Blog-o-ween 2022: Agnes Moorehead

Folks, we are one week out from Halloween! One week! Can you believe it? Where has the time gone? Usually at this point in Blog-o-ween, I'm pretty pooped and running on fumes, but today I'm still feeling pretty good, even though I had an early morning doctor's appointment -- tetanus booster, flu shot, shingles vaxx, and bloodwork be damned!

...if you need me, I'll be on the floor...

Today, we are spotlighting another of old time radio's brightest stars. Agnes Moorehead was born in December, 1900, in Clinton, Massachusetts. Later, her family moved to St. Louis, Missouri, where Moorehead joined the chorus of the St. Louis Municipal Opera Company. In 1923, while earning a bachelor's degree in biology from Muskingum College in New Concord, Ohio, she appeared in several college stage plays. After her family moved again (this time to Reedsburg, Wisconsin), she taught public school while earning her master's degree English and public speaking at the University of Wisconsin. After getting her master's, she went on to pursue postgraduate studies, this time at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. She graduated in 1929. With honors.

While acting on the stage in New York City, Moorehead began working in radio and found herself to be in high demand. Radio work gave her the chance to flex different acting muscles. By 1937, she was part of Orson Welles's Mercury Players. She starred in many broadcasts of The Mercury Theater on the Air, as well as opposite Welles on The Shadow. When Welles moved the troupe to Hollywood, Moorehead followed. She acted in Welles's films Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, and Journey Into Fear. As she became more and more popular as a film actress, Moorehead ensured that her contracts allowed her to continue her acting on radio, too.

The three episodes we are featuring today are all from "Radio's Outstanding Theater of Thrills," Suspense. No other actor appeared in more episodes of Suspense than did Agnes Moorehead. After listening to today's offerings, it should be apparent why.

First up, Moorehead stars in an adaptation of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story "The Yellow Wallpaper." Moorehead plays a new mother who, for her health (natch!), is being kept in a room by her husband. The room is decorated with yellowing wallpaper in which the woman sees a disturbing pattern that begins to take over her mind.

Next is a Ray Bradbury story called "The Whole Town Sleeping." Moorehead is a lonely spinster who bravely chooses to walk across a dark ravine at night, knowing full well that there is a killer on the loose! Will she make home in time?

Last is the story for which Agnes Moorehead is best known. Orson Welles, someone who knew a thing or three about writing for radio, called Lucille Fletcher's story "Sorry, Wrong Number" "the greatest single radio script ever written." It is hard to argue with that assessment as "Sorry, Wrong Number" is a well-built, streamlined, thrill ride from start to finish. Essentially a one-woman play, "Sorry, Wrong Number" is about an invalid, Mrs. Stevenson, who accidentally overhears two men plotting a murder on her phone. She tries to get help via the telephone from many sources -- the phone operator, the police, and the hospital -- but none can help her. Soon, she realizes that the potential murder victim is...herself!