I Love the Illusion: The Life and Career of Agnes Moorehead (8 page)

One of the highlights of Agnes’ performance as Lizzie was her ability to
recite the books of the Bible in “a record breaking” 14 seconds. The tour
continued with enthusiastic notices and audiences in Cleveland,
Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Omaha (where another notice stated that Agnes
“all but stole the show”), Denver, Kansas City, and Toronto and all the way
to the west coast. From Toronto, Agnes sent a telegram to Jack: “D
ARLING

IMPOSSIBLE TO CALL YOU SHOW WENT BEAUTIFULLY GOOD CROWD AWFULLY
LONELY
T
ORONTO IS BEAUTIFUL WISH YOU WERE HERE HOPE YOUR COLOR IS
BETTER PLAY
H
AMILTON TOMORROW NIGHT WILL WIRE FROM THERE ANY
DEVELOPMENTS ON PLAY EXPECT LETTERS AT
W
M
P
ENN ALL MY LOVE
.”

By the time the tour arrived in New York for a stint at the Cort Theatre,
on Forty-Eighth Street in Manhattan, Agnes was exhausted — the two-hour
play had toured 16 weeks and traveled 32,000 miles. “It is hard work, but
it’s lots of fun,” Agnes declared. “Mr. Lords is always changing things and
something funny is always happening, but, goodness, I wish that we would
stop somewhere long enough for me to get my face clean!”

In September 1932, Agnes was cast in a new mystery-suspense radio series
broadcast over CBS,
Mysteries in Paris
— sponsored by Evening in Paris
perfume and other toiletries. The show starred Elsie Hitz as Patricia Barlow,
the heroine, described as a “young, beautiful vivacious, orphan American
girl without family ties and possessed of considerable fortune . . . came to
Paris in search of the excitement her temperament craved.” Agnes was cast
as Nana, Patricia’s “maid, chaperon, guardian and general factotum,” who
participated in helping Patricia in her mysteries against the “sinister,
mysterious, all-powerful criminal of the Paris underworld,” known as the
Octopus. Agnes’ character is described as “providing much sparkling comedy
and human interest” to the stories.

In fact, the character of Nana became so popular on the
Mysteries in Paris
program — the title of the program was changed to
Evening in Paris
within a few weeks — that what was initially a distinctly secondary role was
greatly enhanced in the weeks which followed. She also experienced a name
change — from Nana to Anna. There was no official explanation but it may
have been that the network felt Nana was too exotic a name. In
Radio FanFare
magazine, Agnes explained to writer R.R. Endicott how the character
became so popular. “That just shows what can happen to you in this
business. A hick character called Nana was written into the first
Mysteries
in Paris
shows to give the mysteries comic relief. I got the part and for some
strange reason the character became tremendously popular almost
immediately. Apparently she reminded listeners of ZaSu Pitts (an early
radio/stage/movie comedy character actress who had a tremendous following).
At least, hundreds wrote in and said that when they heard Nana they could
see ZaSu. Then the whole idea of the program was revised and the name
changed to
Evening in Paris
. But the sponsors thought they’d better keep
the comic character. They call her Anna now but don’t ask me why.”
Endicott went on to write, “Although Agnes didn’t say so, the fact is that
Nana, or Anna, stole the show, and instead of having just a few lines as she
did at first, the whole dramatic part of the program is now written around
her.“
Radio Guide
describes the voice she used as Nana/Anna as “simple,
unsophisticated, frustrated and quavering with the ZaSu Pitts voice, rustic
in her simple nature, but definitely not a hick.”

While Agnes was causing a stir as Nana/Anna she was also appearing in
a variety of other roles on radio including Peter Rabbit in an adaptation of
the A.A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh series, along with her recurring character
parts on
Sherlock Holmes
and the
Twenty Thousand Years in Sing Sing
program. She made it clear that she didn’t want to become typed as Nana.
“I can offer them so many characters just as funny Cockney parts, Scotch,
Irish, or what have you.” Throughout her career she would fight typecasting,
but from the early to the mid-1930’s her major roles would be in comedy
or “stooge” parts for comedians such as Phil Baker.

Agnes’ newfound popularity on radio also seemed to leave Jack behind.
By 1933 Jack was still acting, but mainly in stock productions. One newspaper clipping from that year indicates that Jack was working in a candy
store which had been held up, so while Agnes was receiving complimentary
notices in the press for her acting, the story on Jack described not the actor,
but a clerk who coolly cooperated when robbers held up the candy store he
was working in. His ego must have been somewhat bruised. A
St. Louis
Globe
profile on Agnes (“St. Louis Beauty Makes Good on Big Network
Programs,” 4/23/33) described Agnes’ childhood in St. Louis; her favorite
sport as riding; unusual incidents in her life, such as dancing with Henry
Ford and being presented to
Queen Marie of Rumania; that
she lives on Long Island “because
it is quiet,” and that when she is
tired she “stays at home and writes
letters.” But nowhere in that
profile is it mentioned that she is
married. Only a few years earlier,
Jack was getting a great deal of
press in the post-AADA period
with the bare knuckles mention of
him being “engaged.” Now the
shoe was on the other foot with
Jack receiving no mention at all.

Among the many profiles of
Agnes during this time appeared
in
Radio Guide
(“Chameleon of
the Air”) and is instructive: “Agnes
likes parties and people, and the
only time she goes on a smoking
binge of cigarettes is when everybody else is having — er — beer.
You have, she says, to do S
OMETHING
.” In the article she states she is
superstitious. “For instance, if she should drop her gloves, she never picks
them up. Fortunately, there is usually a young man in the vicinity only too
glad of the opportunity to pick them up for her. She always wears an Indian
bracelet to broadcasts, and regards a falling picture as an ominous sign.”
The article states that she suffers from chronic mike fright before, but never
during, a radio performance. “Any program is preceded by a wave of nausea,
but she believes mike fright scares actors into being constantly on their
toes.” The article sums her up: “And in a final analysis, Agnes saves money,
cooks like an angel, likes to putter around her apartment, reads in bed, never

finds money on the street, believes a professional and a domestic life can run
along smoothly, prefers dark-eyed men (hmm, again no mention of Jack in
this profile — could it have been a publicity angle to present Agnes as an
attractive single woman?), doesn’t believe in fortune tellers, but thinks
they’re fascinating and would prefer to live ‘out where the West begins.’ ”

Despite her personal success on
Evening in Paris
the show was not
renewed for a second season, but Agnes’ career momentum didn’t flag. She
was now identified as a top character comedian in the industry and soon
afterward she joined up with Irvin S. Cobb, a humorist in the Will Rogers
tradition, as his “stooge.” James Cannon, in the May 2, 1933
New York
World Telegram
(“Cobb Snags Rare Stooge”), describes a stooge as “a guy
who is funnier than the comedian he helps.” But Agnes was no “wild
stooge” (and certainly not a guy), she was “a rare tame stooge. The wild
stooge is a stooge because it does not know the ways of civilization and, you
might say, never had a chance, but a tame, or blasé, stooge is one who is a
stooge and knows better. Cobb’s stooge is Agnes Moorehead, a funny lady.
Miss Moorehead was an able laugh manufacturer on her own at one time,
before she answered the call of the wild and turned stooge.” With Cobb,
Agnes would appear on radio (often in commercial spots) and personal
appearances around the country.

While working with Cobb, Agnes stayed busy elsewhere, and around this
time she met a young radio director named Himan Brown, who she would
remain friends with for the remainder of her life and work with often. The
first time was when Brown was developing a daily comedy series based on
the comic strip,
The Gumps
. “I first met Aggie in 1933 when casting
The
Gumps,
which was a popular comic strip of that time. I had interviewed two
or three other people for the part of Min Gump. When Agnes came in, I
interviewed her and hired her on the spot. I didn’t give her a script and ask
her to read it back to me, I just had a one-on-one talk with her. I was struck
by her wonderful voice and her enunciation. I thought she would be
perfect as the wife who always has to take charge because her husband
(Andy Gump) was a misfit. Aggie knew the comic strip and she knew how
to portray Min Gump — knew in her own mind how the character should
be played and it was perfection.”

Himan Brown became one of the top directors and innovators in radio
and had strong convictions on what it takes to be a successful radio actor.
“A radio actor has to know how to interpret a script. In radio you have no
picture — you only have your voice. You have to listen and create with your
imagination. Agnes could do this. She was perfect for that rare quality that
radio actors must have — identification. Agnes was a wonderful person
who had great taste and knew what to do with words.” As Brown got to
know Agnes he was captivated by her personality. “Agnes was a rare human
being. Considerate, concerned, and she really cared for you. Cared about
people. She was a real friend, not some phony — and what a wonderful
sense of humor! It was sharp and it was witty and it was unpredictable.”

By this time, Brown had been out of college for only a few years and
when
The Gumps
was launched, he was still in his 20’s. Yet according to one
profile, he had already produced seventeen single station or network
programs by this time. He had gone to college with the intent of practicing
law, but went into radio instead. It was producer-director Brown’s intention
to make
The Gumps
“a real American family, even though a cartoon one.”
Interestingly, the writer of
The Gumps
was Irwin Shaw, who later became a
best-selling novelist. According to
The Encyclopedia of Old Time Radio,
when Brown hired Shaw to write
The Gumps,
he was working on another
radio show based on a comic strip,
Dick Tracy.
Brown would recall Shaw as
“sensational.”

Cast as Andy Gump, her misfit husband, was Wilmer Walter. Walter was
an experienced stage and radio performer who played Andy Gump with all
of his “bluff and bluster until Min tells him to keep quiet.” Agnes worked
with Walter on several programs in subsequent years including
The March
of Time
and
The Shadow.
Jackie Kelk was cast as their mischievous son,
Chester. For Agnes it was the start of a lifelong friendship with the
then-14-year-old Kelk. Brown recalls Kelk as “a young kid actor; he played
juvenile roles and he was pretty good, but certainly not in Aggie’s league.
He never married and he was a dear, dear close friend to Agnes. She would
often be gone and Jackie would watch her house in California for her — as
a matter of fact he had a small cottage on her property. As I say, they
were very good friends from that moment on and she needed someone
like him later on when she was alone, for safety sake, and when she was
off on the road.”

Himan Brown has always maintained that he gave Agnes her first big job
in radio, but she had actually achieved that with the role of Nana/Anna in
the
Mysteries of Paris
program and was under contract to NBC radio where
she appeared on many programs. But certainly the season she spent on
The
Gumps
enhanced her career and she benefitted in another way, according to
Brown, meeting the man who would be instrumental in furthering her
career, Orson Welles. “We did our show around noon,” Brown recalled, “it
was a 15-minute show, and the show just prior to our’s was a poetry reading.
A young man who was maybe 17 or 18 years old with a beautiful voice
would recite poetry and an organ in the background would play music. The
young man with such a beautiful voice was Orson Welles — and we were
in the same studio and had about 30 seconds for Orson to vacate the stage
and for our actors to come in and begin our program.” Occasionally Welles
would stay and watch, and unsurprisingly he would be taken by the talented
Agnes Moorehead.

Agnes’ stint on
The Gumps
lasted for only a season and, as luck would
have it, the following season she joined the cast of another radio program
and a prestigious one at that — Helen Hayes as
The New Penny
. Lucky, too,
since it was her introduction to Miss Hayes, one of the great ladies of
Broadway, and another lifelong friendship formed.
The New Penny
was a
dramatic series which presented Miss Hayes as “the modern woman” — chic,
sophisticated, and not ruled by a man. Agnes was cast as her equally
sophisticated adversary. Like
Mysteries of Paris,
this program was scripted by
the talented Edith Meiser.