I Love the Illusion: The Life and Career of Agnes Moorehead (43 page)

After a couple of weeks off the
picture, Crawford returned to the
set with a limited work schedule
which required her to work only
half days until her doctors felt she
was well enough to handle a full
day workload. The first day back
went fine since it was Bette’s day off
and Joan was shooting an important scene with Agnes. The scene
shot required Miriam telling Velma
that her services were no longer
required at Hollis House. Velma
hisses, “You trying to hand me my
walking papers? . . . You can’t fool
me.” To which the perfectly poised
Miriam replies, “My dear, with
your keen naive intelligence I wouldn’t dream of trying. But the point is,
you’re fired — you can go.” The scene was shot in one take and afterward
Joan effused about Agnes to a visiting reporter, “One of the greatest
professional thrills I’ve had is working with Agnes Moorehead.” While she
was effusive in the press about Agnes, according to author Christopher
Nickens, she may have felt that Agnes and Bette Davis were both in cahoots
to get her off the film. The assumption is that since they were both character
actresses at heart and old confidants that their friendship may have
intimidated Joan. Yet in a letter to Georgia Johnstone, Agnes says that while
there was conflict on the set of this film, she didn’t want to get mixed up in it.

Joan’s elation proved short-lived when the next day Bette was back on
the set and as unrepentant as ever regarding Crawford, who almost
immediately suffered a relapse. Joan entered Cedars again and this time
caused the picture to close down production as most scenes left required
Crawford’s presence. The shut down would cost the studio an estimated
$50,000 per day — some would be covered by insurance, but certainly not
all. Around this time, Georgia Johnstone sent on to Agnes an offer from the
Studio Theatre in Buffalo, NY of $2,000 per week to stage any play of her
liking from September through October. Agnes replied, “I will be in the
middle of this series — We have only the pilot to go on and we will be
shooting back to back for quite a while — especially through September

and October . . . right now I can’t see my way clear to do anything! In fact
I haven’t finished
Hush! Hush!
as yet. Joan C. is in the hospital again, and
Bette D is livid.”

A decision had to be made whether to replace Joan. Predictably, Bette
was all for it and had a candidate to suggest — her good friend Olivia de
Havilland, who had a reputation for playing good-hearted women (such as
her Melanie in
Gone with the Wind
), but not murderous bitches. The
studio was not totally sold on de Havilland and reportedly Fox approached
Katharine Hepburn, who gave a terse “no,” and Vivien Leigh who famously
replied, “I could almost look at Joan Crawford’s face at six a.m. on a southern
plantation, but Bette Davis — Never!” The studio finally accepted de
Havilland, who flew in from Paris. Agnes did feel certain sympathy for Joan
and on this second hospitalization again remembered her with roses — the
only prominent member of the
Hush . . . Hush
company to remember Joan
in this way. As a matter of fact, no one at the studio even told Joan she had
been replaced — she found out only through newspaper accounts. While it
is clear this is what Joan wanted, she was still a star and expected to be told
by the studio as a courtesy. Upon finding out de Havilland had indeed
replaced her, Joan told the press that she was “pleased for Olivia because she
needed the part.” Joan was grateful to Agnes for the concern she had shown
toward her and shortly after being replaced she sent flowers and a note to

Agnes. “Thank you so much for being so nice to me. I enjoyed working
with you more than I can possibly say. It was such a joy to do even the few
scenes we had together. I do hope we will be able to work together again
sometime very soon. Bless you, and I wish you the great success you so richly
deserve in your television series.”

Olivia, professional that she was, immediately arrived on the set and the
film resumed production. It was essential that steady progress be made since
Fox wanted to release the film in Los Angeles by Christmas to qualify for the
Academy Awards. Bette, essentially getting her way, proved no problem as
filming resumed. For Agnes, the hold up on production was causing some
difficulties since it was fast approaching the deadline to begin filming
Bewitched
. Aggie’s big scene in the picture had yet to be filmed, Velma’s
death at the hands of Miriam. It begins with Velma returning to Hollis
House to try and rescue Charlotte. She hears Miriam returning and hides
in a closet where she witnesses Miriam drugging Charlotte. Miriam leaves,
and Velma again attempts to get Charlotte to safety, but is discovered by
Miriam. After a confrontation at the stairwell, where Velma tells Miriam
she is going to the authorities, Miriam violently knocks Velma down the
stairs and kills her.

Meanwhile, also on the Fox lot, Debbie Reynolds was filming
Goodbye
Charlie
on a nearby soundstage. In her autobiography, Debbie would recall
a difficult scene which involved props. The scene was set in the kitchen
where Debbie’s character was making breakfast for Tony Curtis. “When it
came to the actual shoot, I was already working with so many props, my
hands full of coffee and orange juice and eggs, that I didn’t know what to
do with the toast. Agnes Moorehead, meanwhile, was on another set . . . so
I called her. Agnes came down in a house dress, with a turban around her
head, a little handkerchief and stage blood on her . . . watch this rehearsal,
I said. She watched me go through the whole business, still not knowing
what to do with the toast. After the scene, I walked over to Agnes and she
said, ‘put it in your mouth.’” Debbie would remember how obvious the
suggestion was and how quickly Agnes was able to appraise the situation
and make her verdict. She did the scene delivering her dialogue with the
toast in her mouth, and it worked.

Agnes was pleased to have Debbie around for another reason — had she
not, she may well have starved. Agnes described her look in
Hush . . . Hush
as, “a slob, a blob of sagging flesh in a shapeless house dress that had seen
better days . . . I looked so awful that I refused to eat in the studio commissary,
and I suppose I’d have
starved if not for Debbie
Reynolds . . . (who) invited
me to join her for lunch
each day in the privacy
of her dressing room.”
Meanwhile, Agnes glamoured herself up to attend
the world premiere of
Debbie’s latest film from
MGM,
The Unsinkable
Molly Brown,
on June 25 at
the Egyptian Theater in
Hollywood, as a special guest
of Debbie’s. On July 9, Agnes
also took time to appear at
the Hollywood Bowl doing
at a concert of “music
inspired by Shakespeare.”
Agnes would preface various
musical compositions with
readings from the bard.

By August, Agnes was working double duty going back and forth
between filming episodes of
Bewitched
as the glamorous Endora and rushing
back to Fox to do retakes and dubbing on
Hush . . . Hush
as the hag Velma.
By the time
Hush . . . Hush
finally wrapped in mid-October, it was more
than two months behind schedule and had forced Agnes to back out of a
role she had eagerly wanted to play in, the satire,
The Loved One
. She was
replaced in this film by Margaret Leighton. It was a missed opportunity not
to work in that film with her friend Jonathan Winters, but she would later
appear in two television specials with him.

Back on
Bewitched
in early August, Agnes was working around the clock
and as she told Georgia Johnstone, “I am in a literal merry-go-round. They
are bickering now about my returning to
Hush! Hush!
— now that I’m deep
in a series! These series are for the birds — what a treadmill — the only
thing one can be thankful for is the check! And that I am — but one is so
tired that one can barely read the figures.” Even though Agnes signed on to
do only a certain number of episodes per season she does appear in several
of the early episodes which helped define the series. In addition to Agnes,
Elizabeth Montgomery and Dick York,
Bewitched
had many other veteran
actors who would appear off and on over the next eight years to help carry
the load — David White, Maurice Evans, Marion Lorne, Alice Pearce,
George Tobias, Kasey Rogers (who would join the series after leaving the
much steamier
Peyton Place
), and Mabel Albertson, as Darrin’s mother, who
always ended up with a “sick headache” whenever she visited her son and
daughter-in-law. Later, Bernard Fox as the wacky or quacky Dr. Bombay,
Paul Lynde as the practical joking Uncle Arthur and Alice Ghostley as the
shy and accident-prone Esmerelda joined the cast. Few television shows
then or now can boast such a stellar cast or such original characterizations.
It is — along with its fine writing — the reason why the show would last
as long as it did and continued to do well long afterward in syndication.