I Love the Illusion: The Life and Career of Agnes Moorehead (33 page)

son of Agnes Moorehead,” he wrote. “Please know that I have been associated,
both professionally and socially, with Agnes Moorehead for most of her
son’s life and as a result feel fully qualified to recommend your approval
of Sean’s application. I firmly believe that you will find the young man a
worthy addition to your roster and Agnes Moorehead a most cooperative
and understanding parent.” Sean was admitted.
Despite his praise for Agnes in this letter, Paul Gregory didn’t consider
her a model parent by any means. He thought Sean a “very dear and very
sweet natured boy,” and that Agnes “wanted him to be Little Lord
Fauntleroy, sometimes dressing him in short pants and sending him to
boarding schools, getting him well educated and speaking several languages
— good things, but what he really wanted and needed was a loving mother
and I think Agnes failed him on that count — not that she didn’t love him
in her own way, but she didn’t demonstrate it — Poor Sean — she acted
like she was a general in the army and he was some little grunt.” Yet despite
criticisms of Agnes’ parental skills, and other shortcomings, Gregory still
maintains a spot in his heart for her. “She was a unique person and she was
an enormous part of my life. I loved her and I still miss her — she could be
grand fun.”
Rehearsals for
The Rivalry
began on Monday, August 26, 1957, at the
Rainbow Studios in Hollywood. When compared to the parts of Massey
and Gabel, Agnes didn’t have nearly as many lines and often was simply
seen sitting quietly on stage as an onlooker at the Great Debate between
Lincoln and Douglas. But, according to Norman Corwin, as Mrs. Douglas
Agnes, “opened the play — provided commentary midway and closed it —
she cemented the piece.” He maintains that despite her comparatively small
part she never complained — “she just wasn’t that way.”
As with
Don Juan in Hell,
the sets were not lavish; just a few chairs, two
tables, and the three actors. But the material, as expected with a Norman
Corwin play, was topical. The issues the play confronted were blazingly
alive in 1957 — civil liberties and segregation. In fact only a week prior to
its opening Paul Gregory sent each of his stars a letter which reflected on
the controversial nature of the play: “As you know,
The Rivalry,
is based
upon a very controversial subject and the headlines today and every day are
carrying constant accounts of the tragedy of this subject matter as it applies
to modern day living. There are many passionate views stated in
The
Rivalry
by Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Douglas, and I am sure each one of you
have your own personal views. It is in this respect that I feel it is extremely
important that you guard very carefully what is said by any of you outside
the theatre pertaining to these issues. Perfectly well meant remarks could be
misconstrued, and at all costs we want to avoid the actors, as individuals,
becoming embroiled in any kind of misunderstanding which would make
for newspaper copy . . . All of our passions pro and con for the subject
should be spent in the performances.” While Agnes had always been a very
fairminded person who disapproved of segregation she didn’t believe actors
should speak out publicly on political matters. This letter was most likely
meant for the more liberal and outspoken Massey and Gabel.
The rehearsals went well and the play held its world premiere at the
Georgia Theatre in Vancouver, B.C. Prior to the show, Martin Gabel’s wife,
well-known television personality Arlene Francis, wired Agnes: H
AVE
A

A
GNES IT WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE TO PUT INTO WORDS THE GRATITUDE THAT
I
FEEL TOWARDS YOU AND EVERYONE IS RAVING HOW MAGNIFICENT YOU ARE
AS
A
DELE
I
PRAY THIS EXPERIENCE SHALL MEAN AS MUCH TO YOU AS IT DOES
TO ME REGRET
I
AM NOT THERE TONIGHT
I
WILL BE IN JUST A FEW DAYS
MUCH LOVE
= P
AUL
.

The show was sold out before an audience of 2,200 and the reviews
glowed. “There was a great deal to listen to in
The Rivalry.
Not all of it was
important. Most of it was pertinent, either in forwarding the issue or in
establishing the character and personalities of the Democrat Douglas and
Republican Lincoln,” wrote Les Wedman in the
Province.
“Playwright
Corwin, writing in spurts of inspiration, moved his play gracefully from
poetic vein to straightforward, powerful prose . . .
The Rivalry
just as decidedly
is a giant step of progress in modern theatre.”

The
Vancouver Sun
praised each actor, particularly Agnes. “Of the threesome, Agnes Moorehead, one of the last of the great ladies of the American
theatre, won honors for acting hands down. So great was Miss Moorehead’s
vitality it was impossible to ignore her even when she sat silent for minutes
at a time.”

After Vancouver,
The Rivalry
continued to play to packed houses in the
lower 48 states and the reviews were still quite good, especially for Agnes.
The
Seattle Times,
on September 25, 1957, proclaimed, “Agnes Moorehead
fairly steals the show with a thoroughly charming, irresistible performance
as Mrs. Stephen Douglas.” In Portland more than 3,000 people “thrilled to
one of the most timely dramas the theatre has offered in recent years,”
according to the critic of the
Oregon Journal.
In that hotbed of liberalism,
Berkley, California, Agnes was called, “beautiful and accomplished” by the
Berkley Daily Gazette,
which summed up its review by saying, “You wonder
what would happen if it were presented at Central High School in Little
Rock” — a reference to the recent events when President Eisenhower called
in troops to enforce integration at the Arkansas high school. But not all the
reviewers were captivated; in late October the troupe made its way to Iowa
and received one of its harshest reviews for a performance in Waverly:
“Drama came to the Artist Series stage, and after last Sunday’s performance
it may never return.” Agnes was accused of trying to upstage Raymond
Massey. “Miss Moorehead, who held the spotlight only about a fourth of
the time, tried to counteract the situation by constant attempts at scenestealing. Straightening her wig and waving her fan, Miss Moorehead
distracted the audience while Lincoln was delivering his speeches.” On the
whole, however,
The Rivalry
and Agnes were a huge success.

The stars got along well enough. Agnes had known and liked Gabel for
years and performed with him on radio many times. She was less taken by
Massey, though she recognized he made a perfect Lincoln. The actors often
traveled by car and Agnes once told her
Mayor of the Town
co-star Conrad
Binyon that in the close quarters she occasionally found Massey’s body odor
offensive. More galling to her was when she read in a New York newspaper
that Massey had referred to
The Rivalry
as his and Gabel’s show. She
immediately wrote Paul Gregory: “Mr. Massey must be alerted that there
are 3 stars and not one or two! Working with an Italian company is about
as bad as working with Raymond.” (She was shooting the film
The Tempest
in Rome when she got wind of Massey’s comments.) Gregory contends that
Agnes needed to keep up with Massey publicity-wise. “If Ray Massey had
an interview; she had to have one too.”

By Christmas the cross-country tour had concluded. As it turned out, it
ended both Massey and Agnes’ association with the show when both decided
not to go with the show to Broadway; each had other projects they wanted
to pursue. Richard Boone and Nancy Kelly replaced them. It turned out to
be a smart move because
The Rivalry
died a quick death in New York, closing
after only eight performances. Paul believed that while the show did well
on the road, a historical drama was not the type of show that New York
audiences were looking forward to seeing.

In December 1957 Paul Gregory gave Agnes news which he says gave her
“an absolute fit”: he cast her soon to be ex-husband Robert Gist in his film,
The Naked and the Dead.
To appease her he wrote a letter in which he
insisted that Gist was cast “completely against my wishes,” and that he
couldn’t control director Raoul Walsh, who insisted on screen testing Gist.
Paul told her that he was the only one of five officials who saw Gist’s screen
test “who did not want him,” but that his test was “colossal” because,
“being the bastard he is,” Gist was perfect for the part of the “heel.” But
Paul assured Agnes that when Gist returned from the location filming in
the Panama jungle, “he will have a bite or two on his rosy you-know-what
if I have to plant the bugs in his Pancho.” In reply, Agnes joked about the
casting of Gist: “He’s the malaria kid in every sense of the word — which
part is he playing ‘The Naked’ or ‘The Dead’? May I say he’s dead-naked!”
Then she added, “Doesn’t Robert have money enough now to buy my stock
back that he says he sold?”

In January 1958 Agnes received an offer from Producer Dino De
Laurentiis to appear in
The Tempest,
based on two novels written by
Alexander Pushkin, to begin filming in April in Yugoslavia and then Italy.
Set in 1770’s Russia during the rein of Catherine the Great, Agnes would
play the pipe smoking wife of a captain who commands a fort in the
middle of nowhere, which a group of travelers stumble upon during a fierce
storm. The money was good and Agnes, as always, enjoyed traveling and
happily accepted De Laurentiis’s offer.

To occupy her time before leaving for Europe Agnes appeared on two
live 90-minute TV dramas. The first was an ambitious adaptation of “A Tale
of Two Cities” on the
Dupont Show of the Month,
with Agnes cast as
Madame DeFarge. Agnes picked up on Madam DeFarge’s habit of knitting
shrouds for her victims and in true “method” acting style began knitting
herself. “I haven’t stopped knitting since I picked up the script four weeks
ago, and I’m getting paid for it,” she told columnist Kay Gardella. Agnes
was intent to play Madam DeFarge as “a villainess . . . the meanest of my
career, and I’ve played some real meanies.” She was surrounded by a
first-rate cast — Gracie Fields, Denholm Elliott, Fritz Weaver, Rosemary
Harris and George C. Scott. Directing the program was a veteran of live
television who would later make a name in motion pictures — Robert
Mulligan, who was only five years away from directing the screen version of
To Kill a Mockingbird.

The rehearsals were long, exhausting and physically demanding; Agnes
sprained her ankle while rehearsing a scene, but, ever the trouper, she went
on in intense pain, but seeing her doctor daily. Most taxing to all was the
constant script changes and the learning new lines; “hours and hours of
confusion,” she called it. She was glad when the program was broadcast and
over with, calling the experience “bedlam” and that “live TV can go — but
far, far away.” Paul Gregory sent his congratulations. “You were magnificent
— my God, how could you sustain that character for ninety minutes?” He
added something he knew she would appreciate: “The next time I use you,
however, I want you to be beautiful again. I hate them always making you
look like an old hag . . . for some reason they always want to do this to my
lovely Aggie.”
New York World Telegram
television critic, Harriet Van
Horne, didn’t think that Agnes’ Mme. DeFarge was up to par. “I have
always regarded Miss Moorehead as a fine, sensitive actress. But her Mme.
DeFarge lacked the vengeful quality — the touch of Lady Macbeth — that
Dickens gave her. Her great denunciation scene seemed merely shrill and
spiteful . . .”

Prior to leaving for Rome she taped two more television appearances
which would be broadcast during the spring of 1958 — a
Playhouse 90
with
Paul Douglas and Patty McCormick, “The Dungeon,” and on
Suspicion
with William Shatner and Jack Klugman, an episode titled “Protegee,”
which had elements of
All About Eve
due to its theme of an older actress
being upstaged by her much younger protégée.

Just prior to leaving for Rome she received a tantalizing offer — to play
Ben-Hur’s mother in the MGM film
Ben-Hur
which would also be filming
in Italy shortly after Agnes finished with
The Tempest.
The opportunity to
be cast in one of the biggest films ever produced certainly appealed to her,
but not really the part itself. “The part of the mother in
Ben-Hur
isn’t so
great — it’s only long,” she wrote to Paul Gregory, and told him that if
anything else came along which was “bigger and better,” to keep her
apprised, as she would prefer something with more substance as compared
to doing yet another mother role. “I must know what you are going for, as
you know, I’d rather be home and work for you than run around after
chariots and Charlton Heston!”