I Love the Illusion: The Life and Career of Agnes Moorehead (25 page)

Jack and Agnes had spoken publicly of adopting children. Perhaps
because they felt their marriage was teetering, they believed a child could
bring them closer together. But they never did adopt. By 1950, they had
separated. While Agnes was visiting a children’s hospital, she came across
twin siblings — a boy and a girl. They were toddlers — a year-and-a-halfold, and from a large family which could no longer afford to care for them.
Agnes would recall that they had already been in two or three foster homes.
They were both ill, but the boy, Sean, was the sickliest. Debbie Reynolds,
who became a close friend in the last twelve years of Agnes’ life, later wrote
that Sean’s “eyes were crossed and he was almost dying of malnutrition.”
Agnes recalled that the boy suffered from anemia and had a spot on his
lung. When Agnes saw the baby, “she couldn’t resist the urge to help him,”
according to Reynolds. She asked if she could take the young boy home
with her. “What a poor little thing he was . . . I didn’t care what he looked
like, if he wasn’t perfectly healthy. He was mine.”

After some legalities and paperwork were completed, Agnes became the
foster mother of young Sean. Many articles claim that Agnes had adopted
Sean, but that was not the case. In the early 1950’s it was rare for a single
woman (with Agnes going through a divorce) to adopt a child. For
whatever reason, Agnes took the boy but not the girl, who was later adopted
by another prominent Hollywood citizen, according to both Reynolds and
Paul Gregory. Agnes later said that the first thing she did when she got legal
custody of Sean was to take him to a well-known pediatrician. “Oh my, that
doctor’s reaction,” Agnes recalled. “He examined Sean and said, ‘Miss
Moorehead, you’ve taken on an awful big responsibility.’ I answered that I
didn’t care. ‘Let’s just see what we can do to make him well again, to give
him a zest for living.’”

Agnes didn’t do much on radio in 1950, but she did appear on
Cavalcade
of America
for the last time on March 7 working with Claude Rains in the
drama, “Mr. Peale and the Dinosaur.” It is the story of the man who started
the Museum of Natural History in Philadelphia taking the advice given to
him by Benjamin Franklin to heart: “such a museum could help the
American people to realize and appreciate the great wonders of the new
world.” Agnes played his wife, Elizabeth. A month later she made her
almost annual appearance on
Suspense,
in a much more interesting role than
the one she just did on
Cavalcade.
In the story, “The Chain,” Agnes plays
a mean spirited woman who sends a chain letter to a woman who dies
shortly after receiving it. Her husband leaves her and she is soon alone with
the dead woman’s husband waiting outside to kill her. William Conrad,
who would soon become the voice of Matt Dillon on radio’s
Gunsmoke
(and
later become best known as
Cannon
on television during the 70’s), plays her
husband. Agnes would repeat this story on
Suspense
again in 1958 with
John McIntire.

Soon after, Agnes filmed a
picture for Twentieth CenturyFox,
Fourteen Hours,
for one of
her favorite directors, Henry
Hathaway, whom she lauded for
his solid craftsmanship without
pretension; not making himself
the star of his films, for
Hathaway, the story was the
main attraction. The film is the
tense story of a young man who
climbs out on the 15th floor
ledge of a hotel and the attempts
of various people, including a
police officer (played by Paul
Douglas), a former girlfriend
(Barbara Bel Geddes), his
hysterical mother (Agnes) and
the father who abandoned him
(Robert Keith), to talk him down.
The young man is well-played by
Richard Basehart, whom Agnes
had corresponded with and encouraged in his career for many years. While
this is the main story, a backstory is being told of other people with their
dramas occurring at the same time in this hotel. Grace Kelly had her first
important film role as a woman who is divorcing her husband only to
reconcile with him as the drama above her unfolds; her performance in this
film would favorably impress producer Stanley Kramer who would cast her
in his next film,
High Noon.
Fox contract players, Debra Paget and Jeffrey
Hunter have winning roles as young people who meet and fall in love. The
film was based on an actual true story about a man who stayed on a ledge
for many hours. But real life didn’t have the happy ending that
Fourteen
Hours
eventually had — he jumped to his death. Agnes was already in
Europe shooting another film when her agent, Felix Ferry, wrote her on
9/15/50: “Henry Hathaway showed the picture,
Fourteen Hours,
last night
at a private showing at 20th — I can’t tell you how impressed I was . . . I
wouldn’t be surprised if you got an Academy Award nomination for this. It
is really a gem.”

The picture that Agnes was shooting in the south of France in the
summer of 1950, when her agent wrote to her about
Fourteen Hours,
was
The Adventures of Captain Fabian.
She held the picture in no great esteem
but believed it an inexpensive way to visit Europe. The film was co-written
and produced by its star, Errol Flynn. Also appearing was another old
friend, Vincent Price. Flynn, true to form, was a month late arriving on the
set. One reason for this was Warner Brother’s belief that Flynn’s appearance
in this film, produced by Republic, was a breach of his contract. The other
reason, according to Vincent Price, was that the notorious rogue Flynn was,
“disengaging a princess at that point, and apparently she was hard to break
off with.”

To keep themselves occupied until Flynn showed up, Agnes, Price and
his wife Mary toured Europe, “covering it like three vacuum cleaners.”
After a few weeks of this, Flynn finally did arrive and the picture began
shooting. Flynn was showing the effects of his hard drinking and
promiscuous lifestyle. Still Agnes had a soft spot for him. She knew him at
Warners and, like many women, found him charming and processing an
intellect greater than he was given credit for. Flynn was well read and
cultured. For his part, Flynn was flattered that an actress of Agnes’ stature
would consent to appear in his film.

The shooting was moving along briskly to make up for lost time when
one day after a shot had been completed Agnes was handed a cable. It
intrigued her since it was from one of her acting idols, Charles Laughton.
Charles explained that he, Charles Boyer and Sir Cedric Hardwicke were
planning a cross-country tour of George Bernard Shaw’s
Don Juan in Hell.
Charles explained that he and producer Paul Gregory wanted Agnes to play
Donna Ana, the lone female in the quartette. Without hesitation, Agnes
cabled Laughton back with a resounding “Y
ES
.” Agnes later explained that
she “couldn’t resist working with these great interpreters” of the theatre.
Interestingly, this theatrical offer by Laughton wasn’t the only one Agnes
received while abroad. She had been offered
Ethan Frome,
probably the part
of the wife, which would be opening in New York, per the wire she
received, in January or February, 1951. While ordinarily she probably
would have been ecstatic about the prospect of
Ethan Frome, Don Juan in
Hell,
was different and would represent a departure for her.

At this point it is probably best to back up to a cold, winter night in
1948 when a junior executive with Music Corporation of America (MCA)
stopped off at a bar in New York City. It was a Sunday night and the bar
was packed with people probably due to the presence of a television set, still
a novelty for much of the country. On the television was Ed Sullivan’s
The
Toast of the Town.
All eyes at the bar, including the junior executive’s, were
on the set where a portly and unattractive man, yet with undeniable
presence and a hypnotic voice, was doing a dramatic reading. The young
man soon fell under his spell. The reader was Charles Laughton. He was
reading the “fiery furnace” passage from the Book of Daniel. During this
reading the young man with MCA noticed that not a single sound was
uttered and few people picked up their glasses. The agent was so impressed
by what he saw and what he felt that he ran out of the bar, hailed a taxi,
and arrived at the theatre just as Laughton emerged from the stage door.

This was Charles Laughton’s first encounter with Paul Gregory. It was
only by luck that Gregory was able to stop into the bar in the first place.
He had been expected to pick up a client, singer/actor Dennis Morgan at
the train station, but Morgan’s train was delayed by a snow storm in
Buffalo. Gregory had time on his hands and, as they say, the rest is history.

Paul Gregory was born James Burton Lenhart in 1921. He was an
exceptionally bright child who was skipped ahead in school. At eleven, he
earned money as a carrier for the
Des Moines Register and Tribune.
At
fourteen, he had a radio show in Des Moines where he read from the
classics. At sixteen, he won a national essay contest which awarded him a
scholarship to Drake University. (Gregory would later say that he spent
only one day at Drake where, he says, on his first day he met a professor
who spent more time gazing at his crotch than teaching.) At nineteen, he
arrived in Hollywood and began acting, but within a couple of years he
realized his true talent was in recognizing talent in others and promoting
them. He was twenty-five when he joined MCA and launched tours for
Ralph Edwards, Tommy Dorsey and Spike Jones. He was now twentyseven, and he had a brainstorm.

Charles was blown away by Paul. He was brash and, at 6’ 2”, 170 pounds
with black hair, blue eyes and a dazzling smile, Charles found him
irresistible. Charles later told his wife, Elsa Lanchester, “Don’t be deceived
by Paul’s looks. He is over handsome. He is right up in the Gregory Peck
school of good looks.” Besides his good looks, Charles found Paul persuasive
and even brilliant.

Charles Laughton was born in Scarborough, England in 1899. His
family owned a hotel and it was expected that Charles would help run it
when he came of age. This plan was interrupted by the First World War, in
which Charles served with distinction. After the war he returned to
Scarborough and began working in the family business. He found it
respectable but boring. As an outlet for his creative energies Charles
enrolled at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1925. Within a year
Charles was awarded the Bancroft Gold Medal, the highest award given by
the institution, and the offers began pouring in. During the next few years
Charles would appear in a wide range of roles on the stage. While appearing
in the play,
Mr. Prohacle,
Charles met a vivacious beauty named Elsa
Lanchester. Charles was self-conscious of his bulldog face and short, stout
body. He was also homosexual. Elsa was a free spirit. She had been a dancer,
model (sometimes in the nude), teacher, painter and actress. In Elsa,
Charles found someone who was, in the words of his biographer, Simon
Cowell, “a friend; a companion; someone to confide in; someone to lavish
his attentions on — all complete novelties for him.” They formed a strong
bond and came to depend on one another, but it is unlikely that it was
more than a platonic relationship. They married in 1929. Soon Charles
came to New York and appeared on Broadway, and that led to Hollywood
where he became one of the leading character leads of the 1930’s in such
films as
Henry the VIII, Ruggles of Red Gap, Mutiny on the Bounty, Jamaica
Inn,
and
The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Charles continued to work in
Hollywood when his native country went to war — a fact not lost on
Britain and one which would come back to haunt him at a later date. At
the time of his meeting with Paul Gregory, Charles’ film career had lost
some of its luster. He needed a new challenge and, as Elsa would later state,
“Paul Gregory came along just when Charles needed him most.”

Paul convinced Charles that his future lay in going around the country
doing readings such as he performed on the Sullivan show; readings
from Shakespeare, Dickens, Kerovac, Thomas Wolfe, and the Bible. He
convinced him of how lucrative a cross-country tour could be. It would be
a one-man show,
An Evening with Charles Laughton,
and Paul would book
it into college auditoriums or have it sponsored by various civic groups or
clubs around the country — many in locales which rarely had a name act
visit. The initial tour proved successful beyond even Paul’s expectations and
subsequent tours also went well. The meeting that cold Sunday night
turned into a rendezvous with destiny for both men and eventually for
Agnes.

Don Juan in Hell
is the third act of Shaw’s
Man and Superman.
It is a dream
sequence that many companies decide to cut because it takes the focus away
from the main story. More likely than not it is cut to save time since, in its
entirety,
Man and Superman
ran more than five hours. It is difficult to get
even the most devout theatergoer to sit for five hours.
Don Juan in Hell
is
essentially an argument in which Juan’s vision of a higher plane is pitted
against Satan’s concerns for more immediate pleasures. It is a morality play,
a debate on idealism vs. realism. Shaw saw the hero of the piece as Don
Juan, who holds forth philosophical discussions that go on for great lengths
between Satan (Laughton), The Commander (Hardwicke) and his
daughter, Donna Ana (Agnes), whom Juan had an affair with in life.
Shaw, himself, summed up the Hell scene. “I have thrust into my perfectly
modern three-act play a totally extraneous act in which my hero’s ancestor
appears and philosophizes at great length with the lady, the statue (the
commander), and the devil.”