Actors - Agnes Moorehead

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	Actors - Agnes Moorehead

Agnes Robertson Moorehead (December 6, 1900 – April 30, 1974) was an Oscar-nominated American character actress. Although she appeared in more than 70 films and on dozens of television shows during a career that spanned more than 30 years, she is most widely known for her role as the witch Endora in the television series Bewitched.

Early life

Moorehead was born in Clinton, Massachusetts of English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh ancestry, the only child of a Presbyterian minister. She later shaved six years off her age by claiming to have been born in 1906. She grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, and was graduated from Central High School in 1918.

Moorehead earned a bachelor's degree, with a major in biology, from Muskingum College in New Concord, Ohio in 1923. (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 Soldier's Grove, Wisconsin, while earning a master's degree in English and public speaking at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. She then pursued post-graduate studies at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, from which she was was graduated with honors in 1929.

Career

During her career, Moorehead's varied performances established her as one of Hollywood's premier character actresses. She appeared in many of the best known films of the time including Citizen Kane
, The Magnificant Ambersons and Johnny Belinda.

She skillfully protrayed puritanical matrons, neurotic spinsters, possessive mothers, even comical secretaries throughout her career. Moorehead was part of Orson Welles' Mercury Theater on the Air radio program in the 1930s and appeared in Broadway productions of Don Juan in Hell in 1951-1952, and Lord Pengo in 1962-1963.

While never a headlining star in films, Moorehead's skill at character development and range earned her one Emmy, two Golden Globes, and four Oscar nominations and six Emmy nominations. Moorehead transitioned to television, and again won acclaim and accolades for her work in drama and in comedy.

Private life

Though rumoured to be a lesbian, , Moorehead married actor John Griffith Lee in 1930 and they divorced in 1952; they disastrously adopted an orphan named Sean, in 1949, but it remains unclear whether the adoption was legal, although Moorehead did raise the child until he ran away from home. In 1953, she married actor Robert Gist, and they divorced in 1958.

The actress was also a devout Presbyterian and, in interviews, often spoke of her relationship with God. Shortly before her death, she returned to her fundamentalist roots and requested an audience with Bob Jones, Jr., perhaps reflecting her own heritage with the embattled Protestants in Northern Ireland, UK.

Agnes Moorehead died of uterine cancer in Rochester, Minnesota. , not lung cancer as was long believed.

While never confirmed, some suspect that Moorehead’s cancer was a result of having been exposed to radiation at a site previously used for nuclear testing while filming The Conqueror
(1956) in Utah. Moorehead believed her cancer was related to this exposure, and commented in an interview shortly before her death, "I wish I'd never done that damn movie!" There is no definitive proof that the movie caused her illness, and she had been a heavy smoker for many years. Whatever the cause, her untimely death remains a tragedy given her acting genius and personal elegance.

Moorehead willed her 1965 Emmy for The Wild Wild West, her Oscar nominations and her private papers to Muskingum College, including her home in Rix Mills, Ohio. She left her Ohio estate, Moorehead Manor to Bob Jones University. She left her scrapbooks and scripts to the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research at the Wisconsin Historical Society.

In 1994, Agnes Moorehead was inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame.

She is interred at Dayton Memorial Park in Dayton, Ohio.

Notable roles

The Shadow
, 1937-1939 as Margot Lane (radio series)
Citizen Kane
, 1941 as Mary Kane
The Magnificent Ambersons
, 1942 as Fanny; New York Film Critics Circle Award, Academy Award nomination
Sorry, Wrong Number
, 1943 as Leona Stevenson (radio drama)
Mrs Parkington, 1944 as Aspasia Conti; Golden Globe, Academy Award nomination
Jane Eyre
, 1944 as Mrs. Reed
Johnny Belinda, 1948 as Aggie McDonald; Academy Award nomination
Pollyanna
, 1960 as Mrs. Snow
The Twilight Zone a non-dialogue performance on the episode: "The Invaders" (1961) as "The Woman"
Bewitched, 1964 - 1972 as Endora; six Emmy nominations
Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte
, 1964 as Velma Cruther; Golden Globe, Academy Award nomination

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Actors - Agnes Moorehead

Early life

Career

Private life

Notable roles

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