I Love the Illusion: The Life and Career of Agnes Moorehead (46 page)

The Chicago Tribune
, after slamming the picture as “half-baked
Hitchcock,” singled Agnes out for praise: “best of all is Agnes Moorehead
as Charlotte’s housekeeper. She’s slovenly, nosey, grumpy, and disrespectful
and brings it off splendidly.”
The Denver Post
opined, “Agnes Moorehead,
in one of her strongest portrayals, is the maid and it is no surprise that this
performance earned her an Academy Award nomination.” However,
Time,
in its review, backed up Crowther, “Oscar nominee Agnes Moorehead, as
Charlotte’s loyal drudge, is a snarling, scratching sound and sight gag who
seems determined to out-overact the best of them.” Certainly Velma is an
overblown characterization which lacks the subtleness of an Aunt Fanny,
but there is no doubt that from her first entrance, to her grizzly exit, you
can’t keep your eyes off of Agnes even in scenes with Davis and de
Havilland. The casting of de Havilland also helps the picture. When
Miriam is first introduced, we are to believe she is sympathetic toward
Charlotte and only gradually do we discover the truth. De Havilland, more
so than Crawford, is able to pull that off.

Agnes believed in signs. In her heart she must have thought that after
nearly a quarter of a century as one of the leading character actresses, with
three previous nominations under her belt, this would be her year.
Everybody told her so. Louella Parsons wrote, “Aggie should be odds-on for
Oscar for this.” Her friends told her she had their vote and should expect
Oscar on her mantle. Finally, she was the only American name on the list
of 1964’s nominated supporting actresses. She felt that American pride in
one of their own would also aid her. In fact, much of the press leading up
to the 1964 Academy Awards had to do with the number of foreign nominees
for major acting honors. Of the twenty major acting nominations in all
categories, only six were American-born; three of the Best Picture nominees
took place in England —
My Fair Lady, Becket, Mary Poppins,
and one in
Greece,
Zorba the Greek
.

Oscar night, April 5, arrived and the show began its 7pm telecast
worldwide over the ABC television network (another good sign for
Agnes?), and was held at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. Perennial
host Bob Hope delivered one of his patented corny jokes regarding all the
publicity about the quantity of foreign-born nominees. “Tonight,
Hollywood is handing out the foreign aid. Before you can pick up your
Oscar, you have to show your passport.” The night went predictably, with
My Fair Lady
scoring in almost every category in which it competed. But
there were cracks in the armor. Stanley Holloway, up for Best Supporting
Actor for
My Fair Lady
, lost out to Peter Ustinov for
Topkapi
. This gave
Agnes some hope since she thought that if she were denied the Oscar it
would be because of a
Fair Lady
sweep of major acting awards (the only
exception being Best Actress where Audrey Hepburn had famously been
denied a nomination). During the course of the show, Best Actress-nominee
Debbie Reynolds came out on stage to present the Best Score award and did
some banter with Hope. She joked that she was “barefooted” under her
full-length gown, a subtle joke at the expense of her shoe tycoon husband,
Harry Karl. In fact, the show was full of people close to Agnes — Reynolds,
her Academy of Dramatic Arts buddy Rosalind Russell, who presented a
special award; Greer Garson, presenting the Costume Design Award, and,
in an especially good omen, her friend Karl Malden was going to present
Agnes’ category.

Malden was introduced and, not wanting to keep the nominees in
suspense with a lot of needless bantering, he got straight to the point. “I
know how your hearts are fluttering so I’ll get on with it . . . The nominees
for Best Supporting Actress are:

G
LADYS
C
OOPER
,
My Fair Lady
D
AME
E
DITH
E
VANS
,
The Chalk Garden
G
RAYSON
H
ALL
,
The Night of the Iguana
L
ILA
K
EDROVA
,
Zorba the Greek
A
GNES
M
OOREHEAD
,
Hush . . . Hush, Sweet Charlotte.
”

Agnes’ heart sank but she put up the usual brave front of applauding
for the winner who didn’t really believe it had happened. “Has it really
happened?” Kedrova asked her co-star, Anthony Quinn, and, assured it
really had, she made her way to the stage to pick up her trophy. The rest
of the night was also a letdown when Sidney Poitier announced that the
Best Actress Oscar went to Julie Andrews for
Mary Poppins
and not to
Debbie.

The postmortems began the next morning with Hedda Hopper taking
aim at the high number of foreign nominees. “No American actor won.
Either the rules will have to be changed or our actors will have to try harder.”
Robert Aldrich wired Agnes, “To allay any doubts you should know there
is no difference in our regards, respect and affection between yesterday and
today.” Agnes’ New York theatre producer and friend, Barron Polan, wrote,
“About the Academy I always thought it was a fraud, and now I know it!
I’m about mad enough to chew them out, and I resent that Greek girl
something terrible.” An old friend, Peter Opp, Jr., now with Disney, wrote,
“. . . the entire Oscar presentations now seems to be reduced to a farcical
level. I leave you with a salute that you don’t need an Oscar to prove your
worth as an actress to many of us in the industry.“ He also left her with a
tip that Disney was going to be producing the film
The Happiest Millionaire
in the near future and that there were two plum roles in it, either of which
would be perfect for Agnes. As for Agnes, her reaction may have summed
it up best of all: “I guess I’ll remain a bridesmaid for the rest of my life.”

Usually by late April or early May when doing a television series, you have
completed filming the episodes for the season and are allowed a three-month
or so hiatus. This was not the case with
Bewitched
in the spring of 1965
because Elizabeth Montgomery was pregnant again. It was decided after a
short break in April to return in late May to film three episodes for the
upcoming second season, introducing the audience to the fact that
Samantha Stephens (like Montgomery) is pregnant. On the Sunday after
filming an episode titled “A Very Special Delivery,” where Endora puts a
spell on Darrin so that he experiences the same morning sickness that
Samantha does, Agnes flew off to Dallas where she was going to spend the
next three weeks rehearsing and appearing in the Noel Coward musicalcomedy
High Spirits
as part of the 24th Dallas Summer Musicals season.

High Spirits
had played 657 performances in New York after opening on
Broadway in April 1964. It told the story of Charles Condomine; his
deceased first wife, Elvira; his current second wife, Ruth; and the zany
medium, Mdm. Arcati, who conjures up the spirit of the first wife who has
been dead for seven years. Agnes was cast as Mdm. Arcati, with Michael
Evans and Adrienne Angel as Charles and Ruth. The beautiful Iva Withers,
who understudied Tammy Grimes in the Broadway production, would play
the ghostly Elvira. Given her new popularity on television, along with her
recent Academy Award nomination, Agnes was given solo billing above the
title as well as a $4,000 per week salary.

Agnes was met at the airport by the director of
High Spirits,
Tom
Hughes, who presented her with a bouquet composed of Anthericum and
black orchids and covered with artificial spiders — in reference to both the
supernatural nature of the play and Agnes’ witchy persona on
Bewitched.
Agnes wasn’t pleased as she waved it away exclaiming, “Frightening!
Horrible!” She refused to touch them until a photographer insisted.

High Spirits
would have many special effects elements, such as Iva
Withers flying through the air suspended by wires, tables and chairs
seemingly moving by themselves, windows opening and closing on cue, and
books flying off the bookcase. Agnes would make her first entrance as
Mdm. Arcati on a bicycle connected to a track that would allow her to sing
and gesture while riding. Agnes also designed the eccentric costumes she
wore in the show, a fact mentioned in an ad for a local clothing store which
showed a picture of “the bewitching” Agnes Moorehead, dressed in a
checkered hat and jacket she uses when riding her bicycle on stage, with the
caption: “Miss Moorehead has always been known for her exotic fashion
designs . . . her originally designed costumes steal the show . . . Jas K.
Wilson’s Ladies departments do not stock Madame Arcadi’s wardrobe, but
like Miss Moorehead, our ladies fashions are always outstanding.”

On opening night Agnes sent a wire to the
High Spirits
company, “May
this be the beginning of a wonderful season — Relax and a GoGo.” During
the opening performance Agnes got a good audience reaction when she
ad-libbed a plug for
Bewitched.
It occurred during a scene when Mdm.
Arcati is in a trance during hypnotism and absentmindedly whistles the
theme to
Bewitched
. This got a good round of applause and Agnes included
it in all subsequent performances. Barron Polan sent a cable to Agnes on
opening night addressing her as “Aggie Semple MacPherson,” and writing,
“I wish I could see you on your bicycle! Know you will be great particularly
with the Ojai board. Don’t summon any of my late friends! Love Baron.”
The girls’ singing chorus of
High Spirits
also sent Agnes a wire, “Our spirits
are high tonight because of you. Know you will enchant the audience as
you have enchanted us.” The audience opening night, according to the
Dallas Morning News,
was “a shade under par,” but still a healthy 2,000 in
attendance. In its review, the
Morning News
said, “This audience found
much to applaud if not shout about, and more to laugh about than to
understand. H
IGH
S
PIRITS
is a must item from recent repertoires and just
now we don’t know another summer theater that could convey it as
smoothly or professionally.” Of Agnes, they wrote, “Miss Moorehead can
be hilarious when given scope, as in her boudoir scene while talking to her
Ouija board, when going crazily balletic in Margot Fonteyn imitations, in
effective delivery of patter songs which intensify the plot, such as
‘Something is Coming to Tea’ . . . Miss Moorehead . . . can do something all
others have missed in words and song. She can play somebody else
amusingly besides herself, Noel Coward’s Madam Arcati, for instance.“

The two weeks of performances flew by and Agnes ingratiated herself
with the company. She was there for others and offered kind words and
support to her fellow actors in the company. On the day she left Dallas, the
chorus from
High Spirits
wrote an “Ode to Agnes”: “Bewitching, beguiling
— these words are all used to describe our favorite seer. Oh Madame Arcati,
we give you this broom in remembrance of your three weeks here. Although
you leave us to fly far away, we really want you to see that in witching,
conjuring or winning our hearts you’ll always be loved in Big D.”

The hairstylist for the show, Jimi White, enthused of Agnes, “She is very
warm, quick-witted. She is typical of the ones on top, sure of herself, easy
to get along with and ready to make everything work out right, with everybody happy.” It was a happy experience for Agnes, but would be her final
play in theatre for nearly seven years, with the exception of her one-woman
shows. Agnes would now take a couple of weeks off to rest before returning
to the
Bewitched
set to film several episodes back-to-back throughout July
until the second week in September when production would close down for
approximately two months while Montgomery was on maternity leave.

Shortly after returning to Hollywood from Dallas, Agnes went to the set
of the film
The Chase
to visit her friend, E.G. Marshall, and got to observe
the star of the film, Marlon Brando. She wasn’t impressed. “A wild set —
with the
gr-r-reat
Marlon Brando,” she related to Georgia Johnstone. “You
couldn’t hear him speak. How do they get on? One take a day practically
and he gets $1,000,000 a picture!!! It’s beyond me.” She was not a fan of
what she called “the mumbling school” of acting. “The method school
thinks the emotion is the art. It isn’t. All emotion isn’t sublime. The theater
isn’t reality. If you want reality, go to the morgue. The theater is human
behavior that is effective and interesting.”

Again she complained about the “breakneck speed” of shooting
Bewitched
to accommodate Montgomery’s maternity schedule. “And this
series is getting me down . . . trying to get as many shows in the can before
the baby comes. The whole thing is mad and I don’t particularly care about
arriving on the set
any
morning.” Further depressing her was the death of
her Mercury Theatre friend and fellow actor, Everett Sloane. She related to
Johnstone how she was “depressed” for three days, and then went on to
describe Sloane as “strange — turning down work thinking he had every
disease in the book.” She also called the Watts riots, which were occurring
that summer of ’65,
“shocking, unbelievable
actions — I don’t know
what the world is coming
to.”

When
Bewitched
went
into hiatus again during
Montgomery’s maternity
leave, Agnes accepted the
role of Sister Cluny at the
invitation of her friend
Debbie Reynolds in the
film
The Singing Nun
which went before the
cameras at MGM in
October 1965. It is the
story of Sister Sourire
who becomes a recording
star while belonging to a
Belgium convent. Greer
Garson would play the
Reverend Mother and
Ricardo Montalban was
cast as the Father. Agnes wasn’t enthusiastic about the script, telling
Johnstone, “The script is fair — the best part of it is very dull. They have
been after Debbie like mad, and giving her a leading man (Chad Everett)
with no name — she is on a rampage . . . It just fit in with
Bewitched
for any
minute now Elizabeth will have her baby. She says she will be here Oct. 1,
but believe me, she could drop in any minute — she is so huge.” For Agnes,
the role of Sister Cluny was nothing more than looking disapprovingly at
the guitar-playing Sister played by Reynolds. But she was happy to be on
the set working with two of her closest buddies, Reynolds and Garson.