Happy Birthday!

 

  

Happy 113th birthday, Agnes Moorehead. She was born in Clinton, Mass., the daughter of a Presbyterian clergyman. She maintained a lifelong interest in religion. Dick Sargent, who played Darin in ‘Bewitched,’ recalled Moorehead showing up on the set with a Bible in one hand and the script in the other. Her first performance was reciting ‘The Lord’s Prayer’ before her father’s congregation when she was 3. Agnes and her sister frequently mimicked parishioners at the dinner table. Though her parents encouraged her acting ambitions, they insisted she get an education. She graduated from Muskingum College in Ohio with a degree in biology, and earned a master’s degree in English while teaching school in Wisconsin. She later graduated with honors from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Her acting career got off to a rough start, and she recalled being so broke she didn’t eat for four days. She turned to radio and by 1937 she was one of Orson Welles’ Mercury Players. Later she appeared in several Welles’ films, including ‘Citizen Kane,’ ‘Journey Into Fear,’ and ‘The Magnificent Ambersons.’ By the mid-1940s she was under contract with MGM as a character actress, and she continued her work in radio. By the ‘60s she was appearing on television, and in 1964 she accepted the part of Endora in the situation comedy ‘Bewitched.’ She didn’t expect it to succeed and ultimately felt trapped by the role. She died of cancer in 1974, something she predicted. Moorehead had appeared in ‘The Conquerer,’ which was filmed downwind from the Yucca Flat nuclear test site. She was one of 90 out of 220 cast and crew who developed cancer, including Susan Hayward and John Wayne. She said she never should have taken that part.

via The New England Historical Society