca Flat, Nevada nuclear test site. She was one of over 90 (of 220) cast and crew members--including costars Susan Hayward, John Wayne, and Pedro Armendariz, as well as director-producer Dick Powell--who, over their lifetimes, all developed cancer(s); at least 46 from cast and crew have since died from cancer(s), including all of those named above. No bombs were tested during the actual filming of The Conqueror, but 11 explosions occurred the year before. Two of them were particularly "dirty," depositing long-lasting radiation over the area. The 51.5-kiloton shot code-named "Simon" was fired on April 25, 1953, and the 32.4-kiloton blast "Harry" went off May 19. (In contrast, the bomb dropped on Hiroshima was 13 kilotons.) "Fallout was very abundant more than a year after Harry," says Dr. Pendleton, a former AEC researcher. "Some of the isotopes, such as strontium 90 and cesium 137, would not have diminished much." Pendleton points out that radioactivity can concentrate in "hot spots" such as the rolling dunes of Snow Canyon, a natural reservoir for windblown material. It was the place where much of The Conqueror was filmed. Pendleton also notes that radioactive substances enter the food chain. By eating local meat and produce, the Conqueror cast and crew were increasing their risk. Says Dr. Robert C. Pendleton, director of radiological health at the University of Utah stated, "With these numbers, this case could qualify as an epidemic. The connection between fallout radiation and cancer in individual cases has been practically impossible to prove conclusively. But in a group this size you'd expect only 30-some cancers to develop. With 91, I think the tie-in to their exposure on the set of The Conqueror would hold up even in a court of law."
Agnes was one of the first members of the company to make a connection between the film and the fallout. Her close friend Sandra Gould, who was featured with her on Bewitched, recalls that long before Moorehead developed the uterine cancer that killed her in 1974, she recounted rumors of "some radioactive germs" on location in Utah, observing: "Everybody in that picture has gotten cancer and died." As she was dying, she told best friend Debbie Reynolds: "I should never have taken that part."
Moorehead is entombed at Dayton Memorial Park in Dayton
Dayton, Ohio
Dayton is the 6th largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County, the fifth most populous county in the state. The population was 141,527 at the 2010 census. The Dayton Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 841,502 in the 2010 census...
, Ohio.
Moorehead bequeathed her 1967 Emmy Award
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
statue for The Wild Wild West
The Wild Wild West
The Wild Wild West is an American television series that ran on CBS for four seasons from September 17, 1965 to April 4, 1969....
, her private papers, and her home in Rix Mills, Ohio, to her alma mater Muskingum College
Muskingum College
Muskingum University is a private four-year comprehensive college with a strong liberal arts tradition located in New Concord, Ohio, approximately sixty miles east of the state capital of Columbus. Founded in 1837, Muskingum University is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church , although since the...
. She left her family's Ohio estate and farmlands, Moorehead Manor, to Bob Jones University
Bob Jones University
Bob Jones University is a private, for-profit, non-denominational Protestant university in Greenville, South Carolina.The university was founded in 1927 by Bob Jones, Sr. , an evangelist and contemporary of Billy Sunday...
in Greenville, South Carolina
Greenville, South Carolina
-Law and government:The city of Greenville adopted the Council-Manager form of municipal government in 1976.-History:The area was part of the Cherokee Nation's protected grounds after the Treaty of 1763, which ended the French and Indian War. No White man was allowed to enter, though some families...
, as well as some biblical studies books from her personal library. Her will stipulated that BJU should use the farm for retreats and special meetings "with a Christian emphasis", but the distance of the estate from the South Carolina campus rendered it mostly useless. In May 1976, BJU traded the Moorehead farmlands with an Ohio college for $25,000 and a collection of her library books. Moorehead also left her professional papers, scripts, Christmas cards and scrapbooks to the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research at the Wisconsin Historical Society
Wisconsin Historical Society
The Wisconsin Historical Society is simultaneously a private membership and a state-funded organization whose purpose is to maintain, promote and spread knowledge relating to the history of North America, with an emphasis on the state of Wisconsin and the trans-Allegheny West...
.
In 1994, Moorehead was posthumously inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame
St. Louis Walk of Fame
The St. Louis Walk of Fame honors well-known people from St. Louis, Missouri, who made contributions to culture of the United States. All inductees were either born in the Greater St. Louis area or spent their formative or creative years there...
.
Filmography
Features:- Citizen KaneCitizen KaneCitizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film, directed by and starring Orson Welles. Many critics consider it the greatest American film of all time, especially for its innovative cinematography, music and narrative structure. Citizen Kane was Welles' first feature film...
(1941) - The Magnificent AmbersonsThe Magnificent Ambersons (film)The Magnificent Ambersons is a 1942 American drama film written and directed by Orson Welles. His second feature film, it is based on the 1918 novel of the same name by Booth Tarkington and stars Joseph Cotten, Dolores Costello, Anne Baxter, Tim Holt, Agnes Moorehead and Ray Collins...
(1942) - The Big StreetThe Big StreetThe Big Street is a 1942 American drama film, starring Henry Fonda and Lucille Ball, based on the short story "Little Pinks" by Damon Runyon, who also produced the movie. The film was directed by Irving Reis...
(1942) - Journey into FearJourney into Fear (1943 film)Journey into Fear is an American spy film based on the Eric Ambler novel of the same name. The 1943 film broadly follows the plot of the book, but the protagonist was changed to an American engineer....
(1943) - The Youngest ProfessionThe Youngest ProfessionThe Youngest Profession is a 1943 film, directed by Edward Buzzell, and starring Virginia Weidler, John Carroll, Edward Arnold, Scotty Beckett, and Agnes Moorehead. It contains cameos by Greer Garson, Lana Turner, William Powell, Walter Pidgeon, and Robert Taylor....
(1943) - Government Girl (1943)
- Jane EyreJane Eyre (1944 film)Jane Eyre is a classic film adaptation of Charlotte Brontë's 1847 novel of the same name, made by 20th Century Fox. It was directed by Robert Stevenson and produced by William Goetz, Kenneth Macgowan, and Orson Welles . The screenplay was by John Houseman, Aldous Huxley, Henry Koster, and Robert...
(1944) - Since You Went AwaySince You Went AwaySince You Went Away is a 1944 film distributed by United Artists, a big-budget epic about the American home front during World War II. It was directed by John Cromwell and adapted and produced by David O. Selznick from the novel Since You Went Away: Letters to a Soldier from His Wife by Margaret...
(1944) - Dragon Seed (1944)
- The Seventh CrossThe Seventh Cross (1944 film)The Seventh Cross is a 1944 film starring Spencer Tracy, Hume Cronyn, Ray Collins and Jessica Tandy. Cronyn was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor...
(1944) - Mrs. ParkingtonMrs. ParkingtonMrs. Parkington is a 1944 drama film. It tells the story of a woman's life, told in flashbacks, from hotel maid to society matron. The movie was adapted by Polly James and Robert Thoeren from the novel by Louis Bromfield...
(1944) - Tomorrow, the WorldTomorrow, the WorldTomorrow, the World is a 1944 black-and-white motion picture starring Fredric March, Betty Field, and Agnes Moorehead, about a young German boy who had been active in the Hitler youth who comes to live with his uncle in the United States, who tries to teach him to reject Naziism...
! (1944) - Keep Your Powder DryKeep Your Powder DryKeep Your Powder Dry is a 1945 drama film starring Lana Turner, Susan Peters, and Laraine Day. The film was directed by Edward Buzzell and written by George Bruce and Mary C...
(1945) - Her Highness and the BellboyHer Highness and the BellboyHer Highness and the Bellboy is a 1945 film starring Hedy Lamarr and Robert Walker.- Plot synopsis :In a fictional European country, a beautiful princess meets a handsome American reporter and falls in love with him. On a trip to New York, she hopes to find him again. While staying at one of the...
(1945) - Our Vines Have Tender GrapesOur Vines Have Tender GrapesOur Vines Have Tender Grapes is an American drama film released in 1945, directed by Roy Rowland and starring Edward G. Robinson and Margaret O'Brien.-Background:...
(1945) - Dark Passage (1947)
- The Lost MomentThe Lost MomentThe Lost Moment is a 1947 drama film made by Universal Pictures. It was directed by Martin Gabel and produced by Walter Wanger, from a screenplay by Leonardo Bercovici based on the novel The Aspern Papers by Henry James...
(1947) - Summer HolidaySummer Holiday (1948 film)Summer Holiday is a 1948 American musical film, starring Mickey Rooney and Gloria DeHaven. It is based on the play Ah, Wilderness! by Eugene O'Neill, which had been filmed as Ah, Wilderness! by MGM in 1935.-Cast:...
(1948) - The Woman in WhiteThe Woman in White (1948 film)The Woman in White is a 1948 film adaptation of Wilkie Collins' novel of the same name. It stars Alexis Smith, Eleanor Parker, Sydney Greenstreet, and Gig Young...
(1948) - Station WestStation WestStation West is a black-and-white 1948 film based on a Western novel by Luke Short. The film, considered film noir as well as a Western, was directed by Sidney Lanfield, who was known for directing comedies such as The Lemon Drop Kid. Station Wests cinematographer was Harry J. Wild...
(1948) - Johnny BelindaJohnny Belinda (1948 film)Johnny Belinda is a 1948 American drama film based on the play of the same name by Elmer Blaney Harris. The movie was adapted to the screen by Allen Vincent and Irma von Cube, and directed by Jean Negulesco....
(1948) - The Stratton StoryThe Stratton StoryThe Stratton Story is a 1949 film directed by Sam Wood which tells the true story of Monty Stratton, a Major League Baseball pitcher who pitched for the Chicago White Sox from 1934-1938...
(1949) - The Great SinnerThe Great SinnerThe Great Sinner is a 1949 American drama film directed by Robert Siodmak. Based on the 1866 short novel The Gambler written by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, the film stars Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Frank Morgan, Ethel Barrymore, Walter Huston, Agnes Moorehead and Melvyn Douglas.-Plot:During the 1860s in...
(1949) - Without HonorWithout HonorWithout Honor is a film noir starring Laraine Day and Dane Clark.-Plot:A housewife is confronted during her daily chores by her married lover . The man, after a long affair, tells the woman that he has to break off their relationship...
(1949) - Black JackBlack Jack (film)Black Jack is a 1950 adventure film written and directed by Julien Duvivier and starring George Sanders, Herbert Marshall, Patricia Roc and Dennis Wyndham. It tells the story of a man who uses his yacht to smuggle drugs tries to go straight, but finds it harder than he had anticipated...
(1950) - CagedCaged (1950 film)Caged is a 1950 film released by Warner Bros. It tells the story of a teenage newlywed, who is sent to prison for being an accessory to a robbery...
(1950) - Fourteen HoursFourteen HoursFourteen Hours is a 1951 drama film directed by Henry Hathaway, which tells the story of a New York police officer trying to stop a despondent man from jumping to his death from the fifteenth floor of a hotel....
(1951) - Adventures of Captain Fabian (1951)
- Show BoatShow Boat (1951 film)Show Boat is a 1951 Technicolor film based on the musical by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II and the novel by Edna Ferber....
(1951) - The Blue VeilThe Blue VeilThe Blue Veil is a 1951 American drama film directed by Curtis Bernhardt. The screenplay by Norman Corwin is based on a story by François Campaux, which was adapted for the French language film Le Voile bleu in 1942.-Plot:...
(1951) - The Blazing Forest (1952)
- The Story of Three LovesThe Story of Three LovesThe Story of Three Loves, also known as Equilibrium, is a 1953 romantic anthology film made by MGM. It consists of three stories, "The Jealous Lover", "Mademoiselle", and "Equilibrium". The film was produced by Sidney Franklin. "Mademoiselle" was directed by Vincente Minnelli, while Gottfried...
(1953) - Scandal at ScourieScandal at ScourieScandal at Scourie is an American drama movie released in 1953 and starring Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon "above the title", and co-starring Donna Corcoran.- Plot :...
(1953) - Main Street to BroadwayMain Street to BroadwayMain Street to Broadway is a 1953 MGM musical comedy starring Tom Morton and Mary Murphy about an aspiring playwright who hopes to stage a Broadway production starring Tallulah Bankhead...
(1953) - Those Redheads from Seattle (1953)
- Magnificent ObsessionMagnificent Obsession (1954 film)Magnificent Obsession is a Universal International Pictures romantic feature film directed by Douglas Sirk; starring Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson. The screenplay was written by Robert Blees and Wells Root, after the book Magnificent Obsession by Lloyd C. Douglas. The film was produced by Ross Hunter...
(1954) - Untamed (1955)
- The Left Hand of GodThe Left Hand of GodThe Left Hand of God is a 1955 drama film made by 20th Century Fox. It was directed by Edward Dmytryk and produced by Buddy Adler, from a screenplay by Alfred Hayes, based on the novel The Left Hand of God by William Edmund Barrett. It stars Humphrey Bogart and Gene Tierney, with a supporting cast...
(1955) - All That Heaven AllowsAll That Heaven AllowsAll That Heaven Allows is a romance feature film starring Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson in a tale about a well-to-do widow and a younger landscape designer falling in love. The screenplay was written by Peg Fenwick based upon a story by Edna L. Lee and Harry Lee...
(1955) - The ConquerorThe Conqueror (film)The Conqueror is a 1956 CinemaScope epic film produced by Howard Hughes and starring John Wayne as the Mongol conqueror Genghis Khan. Other performers included Susan Hayward, Agnes Moorehead, and Pedro Armendáriz. Directed by actor/director Dick Powell, the film was principally shot near St...
(1956) - Meet Me in Las VegasMeet Me in Las VegasMeet Me in Las Vegas is an MGM musical comedy produced by Joe Pasternak and directed by Roy Rowland filmed in Eastman Color and CinemaScope. The film has a running time of 112 minutes.-Cast and crew:...
(1956) - The SwanThe Swan (film)The Swan is a 1956 remake by MGM of a 1925 Paramount film with the same title. . The film is a romantic comedy directed by Charles Vidor, produced by Dore Schary from a screenplay by John Dighton based on the play by Ferenc Molnár...
(1956) - The Revolt of Mamie StoverThe Revolt of Mamie Stover (film)The Revolt of Mamie Stover is a romantic drama film made by Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation. It was directed by Raoul Walsh and produced by Buddy Adler from a screenplay by Sydney Boehm based on the novel of the same name by William Bradford Huie.The film stars Jane Russell and Richard Egan...
(1956) - PardnersPardnersPardners is a movie starring the comedy team of Martin and Lewis and was released on July 25, 1956 by Paramount Pictures.-Plot:The storyline involves two ranch partners who are killed by the 'Masked Raiders' defending their land. Their infant sons are separated, one being raised on the farm and...
(1956) - The Opposite SexThe Opposite SexThe Opposite Sex is a 1956 musical film.It is a remake of the 1939 classic comedy The Women. Both films are based on Claire Boothe Luce's original play...
(1956) - The True Story of Jesse James (1957)
- Jeanne EagelsJeanne Eagels (film)Jeanne Eagels is a 1957 fictionalized biographical film of the life of stage star Jeanne Eagels, made by Columbia Pictures. It was produced and directed by George Sidney from a screenplay by John Fante, Daniel Fuchs and Sonya Levien, based on a story by Fuchs...
(1957) - Raintree CountyRaintree County (film)Raintree County is a 1957 Technicolor film drama about the American Civil War. It was directed by Edward Dmytryk. The film stars Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, Eva Marie Saint, and Lee Marvin....
(1957) - The Story of Mankind (1957)
- Tempest (1958)
- Night of the Quarter Moon (1959)
- The BatThe Bat (1959 film)The Bat is a mystery film directed by Crane Wilbur, and starring Vincent Price and Agnes Moorehead. Its tagline was "When it flies, someone dies!" The film was based on the 1920 Broadway play by Avery Hopwood and Mary Roberts Rinehart, which was previously filmed as The Bat and as The Bat...
(1959) - PollyannaPollyanna (1960 film)Pollyanna is a Walt Disney Productions feature film starring child actress Hayley Mills, Jane Wyman, Karl Malden and Richard Egan in a story about a cheerful orphan changing the outlook of a small town. Based upon the novel Pollyanna by Eleanor Porter, the film was written and directed by David...
(1960) - Twenty Plus Two (1961)
- Bachelor in ParadiseBachelor in ParadiseBachelor in Paradise is a 1961 Metrocolor romantic comedy film starring Bob Hope and Lana Turner. It was directed by Jack Arnold, and written by Valentine Davies and Hal Kanter, based on story by Vera Caspary....
(1961) - Jessica (1962)
- How the West Was WonHow the West Was Won (film)How the West Was Won is a 1962 American epic Western film. The picture was one of the last "old-fashioned" epic films made by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to enjoy great success. It follows four generations of a family as they move ever westward, from western New York state to the Pacific Ocean...
(1962) - Who's Minding the Store?Who's Minding the Store?Who's Minding the Store? is a comedy film directed by Frank Tashlin and starring Jerry Lewis. It was released on November 28, 1963 by Paramount Pictures.-Plot:The rich Mrs. Tuttle is upset that her daughter Barbara Who's Minding the Store? is a comedy film directed by Frank Tashlin and starring...
(1963) - Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964)
- The Singing NunThe Singing Nun (film)The Singing Nun is a 1966 American semi-biographical film about the life of Jeanine Deckers, a nun who recorded the chart-topping hit song "Dominique". It starred Debbie Reynolds in the title role. It was Henry Koster's final directing job....
(1966) - What's the Matter with Helen?What's the Matter with Helen?What's the Matter With Helen? is a 1971 thriller film starring Debbie Reynolds and Shelley Winters.-Plot:The movie starts with a Hearst Metrotone newsreel from the 1930s that tells of the Iowa murder of Ellie Banner by Leonard Hill and Wesley Bruckner...
(1971) - Dear Dead Delilah (1972)
- Charlotte's WebCharlotte's Web (1973 film)Charlotte's Web is a 1973 American animated musical film produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions and Sagittarius Productions and based upon the 1952 children's book of the same name by E. B. White...
(1973) (voice) - Frankenstein: The True StoryFrankenstein: The True StoryFrankenstein: The True Story is a 1973 American made-for-television horror film loosely based on the book Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. It was directed by Jack Smight, and the screenplay was co-written by novelist Christopher Isherwood....
(1973)
Short Subjects:
- Operation Raintree (1957)
- Screen Snapshots: Salute to Hollywood (1958)
Further reading
- Lynn Kear, Agnes Moorehead: a Bio-Bibliography. (Westport, ConnecticutWestport, Connecticut-Neighborhoods:* Saugatuck – around the Westport railroad station near the southwestern corner of the town – a built-up area with some restaurants, stores and offices....
: Greenwood Press, 1992). ISBN 0-313-28155-6 - Warren Sherk, Agnes Moorehead: A Very Private Person. (Philadelphia: Dorrance, 1976). ISBN 0-8059-2317-9
- Charles Tranberg, I Love the Illusion: The Life And Career of Agnes Moorehead (Albany, GeorgiaAlbany, GeorgiaAlbany is a city in and the county seat of Dougherty County, Georgia, United States, in the southwestern part of the state. It is the principal city of the Albany, Georgia metropolitan area and the southwest part of the state. The population was 77,434 at the 2010 U.S. Census, making it the...
: BearManor Media, 2005) ISBN 1-59393-029-1 - Quint Benedetti, (My Travels with) Agnes Moorehead-The Lavender Lady (Bloomington, IndianaBloomington, IndianaBloomington is a city in and the county seat of Monroe County in the southern region of the U.S. state of Indiana. The population was 80,405 at the 2010 census....
: Xlibris, 2010). ISBN 978-1-4500-3408-1 - Boze Hadleigh, "Hollywood Lesbians". (Barricade Books: February 1, 1996). ISBN 1569800677, ISBN 978-1569800676.
External links
- Find a Grave http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=Moorehead&GSfn=Agnes&GSbyrel=all&GSdyrel=all&GSob=n&GRid=1409&df=all&
- http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/ead-idx?c=shs&id=uw-whs-us0161anGuide to over 100,000 Moorehead documents spanning 1923-1974 at the Wisconsin Historical SocietyWisconsin Historical SocietyThe Wisconsin Historical Society is simultaneously a private membership and a state-funded organization whose purpose is to maintain, promote and spread knowledge relating to the history of North America, with an emphasis on the state of Wisconsin and the trans-Allegheny West...
] - Interview with biographer Charles Tranberg from Harpies Bizarre
- Listen to - Suspense 1951-02-15 Agnes Moorehead - The Death Parade with new introduction.
- Listen to - The CBS Radio Mystery Theater 1974-01-06 The Old Ones Are Hard To Kill starring Agnes Moorehead.