(My Travels with) Agnes Moorehead – The Lavender Lady (12 page)

Agnes Moorehead, performing LIVE on stage, Cherry Orchard Playhouse, Michigan - 1969

last row, during the performance, to check out whether or not she could be heard in case anyone ever made any comments about not hearing her (which they often did), and then Agnes would let them have it.

She asked for the lighting crew, and then took the colored gels out of her suitcase, and showed me each color and explained why she used them etc. and started ordering the light men around until she had exactly what she wanted. The diagram I had made up for her was carefully gone over together with the stage manager, to make sure there was a Dante-style chair, a small platform, and a small table to hold the books. There always had to be a rug on the floor, as the entire set, when completely staged and lit, reminded you of a living room. Usually none of the props were available when we arrived, so this is why Agnes told me “You have to do everything yourself because you can’t depend on anyone to do it with any integrity.” I soon learned how right she was and was grateful for the advice early in the game for I was never caught short and always was forced to use my ingenuity to end up with a satisfactory stage setting and lights. Agnes showed me everything personally in regards to the lighting, the staging, the books, the curtain, the auditorium, etc. She went over it all once, and then entrusted the rest of it to me.

I took her back to the motel, where she rested from about 4:00 till 6:00 P.M. at which time she instructed me to order her some tea and toast. She would then start putting on her base make-up at the motel. Her show was for 8:30 P.M. We arrived at the auditorium by the stage entrance (she would never let anyone see her before the performance) and go immediately to the dressing room where I would take her a thermos of HOT water. After she completed putting on her final makeup, to cover freckles on her arms and hands, I waited outside her dressing room keeping all the curiosity seekers away for she liked to be very quiet and talked to no one except to me if necessary before a show. Then she had me follow her to the stage, where she showed me how to arrange the books from the satchel on the table for the performance. When the books were all in place, and she placed each one very meticulously in its proper place, and reminded me several times that they should “Always be done this way,” which I registered and carried out the rest of my time with her. She then said, “Now Joseph, don’t let anyone, I mean ANYONE touch one of those books.” No one was ever permitted back stage, and there was usually no one except a guard and me. She told me how she wanted me to open the curtain . . . to sort of tease it slowly open on the bare stage before she made her entrance. I loved doing it, and it was a big thrill to do just that little bit for each time I did it, the thunderous applause was worth the apparently little effort I had to expend. I stayed to Agnes’ right during the entire performance just off stage, and during her performance she would do little funny aside remarks to me which absolutely fractured me. She was having so much fun and was making me a part of it all. She usually played to packed houses.

The house lights dim. A hush falls over the audience . . . the proscenium curtain slowly opens to reveal a simple platform where a chair of ornate design and a table piled with old dog—earned books are strategically placed . . . The scene is warmly lighted by the soft pink footlights. You’d think it was a living room . . . there is a beat . . . and then from the wings in a floor-length flowing gown of lavender and pink chiffon which sweeps the stage behind her, enters Agnes Moorehead, her red hair dazzling under the stage lights, walking regally to stage center. She bows deeply and graciously to her audience stage right, then repeats the same gesture to those stage left, and finally to those facing stage center.

When the thunderous applause from the packed house fades into the distance so that you can hear a pin drop, she says, “I would like to begin by giving you some household hints . . . household hints from the fourteenth century.” And she turns to the book-laden table picking up and opening one, and begins setting the pace for an intimate evening with her audience that responds to every dramatic waver of her voice and every gesture of her fabulous flurries of fingers that seem to be playing imaginary castanet’s. To add to the drama, outside the auditorium, the campus clock chimes (as heard on this recording) the hour.

The Lavender Lady with ultra-distinct diction, grand gestures, regal bearing, had the ability to make her listeners laugh one moment, philosophize the next and occasionally brush away a tear or two. It was a pleasure to watch her work, the way she picked up a book of Thurber, or Shaw or the Bible, each with its long, flowing bookmark. Then she did the selection either from memory or through a process of osmosis, for she never opens the book after first fluttering the bookmark. Once under way, Miss Moorehead indulged in pictures and sensations. Her program, a selection of readings in prose and poetry, ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous.

Such far—flung subjects as biblical stories, man’s inhumanity to man, faithful dogs, nature, beauties, shady ladies, ghosts, etc. are blended into a delightful whole. Humor is present in large quantities, but there are also many moments of the macabre, tenderness, pathos, love and stark dramatic power.

The dramatic vortex of her show comes with her rendition of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “Ballad of the Harp Weaver.” She languished on every word and gave tragic meaning to a moving complex of circumstances in the great narrative poem.

Acclaim is not often won by chance in the world of the theatre. It is through years of dedication, excellence of performance and plain unadulterated hard work. Agnes Moorehead, one of the great women of the American Theatre and a truly distinguished actress, just had to be at the top of the list for her always brilliant performance of this one-woman show, entitled “An Intimate Evening With The Fabulous Redhead.” And “fabulous” she was, as the standing ovation at the conclusion of all her performances attested . . . once more the thunderous applause from her spent audience . . . a flutter of lavender and then she was gone.

CHAPTER NINE

BEWITCHED

In 1964 Agnes made her debut as a television series regular in Bewitched. It was September 14 on ABC Television. The show co-starred Elizabeth Montgomery as the pert witch named Samantha who weds a normal, middle class American, Darrin Stevens (Dick York who is replaced in 1970 by Dick Sargeant) and must restrain her wealth of hocus-pocus in order to live a somewhat normal suburban life.

Agnes was situated as the elegant Endora, mother of Montgomery, who had no use for her mortal son-in-law, always persistently refusing to remember his name and at the slightest provocation pulling some prank on Darrin.

When recalling to me how she got roped into the treadmill of TV, or a TV series since she loved the stage and radio first of all, she confided, “I was really trapped. I was sent the pilot film script, and when I looked it over and read it, I found it to be charming with no violence in it. It was clean and seemed to have some humor and a smile or two, coupled with some fantasy and romance. So I said immediately, this won’t sell, and since they offered me a good sum of money to make the pilot, I did the pilot, and went out on the road to do my one-woman show. When
I returned, they told me they had sold the pilot, and I was committed to Bewitched.”

On the opening Thursday evening, the Hollywood Reporter reviewed the initial show this way, “Primarily this is a hocus-pocus show with a magnetic trio in delightful Elizabeth Montgomery and Dick York as newlyweds, and the insatiable villain and irresponsible Agnes Moorhead in a plethora of hanky-panky by two witches (Mother Moorhead and Daughter Montgomery) gesturing, twitching, staring, and finger flicking to make things and persons appear and disappear and do tricks. It’s a whole lot of nonsense taken in strike and when it’s all over one is left with the feeling, ‘I wonder what they’ll be up to next week.’”

In Montréal, when she attended the Montreal Expo, they described, she looked like an empress without a country, clad in royal purple, trimmed in chinchilla. What a difference from the way she appeared on television.

Once while she was doing Bewitched, a child asked her whether she could really do all those things Endora did, and she said, “Only on Thursday. After I’ve stirred the cauldron.”

In other words, she did it all tongue in cheek.

Agnes really committed herself to the series, but her one-woman show then had to suffer as she could only be booked on weekends so she could be assured that she would get back in Los Angeles late Sunday in time to go to work early Monday for the series. Her living schedule here in Los Angeles during the time she would be filming Bewitched would make a person cringe and cry out in pain. She would be up at 5 A.M. each weekday to be picked up at 6 A.M. in Beverly Hills at her home and taken to Screen Gems in Hollywood where she would be in makeup by 6:30 A.M. and then on the set ready for filming at 7 A.M. This would go on all day long and if she were lucky she would be returned to her home around 7 P.M. Then up to a hot bath she would go, then into bed where Freddie or Polly, her maids, would bring her dinner. While eating her food, she would be going over her script and lines for the next day’s shooting. She would be exhausted but never once would she complain and always be found the first one ready, willing and able to be on the set.

She always had her lines and cues down to a “T.” The few times I was on the set of Bewitched the grueling pace they would keep, I would watch all the other actors flub their lines in scenes in which Agnes would appear and each time they would have to do the scene over. Agnes always gave a topnotch performance of her lines, always seeming to better the one before. I used to love to watch her work. She was a perfectionist with a magnificent sense of showmanship, theatre and comedy.

The few times I was at the studio were to meet with her in her dressing room which was all decorated in shades of lavender. She always had to fight for the little things she needed and should have been automatically given, like a phone in her dressing room of her own. In later years, they finally did give her this in her contract. Another sad thing that I remember is that during one of the sequences they were filming, dry ice was used for an effect, and in some way it infected one of her eyes. She was seriously ill and had to stay off work. There is some kind of a clause in a TV series performance contract that if they are not on the set for 5 consecutive days, they can be suspended. At one point Agnes had to be actually walked and supported to come on the set so she wouldn’t be suspended. They finally did suspend her and Elizabeth Montgomery’s husband, the producer, Bill Asher, and sometimes director of the show, felt so bad he sent word to Agnes that he could not control the bigwigs upstairs and that because Agnes was losing them money by not being there to perform her acting chores they would be forced to suspend her. This was a very big hurt to her and one I don’t think she ever really got over. She spoke to me about it many times and this is one of the reasons she said she would always be grateful to Charles Laughton for having her prepare her one-woman show so she could be independent.

I was glad for her, too, when I saw her do her show. It made Bewitched look like child’s play in comparison. Agnes brought so much to Bewitched. I used to watch her on the planes when we were flying, reading her script, tearing the script to shreds, and penciling in wonderful effects that were fabulous feats of showmanship that no writer could even write the way that Agnes’ marvelous mind would conjure up. She didn’t miss a trick to come up with original ideas, not only in the script but her costuming and accessories.

Like the time she was supposed to be in the North Pole so she penciled in that she should be wearing icicles for earrings. Another time she suggested that while Darrin was flying in a plane to Europe or somewhere, she was on the tail of the plane on the outside with a champagne glass toasting to the sky. Always little bits of shticks that always worked and made the show better. So many of them that I can’t remember. I always felt her to be a genius in this area.

At the end of the season Screen Gems and Bill Asher, who was Elizabeth Montgomery’s husband and producer, held a cast party where they showed all the outtakes and goofs. I remember the year I attended with her. Paul Lynde, my Mt. Vernon, Ohio friend, and lately on Bewitched and Alice Ghostley whom I had loved in New Faces were there and it was another wonderful Hollywood party time. Agnes took it all in her stride as each outtake which usually consisted of someone muffing a line, then screaming or yelling something like, “Oh, shit.” This must have gone on for an hour or so and not once was Agnes in the outtakes for a goof. I thought to myself, everything she ever told us when I was a student in her class she performed perfectly herself. This is where I realized that she was much like the nuns and my mother, the lavender lady really practiced what she preached in her professional endeavors and I really was fond of her more than ever.

Although Bewitched series was a consistent high place in the Neilson ratings, Agnes claimed she really didn’t care, saying “Ratings, I just don’t think about them. Not even when the show is on the air. I do the best job of acting I can. I try not to get obsessed with that sort of thing.”

She also confessed to me about how frightening it was to be in a hit show although it was wonderful and she was grateful but the tremendous amount of responsibility to keep up the quality week after week used to bother her, and she would say, “You have to work hard at it,” and Agnes’ favorite show was Mission Impossible. She thought it was really good.

The Bewitched series came to an end in 1971-72 season. She said of the series, “This is a treadmill. This is TV. Mad, hectic and no time to relax. Every second counts. This is not an era of convictions.”

While Agnes was nominated for Emmy awards for acid-tongued Endora in 1965, ’66, ’67 and ’68, she received her Emmy for the part of Emma Valentine in Wild Wild West in February of 1967. To give you an idea of her contract, she was paid $4,000 per show in her 6th year, $5,000 in her 7th year and her contract specified that her telephone would be installed in her dressing room and all Kleenex would be provided for her at the cost of the producer. It also provided she would be given $1,000 each season for clothing.

“Initially Agnes turned down the role of “Endora” in “BEWITCHED” (1964). She didn’t like aspects of the script, and felt she couldn’t complain to the director William Asher because he was Elizabeth Montgomery’s husband at the time.

Agnes finally reconsidered when Elizabeth Montgomery asked her in person, when they met in a department store.  Moorehead joined the cast not expecting the show to last more than one season, let alone become a long running hit.

She did not enjoy filming “BEWITCHED” (1964) since it forced her to get up at 4”45 a.m.., start makeup at 6:00 a.m. and continue filming until 8:00 p.m.”