Agnes Moorehead

Moorehead joined Orson Welles's Mercury Players as one of his principal performers in 1937. She had notable roles in the films Citizen Kane (1941), Dark Passage (1947), Show Boat (1951), and All That Heaven Allows (1955). Moorehead received four nominations for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, for her performances in The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), Mrs. Parkington (1944), Johnny Belinda (1948), and Hush..Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964). She is also known for the radio play Sorry, Wrong Number (1943). She gained acclaim for her role as Endora on the ABC sitcom Bewitched, which she played from 1964 to 1972. Her performance earned her six nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. For her role on the western series The Wild Wild West, she won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series.

Agnes Moorehead studied at University of Wisconsin–Madison, American Academy of Dramatic Arts and Central Visual and Performing Arts High School. The recorded working language is English. The field of work recorded is film and acting. Distinctions recorded are Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series, star on Hollywood Walk of Fame and Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture.

• Name — Agnes Moorehead • Birth Name — Agnes Robertson Moorehead • Born — 6 December 1900 • Birthplace — Clinton, Massachusetts, U.S. • Years Active — 1933–1974 • Occupation — Actress • Died — 30 April 1974 • Place of death — Rochester, Minnesota, U.S. • Resting Place — Dayton Memorial Park, Dayton, Ohio, U.S.

Agnes Robertson Moorehead was born on December 6, 1900, in Clinton, Massachusetts, the daughter of former singer Mary (née McCauley), who was 17 when she gave birth to Agnes, and Presbyterian clergyman John Henderson Moorehead. Moorehead later claimed that she was born in 1906 to appear younger for acting parts. She recalled that she made her first public performance at the age of three, when she recited the Lord's Prayer in her father's church. The family moved to St. Louis, Missouri, and her 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 younger sister Peggy (born Margaret Ann) engaged in mimicry. This involved coming to the dinner table and imitating their father's parishioners; they were further encouraged by his amused reactions. As a young woman, Moorehead 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 recalled Moorehead's arriving on the set with "the Bible in one hand and the script in the other". Moorehead earned a bachelor's degree in biology in 1923 at Muskingum College in New Concord, Ohio. While there, she also appeared in college stage plays. She received an honorary doctorate in literature from Muskingum in 1947, 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 the University of Wisconsin-Madison). She then pursued postgraduate studies at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, from which she graduated with honors in 1929. Moorehead also received an honorary doctoral degree from Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois.

Moorehead's early acting career was unsteady, and although she was able to find stage work, she was often unemployed. 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 Hayes, who encouraged her to enter films, but her first attempts were met with failure. When she was rejected as not being "the right type", Moorehead returned to radio.

By 1937, Moorehead joined Orson Welles' Mercury Players as one of his principal performers along with Joseph Cotten. (In an appearance on The Dick Cavett Show on February 19, 1973, she revealed that, in 1922, she had by chance met Welles (15 years her junior) when he was a mere seven years old at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City.) She performed in his The Mercury Theatre on the Air radio adaptations, and had a regular role opposite Welles in the serial The Shadow as Margo Lane. In 1939, Welles moved the Mercury Theatre to Hollywood, where he started working for RKO Pictures. Several of his radio performers joined him, and Moorehead made her film debut as the mother of his own character, Charles Foster Kane, in Citizen Kane (1941). Moorehead was featured in Welles' second film, The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), and received the New York Film Critics Award and an Academy Award nomination for her performance. She also appeared in Journey Into Fear (1943), a Mercury film production. Moorehead received positive reviews for her performance in Mrs. Parkington (1944), and the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress and an Academy Award nomination. 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 (1943) with Olivia de Havilland and The Youngest Profession (1944) with an adolescent Virginia Weidler.

By the mid-1940s, Moorehead had become a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract player, negotiating a $6,000-a-week contract, which also allowed her to perform on radio, an unusual clause at the time. Moorehead explained that MGM usually refused to allow its actors to appear on radio, as "the actors didn't have the knowledge or the taste or 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 the Mutual Broadcasting System's The Adventures of Leonidas Witherall; she inaugurated the role on CBS Radio. Throughout her career, Moorehead portrayed puritanical matrons, neurotic spinsters, possessive mothers, and comical secretaries. She had supporting roles in The Youngest Profession (1943), Since You Went Away (1944), and the crime drama Dark Passage (1947), starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. She then played Aggie McDonald in the 1948 film, Johnny Belinda. She played Parthy Hawks, wife of Cap'n Andy and mother of Magnolia, in MGM's hit 1951 remake of Show Boat. Moorehead was in Broadway productions of Don Juan in Hell in 1951–1952, and Lord Pengo in 1962–1963.

In her first radio role, Moorehead appeared as a replacement for Dorothy Denvir's role as Min Gump in The Gumps. During the 1940s and 1950s, Moorehead was one of the most in-demand actresses for radio dramas, especially on the CBS show Suspense. During the 946-episode 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 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 and 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. The May 25, 1943 airing was made part of the National Sound Registry by the Library of Congress in 2014. 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. In 1941, Moorehead played Maggie in the short-lived Bringing Up Father program on the Blue Network. From 1942 to 1949, Moorehead played the role of the mayor's housekeeper in the radio version of Mayor of the Town. She also starred in The Amazing Mrs. Danberry, a situation comedy on CBS in 1946. Moorehead's title character was described as "the lively widow of a department store owner who has a tongue as sharp as a hatpin and a heart as warm as summer." Moorehead played one of her last roles on January 6, 1974, as Mrs. Ada Canby in the ironically titled "The Old Ones Are Hard to Kill", the inaugural episode of CBS Radio Mystery Theater.

In 1959, Moorehead guest-starred on many series, including The Rebel and Alcoa Theatre. Her role in the radio play Sorry, Wrong Number inspired writers of the CBS television series The Twilight Zone to script an episode with Moorehead in mind. In "The Invaders" (broadcast January 27, 1961), Moorehead played a woman whose isolated farm is plagued by mysterious intruders. Moorehead found the script odd because it had only one line of dialogue, at the very end. Her character gasped in terror once or twice, but never spoke. In Sorry, Wrong Number, Moorehead offered a famed, bravura performance using only her voice. Moorehead also had guest roles on Channing, Custer, Rawhide in "Incident at Poco Tiempo" as Sister Frances, and The Rifleman. On February 10, 1967, she portrayed Miss Emma Valentine in "The Night of the Vicious Valentine" on The Wild Wild West, a performance for which she won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series.

• Illustration — Moorehead with Bewitched castmates Dick York and Elizabeth Montgomery In 1964, Moorehead accepted the role of Endora, Samantha's (Elizabeth Montgomery) mortal-loathing, quick-witted witch mother in the situation comedy Bewitched. She later commented that she had not expected it to succeed and that she ultimately felt trapped by its success, but she had negotiated to appear in only eight of every 12 episodes made, thus 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 for TV Guide. 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 aired. Moorehead received six Emmy Award nominations for her work on the series, but was quick to remind interviewers that she had enjoyed a long and distinguished career, commenting to the New York Daily News in 1965, "I've been in movies and played theatre from coast to coast, so I was quite well known before 'Bewitched,' and I don't particularly want to be identified as the witch." Despite her ambivalence, she remained with Bewitched until its run ended in 1972. Prior to her death in 1974, she said she had enjoyed playing the role enough, but 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 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, describing her as "a tough old bird." In fall 1964, Moorehead participated in a 5-minute commercial spot featuring casts of both Bonanza and Bewitched, announcing the new 1965 Chevrolet line. Moorehead was featured with Dan Blocker extolling the virtues of the new '65 Chevy II.

In the 1970s, Moorehead's life was increasingly affected by declining health. In 1970, she appeared as a dying woman who haunts her own house in the early Night Gallery episode "Certain Shadows on the Wall". She co-starred with Shelley Winters and Debbie Reynolds in the horror film What's the Matter with Helen? (1971) and had the lead role in the low-budget ax murderer film Dear Dead Delilah (1972) with Will Geer, her last starring role. She also reprised her role in Don Juan in Hell on Broadway and on tour, with an all-star cast that featured Edward Mulhare, Ricardo Montalbán, and Paul Henreid. Moorehead supplied the voice of the friendly "Goose" in Hanna-Barbera's 1973 adaptation of E. B. White's children's book Charlotte's Web. For the 1973 Broadway adaptation of Gigi, Moorehead portrayed Aunt Alicia and performed various songs, including "The Contract" for the original cast recording. She fell ill during the production, resulting in Arlene Francis having to replace her. Moorehead died shortly afterward. In January 1974, three months before her death, two episodes featuring Moorehead (including the series' premiere episode) aired on the CBS Radio Mystery Theater, the popular radio show produced and directed by Himan Brown.

In 1930, Moorehead married actor John Griffith Lee. They divorced in 1952, a year after fostering a boy named Sean Lee. She married actor Robert Gist in 1954, and they divorced in 1958.

Moorehead's sexuality has been the subject of much speculation and dispute. A number of articles that appeared in periodicals in the alternative press have identified her as a lesbian. Paul Lynde, Moorehead's co-star on Bewitched, stated: "Well, the whole world knows Agnes was a lesbian - I mean classy as hell, but one of the all-time Hollywood dykes". Journalist Boze Hadleigh reported an incident, also sourced to Lynde, in which, when she caught one of her husbands cheating on her, "Agnes screamed at him that if he could have a mistress, so could she." In a 1973 interview with Hadleigh, when afforded the opportunity to either confirm or, once and for all, put to rest the rumors regarding her sexual orientation, Moorehead "wryly" opts to do neither: Moorehead's close friend Debbie Reynolds stated categorically that Moorehead was not a lesbian. Reynolds's autobiography mentions the rumor and states it was started "maliciously" by one of Moorehead's husbands during their divorce. Moorehead's longtime friend and producer Paul Gregory concurs in that assessment. Quint Benedetti, Moorehead's longtime employee who was gay, also stated that Moorehead was not a lesbian and attributed the story to Paul Lynde's frequent gossiping and rumor-mongering.

Moorehead rarely spoke publicly about her political beliefs, but she supported both Franklin Delano Roosevelt (she portrayed Eleanor Roosevelt multiple times over the course of her career) and close friend Ronald Reagan for his 1966 run for governor of California.

Moorehead was one of many people to have developed cancer after exposure to radioactive fallout from atmospheric atomic bomb tests while making The Conqueror (1956) with John Wayne in Iron City, Utah. Several production members, as well as Wayne himself, Susan Hayward, Pedro Armendáriz (who died by suicide while suffering from cancer), and the film's director Dick Powell, later died from cancer and cancer-related illnesses. The cast and crew totalled 220 people. By the end of 1980, as ascertained by People, 91 of them had developed some form of cancer, and 46 had died of the disease. Moorehead died at Mayo Clinic Hospital in Rochester, Minnesota, on April 30, 1974, due to uterine cancer at the age of 73. Moorehead is entombed in a crypt at Dayton Memorial Park in Dayton, Ohio. In 1994, she was posthumously inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame. Moorehead bequeathed $25,000 to Muskingum College, with instructions to fund one or more "Agnes Moorehead Scholarships". She also left half of her manuscripts to Muskingum—a Presbyterian school founded by her uncle—with the other half going to the University of Wisconsin. Her family's Ohio farm went to Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina, along with her collection of Bibles and biblical scholarship materials. Moorehead's father was a Presbyterian minister, and in 1921, when Agnes was an undergraduate at Muskingum, the college presented an honorary degree to Bob Jones, Sr. Moorehead's mother, Mary, received all of Moorehead's clothing and jewelry, and Moorehead made provisions to support Mary for the rest of her life. The Beverly Hills home was left to Moorehead's attorney, Franklin Rohner, along with the furnishings and personal property within. Small bequests were made for friends and domestic staff, along with some charitable contributions. In her will, she made no provision for her foster son Sean Lee. In fact, she had fostered Sean only until his 18th birthday, and her will stated that she had "no children, natural or adopted, living or deceased".

Film • Year — Title — Role — Notes • 1941 — Citizen Kane — Mary Kane • 1942 — The Magnificent Ambersons — Fanny Minafer — New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress • The Big Street — Violette Shumberg • 1943 — Journey into Fear — Mrs. Mathews • The Youngest Profession — Miss Featherstone • Government Girl — Adele – Mrs. Delancey Wright • Jane Eyre — Mrs. Reed • 1944 — Since You Went Away — Mrs. Emily Hawkins • Dragon Seed — Third Cousin's Wife • The Seventh Cross — Madame Marelli • Mrs. Parkington — Baroness Aspasia Conti • Tomorrow, the World — Aunt Jesse Frame • 1945 — Keep Your Powder Dry — Lieut. Colonel Spottiswoode • Our Vines Have Tender Grapes — Bruna Jacobson • Her Highness and the Bellboy — Countess Zoe • 1947 — Dark Passage — Madge Rapf • The Lost Moment — Juliana Borderau • 1948 — Summer Holiday — Cousin Lily • The Woman in White — Countess Fosco • Station West — Mrs. Caslon • Johnny Belinda — Aggie MacDonald • 1949 — The Stratton Story — Ma Stratton • The Great Sinner — Emma Getzel • Without Honor — Katherine Williams • 1950 — Caged — Ruth Benton • Captain Blackjack — Mrs. Emily Birk • 1951 — Fourteen Hours — Christine Hill Cosick • Adventures of Captain Fabian — Aunt Jezebel • Show Boat — Parthy Hawks • The Blue Veil — Mrs. Palfrey • 1952 — The Blazing Forest — Jessie Crain • 1953 — The Story of Three Loves — Aunt Lydia — Segment: "The Jealous Lover" • Scandal at Scourie — Sister Josephine • Main Street to Broadway — Mildred Waterbury • Those Redheads From Seattle — Mrs. Edmonds • 1954 — Magnificent Obsession — Nancy Ashford • 1955 — Untamed — Aggie • The Left Hand of God — Beryl Sigman • All That Heaven Allows — Sara Warren • 1956 — The Conqueror — Hunlun • Meet Me in Las Vegas — Miss Hattie • The Swan — Queen Maria Dominika • The Revolt of Mamie Stover — Bertha Parchman • Pardners — Mrs. Matilda Kingsley • The Opposite Sex — Countess de Brion • 1957 — The True Story of Jesse James — Mrs. Samuel • Jeanne Eagels — Nellie Neilson • Raintree County — Ellen Shawnessy • The Story of Mankind — Queen Elizabeth I • 1958 — The Tempest — Vassilissa Mironova • 1959 — Night of the Quarter Moon — Cornelia Nelson • The Bat — Cornelia van Gorder • 1960 — Pollyanna — Mrs. Snow • 1961 — Twenty Plus Two — Mrs. Eleanor Delaney • Bachelor in Paradise — Judge Peterson • 1962 — Jessica — Maria Lombardo • How the West Was Won — Rebecca Prescott • 1963 — Who's Minding the Store? — Mrs. Phoebe Tuttle • 1964 — Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte — Velma Cruther • 1966 — The Singing Nun — Sister Cluny • 1969 — The Ballad of Andy Crocker — Lisa's Mother • 1971 — What's the Matter with Helen? — Sister Alma • 1972 — Dear Dead Delilah — Delilah Charles • 1973 — Charlotte's Web — The Goose — Voice • 2005 — Bewitched — Endora — Uncredited; archive footage

• Year — Title — Role — Notes • 1953 — The Revlon Mirror Theater — Martha Adams — Episode: "Lullaby" • 1955 — The Colgate Comedy Hour — Aunt Minnie — Episode: "Roberta" • 1956 — Matinee Theatre — Mrs. Barnes — Episode: "Greybeards and Witches" • Studio 57 — Mrs. Tolliver — Episode: "Teacher" • 1957 — Climax! — Irene — Episode: "Locked in Fear" • Wagon Train — Mary Halstead — Episode: "The Mary Halstead Story" • 1958 — The DuPont Show of the Month — Madame Defarge — Episode: "A Tale of Two Cities" • Playhouse 90 — Rose Ganun — Episode: "The Dungeon" • Suspicion — Katherine Searles — Episode: "The Protege" • 1959 — G.E. True Theatre — Ana Konrad Bethlen — Episode: "Deed of Mercy" • Alcoa Theatre — Mrs. Adams — Episode: "Man of His House" • The Rebel — Mrs. Martha Lassiter — Episode: "In Memoriam" • 1960 — Startime — Carmen Lynch — Episode: "Closed Set" • The Millionaire — Katherine Boland — Episode: "Millionaire Katherine Boland" • The Chevy Mystery Show — Elizabeth Marshall — Episode: "Trial by Fury" • Adventures in Paradise — Jikiri — Episode: "The Krismen" • Rawhide — Sister Frances — S3:E8, "Incident at Poco Tiempo" • Shirley Temple's Storybook — Hepzibah Pyncheon Mombi the Witch Witch in Rapunzel — 3 episodes • The Rifleman — Alberta 'Bertie' Hoakam — Episode: "Miss Bertie" season 3, episode 14 • 1961 — The Twilight Zone — Woman — Episode: "The Invaders" • My Sister Eileen — Aunt Harriet — 2 episodes • 1962 — Poor Mr. Campbell — Adrice Campbell • 1963–1965 — Burke's Law — Pauline Moss Dona Ynez Ortega y Esteban Liz Haggerty — 2 episodes • 1964 — Channing — Professor Amelia Webster — Episode: "Freedom Is a Lovesome Thing God Wot" • The Greatest Show on Earth — Millie — Episode: "This Train Don't Stop Till It Gets There" • 1964–1972 — Bewitched — Endora — 146 episodes; Main role • 1966 — The Lone Ranger — Black Widow — Episode: "The Trickster/Crack of Doom/The Human Dynamo" • 1966 — Password — Herself — Game Show Contestant / Celebrity Guest Star • 1967 — The Wild Wild West — Emma Valentine — Episode: "The Night of the Vicious Valentine" • Custer — Watoma — Episode: "Spirit Woman" • 1969 — Lancer — Mrs. Normile — Episode: "A Person Unknown" • The Red Skelton Show — Bertha Bluenose — Episode: "He Wanted to Be a Square Shooter But He Found That his Barrel was Round" • 1970 — Barefoot in the Park — Mrs. Wilson — Episode: "Pilot" • The Virginian — Emma Garvey — Episode: "Gun Quest" • 1971 — Night Gallery — Emma Brigham — 2 episodes • Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color — Mrs. Pringle — Episode: "Strange Monster of Strawberry Cove" • Love, American Style — Mrs. Cooper — Segment: "Love and the Particular Girl" • 1971 — Marriage: Year One — Grandma Duden — Television movie • Suddenly Single — Marlene — Television movie • The Strange Monster of Strawberry Cove — Mrs. Pringle — Television movie • 1972 — Marcus Welby, M.D. — Mrs. Ramsey — Episode: "He Could Sell Iceboxes to Eskimos" • Rolling Man — Grandmother — Television movie • Night of Terror — Bronsky — Television movie • 1973 — Frankenstein: The True Story — Mrs. Blair — Television movie • 1974 — Rex Harrison Presents Stories of Love — Hercules's Wife — Television movie

Moorehead began appearing on stage during her training at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. She appeared in seven productions as a student. She continued acting in the theater throughout her career until just a few months before her death. • Year — Play — Role • 1928 — Courage — Understudy • 1929 — Soldiers and Women — Understudy • 1929 — Scarlet Pages — Company • 1929 — Candle Light — Company • 1934 — All the King's Horses — Company • 1951 — Don Juan In Hell — Doña Ana. • 1954 — An Evening with Agnes Moorehead — Herself • 1957 — The Rivalry — Mrs. Stephen A. Douglas. Moorehead toured with the play but dropped out before its New York debut. • 1959 — The Pink Jungle — Eleanor West • 1962 — Prescription: Murder — Claire Fleming • 1962 — Lord Prego — Miss Swanson • 1963 — High Spirits — Madame Arcati • 1973 — Gigi — Aunt Alicia

Moorehead appeared on hundreds of individual broadcasts across a radio career that spanned from 1926 to her final two appearances, on CBS Radio Mystery Theater in 1974. • Year — Program — Role • 1929–1930 — Believe It or Not — Ensemble • 1930–1933 — Sherlock Holmes — Ensemble • 1931 — The Ben Bernie Show — Ensemble • 1932–1933 — Mysteries In Paris — Nana • 1933–1934 — Evenings In Paris — Anna • 1933–1936 — The Armour Hour — Ensemble • 1934 — The Gumps — Min • 1934–1935 — Heartthrobs of the Hills — Ensemble • 1935–1937 — Dot and Will — Rose • 1935–1936 — The New Penny • 1936 — Way Down East • 1936–1938 — The March of Time — Ensemble / Eleanor Roosevelt. • 1937 — Terry and the Pirates — The Dragon Lady • 1937–1939 — The Shadow — Margo Lane • 1938 — The Mercury Theatre on the Air — Ensemble • 1938 — The Campbell Playhouse — Ensemble • 1938–1941 — Cavalcade of America — Ensemble • 1939–1940 — Brenda Curtis — Brenda's mother • 1939–1940 — The Aldrich Family — Mrs. Brown • 1940 — The Adventures of Superman — Lara • 1941–1942 — Bringing Up Father — Maggie • 1941–1942 — Bulldog Drummond — Ensemble • 1942–1949 — Mayor of the Town — Marilly • 1942–1960 — Suspense — Mrs. Elbert Stevenson • 1974 — CBS Radio Mystery Theater — Ada Canby, Lorna Kitteridge