I Love the Illusion: The Life and Career of Agnes Moorehead (16 page)

While
The Magnificent Ambersons
didn’t do well at the box office (and
Journey into Fear
would be also be a failure — making Orson a three-time
loser with RKO, who would soon terminate his contract), the film, and
particularly Agnes, received critical plaudits. The
National Board of Review,
on Christmas Eve, 1942, would list Agnes’ performance as Aunt Fanny as
one of the best of the year. But the high point in critical reaction would be
the announcement of the New York Film Critics’ choices for Best Picture,
Best Actor and Best Actress. The winners were announced on December
26, 1942. A patriotic British war picture,
In Which We Serve,
was named
Best Picture. James Cagney was named Best Actor for his energetic
performance in
Yankee Doodle Dandy
and, in a stunning upset, Agnes was
named Best Actress for
The Magnificent Ambersons.
It was an upset because
many fans and critics believed the winner would or should be Greer Garson
for
Mrs. Miniver.
The critic for the
New York Herald Tribune
wrote: “I must
admit I was a bit startled by the critics’ vote. Agnes Moorehead gave a
brilliant and thoughtful portrayal . . . but I definitely preferred Greer
Garson’s modulated performance.” Apparently, Garson led on the first
ballot with 7 votes, compared to 3 each for Agnes and Katharine Hepburn
(for
Woman of the Year
). But it wasn’t enough for a victory. On the sixth
ballot Agnes prevailed with 11 votes, with 7 for Garson. Louella Parsons,
wrote in the
LA Examiner:
“The award given Agnes Moorehead for best
performance of the year by New York writers, was received with uplifted
brows in Hollywood, to put it mildly. She was eerie and different, but
compare her with Greer Garson or Bette Davis or Teresa Wright, and in
most people’s opinions she wouldn’t be in the same class.” This was expected
since Louella was writing for a Hearst newspaper and Agnes appeared in a
Welles picture and was identified mainly at the time as being one of his
Mercury players.

Agnes received word of the critics’ decision by telegram and attended the
awards ceremony held on January 3, 1943, at the Barberry Room of the
Berkshire Hotel in New York, and carried live over the NBC radio network.
The award was presented by director John Farrow, and she delivered a
gracious acceptance speech: “Thank you, Mr. Farrow. It is a great honor for
me to be here this afternoon. It would be untrue if I said that I had not
hoped that someday, I might win the New York Film Critics Award for a
performance. I don’t think there is any actress who hasn’t dreamed of it. But
there is a great difference between keeping an illusion alive, and seeing it
become an actuality. I know that all this must be happening to me, because
I am on this program, and because on Wednesday morning, I received Mr.
McManus’ wire informing me how the New York Film Critics had voted. If
nothing else, I have the wire for proof. I have read it many, many times and
it still says the same thing . . . In accepting this honor in playing Fanny
Minifer in
The Magnificent Ambersons,
I cannot accept it for myself alone.
A great lady of the theatre once said that a performance depends on three
things — an actor, a part, and a director who understands both. In all
honesty, I must say that the part I was given to play had a great deal to do
with my performance, and even more than the part was the creative
understanding of the director of
Magnificent Ambersons,
Orson Welles. I
have been fortunate enough to have worked with Mr. Welles for many
years, in radio, in the theatre and in motion pictures. I am in motion
pictures because of Mr. Welles. It would take a much longer time than I am
allowed to tell you how much he has had to do with whatever achievement
I have made. I can say it best perhaps, by accepting the New York Film
Critics Award for him too. Thank you.”

David O. Selznick thought
The Magnificent Ambersons
was a tremendous
achievement and was particularly impressed by Agnes, sending her a
congratulatory telegram when he heard that she was honored by the New
York Critics:

It is interesting that the New York Critics made no distinction between
best actress and supporting actress. They named Agnes best actress over
such worthy competition as Greer Garson, Katharine Hepburn, Bette
Davis, Teresa Wright, and Rosalind Russell. The Academy of Motion
Pictures Arts and Sciences did make such a distinction. On February 8,
1943, Agnes was nominated for her first Academy Award. It was not in the
best actress category, though it can be persuasively argued that Agnes was
the lead actress in
The Magnificent Ambersons.
The Academy thought
otherwise, nominating her in the Supporting Actress Category, probably
because they thought that was where she belonged; not only her part in the
picture, but by her looks and status in the industry at that time. Her
competition was Teresa Wright for
Mrs. Miniver,
Gladys Cooper for
Now,
Voyager,
Susan Peters for
Random Harvest
and Dame May Whitty, also for
Mrs. Miniver.
It would not have been unrealistic to think that because there
were two actresses nominated for
Mrs. Miniver
that it might split the
Miniver
vote and allow Agnes to win. In any other year that might have
happened. But young Teresa Wright was having a banner year. She had also
been nominated for Best Actress for her performance as Mrs. Lou Gerhig
in
The Pride of the Yankees.
The Academy was prepared to honor the
number one film of the year and the actress they felt gave the year’s
best performance, Greer Garson as the long-suffering
Mrs. Miniver.
They also felt they should honor Wright in some way for giving two
memorable performances in the single year, and she ran away with the
supporting award.

In addition to Best Supporting Actress,
The Magnificent Ambersons
was
nominated for three other Academy Awards: Best Picture, Cinematography
and Interior Decoration, but came up short. Without a doubt
The
Magnificent Ambersons
is a personal triumph for Agnes. It capped an incredible
year and established her in Hollywood. By the time she was nominated for
the Oscar, Agnes had already appeared in four releases over the past two
years:
Kane, Ambersons, Journey into Fear,
and
The Big Street
(Agnes’ first
non-Mercury film, based on a Damon Runyon story, and starring Henry
Fonda and Lucille Ball; Agnes’ first comedy role in pictures), and while

Hollywood was suspicious of Welles they would embrace Agnes. Welles
would always be an outsider, and indeed would be exiled for over a decade,
but Agnes would flourish and grow into one of the most respected and
in-demand character actresses in the industry. Former detractors like Hedda
Hopper and Louella Parsons would soon come around and embrace her as
well, as she emerged from under Orson’s enormous shadow and established
her own identity.

While she emerged from Orson’s shadow, Agnes always remained his
biggest booster. “My association with Orson was and is a close association
for which I am extremely grateful,” she would later write, “because he is a
fantastic director — a genius, as far as I’m concerned — and I think I’ve
done my best work for him. He isn’t flawless (are any of us?) but his virtues
far outweigh his faults. I can only think of what he’s accomplished — his
great ability, his great imagination. There isn’t anything he can’t do. A
marvelous man. I’ve worked with many fine directors out here, but the one
thing I can say about Orson is that he never does things anyone else would
do. He’s an original, and I’ve found, whenever I’ve put myself in his hands,
that I’ve done far better work than I imagined I could do — work I couldn’t
conceivably have done by myself. He’s been my Svengali.” Orson did offer
one bit of advice which Agnes said she was unable to take. “He used to say
to me ’be a clinging vine, Agnes.’ But I never learned how.”

Up until the time Agnes went to Hollywood in 1940 to shoot
Citizen Kane
,
radio had been the mainstay of her career. Now with
Kane, Ambersons
and
Journey into Fear
under her belt she was in high demand by many studios
for character parts. Radio would still be a huge part of her career during the
40’s but it would have to compete with motion pictures.

She was still closely associated with Orson Welles. Three of her first four
films were Mercury productions under Orson’s supervision. Furthermore,
they still continued to work together on radio. Agnes didn’t mind being
associated with Welles, a man she would always consider a “genius.” She
would later say of Welles, “He keeps an actor on edge. He goes beyond the
limits of what an actor can do and brings out something extra.” She was
aware that the press, primarily the Hearst press, went out of its way to
describe Welles as an egomaniac and that the studios were beginning to
turn on him due to the unprofitability of his first three films. In the press
and in private Agnes was always Orson’s biggest booster.

She did have one tongue-in-cheek complaint about working with Welles.
“I think Orson is determined to make me the ugliest girl in pictures . . .
when he asked me if I wanted to come to Hollywood and appear in his
pictures, I thought, ‘Ah, now I’ll get the Hollywood glamour build-up.’ But
in my first picture,
Citizen Kane
, I wasn’t allowed a smitch of make-up and
I played the role with gray lips. Then in
Magnificent Ambersons
Orson
ordered all the irregularities of my face brought out with certain lighting.
And in
Journey into Fear
Orson gives me big hips and puts warts on my
face.” While Agnes was generally joking, she did like the idea of getting
away from “plain-Jane” types of roles and when the occasion came up where
she could be glamorous she would jump at it. But, generally, producers did
tend to type her as mothers or repressed old maids. Due to her hawk-like
face she also would get plenty of opportunities to play “meanies.” Agnes
was an actress first and wasn’t exaggerating when she said, “They could
yank my teeth out, if it’s for a good part.”

Due to the critical acclaim Agnes received from
The Magnificent
Ambersons,
she was in high demand by virtually all the motion picture
studios in Hollywood. Orson advised Agnes to go back to New York and
“wind everything up” and then to come back to Hollywood for a movie
career. Agnes followed this advice. One studio which courted Agnes was
Twentieth Century-Fox. They offered Agnes a contract which paid $650 a
week. Agnes thought the money sounded “fabulous,” but before she made
her decision she spoke to Orson. “No, you can’t take that — I paid you
$1200 per week for
The Magnificent Ambersons.
I’m not going to let you
settle for half that amount. That would be terrible.” Though she thought
she was “mad” to do so, she turned Fox down. Two weeks later she signed
with MGM and at nearly twice what Fox offered — $1,250 per week.

MGM was considered the biggest and best Hollywood studio; a place
where even their B pictures had strong production values and name stars.
The first picture they put her in was a B titled
The Youngest Profession.
Agnes played the part of the governess of a movie-starstruck teenager
(played by Virginia Weidler). The governess comes to the conclusion that
the teenager’s father (played by veteran character actor Edward Arnold) is
having an affair with his secretary because both the father and secretary
have colds! The script isn’t much, but it is pleasant, glossy and fun. It also
had a gimmick — guest appearances by such big MGM stars as William
Powell, Robert Taylor, Lana Turner and, in their first film with Agnes,
Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon. It would also be the first throwaway part
of Agnes’ career; she would have many in the upcoming years.

Welles had tried to make each of her parts different and character-driven.
At MGM, like the other studios, it was a factory, and contract players were
commodities. They chose the parts the actors played and if the actor didn’t
accept the part they could be put on suspension, without pay. Agnes would
acquire the reputation of being a team player who didn’t make waves and
accepted everything the studio offered her. This wouldn’t be uncommon,
however, because Agnes was a character actress and not a lead. Stars with
strong box office appeal like Bette Davis, James Cagney, Olivia de
Havilland could (and did) make waves and may even be put on suspension;
ultimately they would win more than lose because the studios needed their
names to sell their films. Agnes had no such clout.