66 Facts About Agnes Moorehead

Agnes Robertson Moorehead was an American actress.

Agnes Moorehead had joined Orson Welles' Mercury Players, as one of his principal performers in 1937.

Agnes Moorehead had notable roles in films such as Citizen Kane, Dark Passage, Show Boat, and All That Heaven Allows.

Agnes Moorehead garnered four nominations for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, for her performances in: The Magnificent Ambersons, Mrs Parkington, Johnny Belinda, and Hush.

Agnes Moorehead is known for the radioplay Sorry, Wrong Number.

Agnes Moorehead gained acclaim for her role as Endora on the ABC sitcom Bewitched which she played from 1964 to 1972.

Agnes Moorehead's performance earned her six Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series nominations.

Agnes Robertson Moorehead was born on December 6,1900, in Clinton, Massachusetts, the daughter of former singer Mary, who was 17 when she was born, and Presbyterian clergyman John Henderson Moorehead.

Agnes Moorehead was of English, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh ancestry.

Agnes Moorehead later claimed that she was born in 1906 to appear younger for acting parts.

Agnes Moorehead 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.

Agnes Moorehead earned a bachelor's degree in 1923, majoring in biology at Muskingum College in New Concord, Ohio.

Agnes Moorehead received an honorary doctorate in literature from Muskingum in 1947, and served for a year on its board of trustees.

Agnes Moorehead then pursued postgraduate studies at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, from which she graduated with honors in 1929.

Agnes Moorehead received an honorary doctoral degree from Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois.

Agnes Moorehead's early acting career was unsteady, and although she was able to find stage work, she was often unemployed.

Agnes Moorehead later recalled going four days without food, and said that it had taught her "the value of a dollar".

Agnes Moorehead found work in radio and was in demand, often working on several programs in a single day.

Agnes Moorehead believed that it offered her excellent training and allowed her to develop her voice to create a variety of characterizations.

Agnes Moorehead met 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", Agnes Moorehead returned to radio.

Several of his radio performers joined him, and Agnes Moorehead made her film debut as the mother of his own character, Charles Foster Kane, in Citizen Kane, considered by most film critics as one of the best films ever made.

Agnes Moorehead was featured in Welles' second film, The Magnificent Ambersons, and received the New York Film Critics Award and an Academy Award nomination for her performance.

Agnes Moorehead appeared in Journey Into Fear, a Mercury film production.

Agnes Moorehead received positive reviews for her performance in Mrs Parkington, and the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress and an Academy Award nomination.

Agnes Moorehead played another strong role in The Big Street 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 adolescent Virginia Weidler.

Agnes Moorehead had supporting roles in The Youngest Profession, Since You Went Away, and the crime drama Dark Passage, starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.

Agnes Moorehead then played Aggie McDonald in the 1948 film, Johnny Belinda.

Agnes Moorehead played Parthy Hawks, wife of Cap'n Andy and mother of Magnolia, in MGM's hit 1951 remake of Show Boat.

Agnes Moorehead was often introduced on the show as the "first lady of Suspense".

Agnes Moorehead played a selfish, neurotic woman who overhears a murder being plotted via crossed phone wires and eventually realizes she is the intended victim.

Agnes Moorehead recreated the performance six times for Suspense and several times on other radio shows, always using her original, dog-eared script.

In 1941, Agnes Moorehead played Maggie in the short-lived Bringing Up Father program on the Blue Network.

From 1942 to 1949, Agnes Moorehead played the role of the mayor's housekeeper in the radio version of Mayor of the Town.

Agnes Moorehead starred in The Amazing Mrs Danberry, a situation comedy on CBS in 1946.

Agnes Moorehead had a supporting role in the big-budget Howard Hughes film The Conqueror, starring John Wayne and Susan Hayward, a film she later regretted appearing in.

Agnes Moorehead starred in The Bat with Vincent Price.

Agnes Moorehead appeared as the hypochondriac Mrs Snow in Disney's hit film Pollyanna.

Agnes Moorehead starred with Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, Mary Astor, and Joseph Cotten in Hush.

In 1959, Agnes Moorehead guest-starred on many series, including The Rebel and Alcoa Theatre.

In "The Invaders", Agnes Moorehead played a woman whose isolated farm is plagued by mysterious intruders.

Agnes Moorehead found the script odd, because it had only one line of dialogue, at the very end.

Agnes Moorehead's character gasped in terror once or twice, but never spoke.

In Sorry, Wrong Number, Agnes Moorehead offered a famed, bravura performance using only her voice.

Agnes Moorehead had guest roles on Channing, Custer, Rawhide in "Incident at Poco Tiempo" as Sister Frances, and The Rifleman.

In 1964, Agnes Moorehead accepted the role of Endora, Samantha's mortal-loathing, quick-witted witch mother in the situation comedy Bewitched.

Agnes Moorehead 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.

Agnes Moorehead 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.

Agnes Moorehead received six Emmy Award nominations, but was quick to remind interviewers that she had enjoyed a long and distinguished career.

Agnes Moorehead expressed a fondness for the show's star, Elizabeth Montgomery, and said she had enjoyed working with her.

In fall 1964, Agnes Moorehead participated in a 5-minute commercial spot featuring casts of both Bonanza and Bewitched, announcing the new 1965 Chevrolet line.

Agnes Moorehead was featured with Dan Blocker extolling the virtues of the new '65 Chevy II.

In 1970, Agnes Moorehead appeared as a dying woman who haunts her own house in the early Night Gallery episode "Certain Shadows on the Wall".

Agnes Moorehead reprised her role in Don Juan in Hell on Broadway and on tour, with an all-star cast that featured Edward Mulhare, Ricardo Montalban, and Paul Henreid.

Agnes Moorehead fell ill during the production, resulting in Arlene Francis having to replace her.

In January 1974, three months before her death, two episodes featuring Agnes Moorehead aired on the CBS Radio Mystery Theater, the popular radio show produced and directed by Himan Brown.

In 1930, Agnes Moorehead married actor John Griffith Lee; they divorced a year after fostering a boy named Sean in 1952.

Agnes Moorehead married actor Robert Gist in 1954, and they divorced in 1958.

Agnes Moorehead rarely spoke publicly about her political beliefs, but she supported both Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and close friend Ronald Reagan for his 1966 run for governor of California.

Agnes Moorehead died of uterine cancer on April 30,1974, in Rochester, Minnesota, aged 73.

Sandra Gould said Agnes Moorehead was specifically concerned about being harmed by radiation from The Conqueror shoot.

Agnes Moorehead is entombed in a crypt at Dayton Memorial Park in Dayton, Ohio.

Agnes Moorehead left half of her manuscripts to Muskingum with the other half going to the University of Wisconsin.

Agnes Moorehead began appearing on stage during her training at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

Agnes Moorehead continued acting in the theater throughout her career until just a few months before her death.

Agnes 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.