(My Travels with) Agnes Moorehead – The Lavender Lady (15 page)

CHAPTER TWELVE

THE FARM IN OHIO

It was ironic that Agnes Moorehead should have a soft “country” side to her, but she did. With all her sophistication, all her success in the entertainment world, there was a breath of nature in her.

During the months and time I was working for her, she often made reference to the three hundred acre farm in Rix Mills, Ohio, east of Zanesville, which is just east of the State Capitol, Columbus. Being an Ohio boy myself, I knew the area so well having traveled the entire state for twelve years as a P.R. man with RCA Records. Agnes often shared interesting anecdotes and warm feelings about her love for the farm in Ohio, knowing that I would understand as I, too, was a part of it.

It had been willed to her by her paternal grandparents. A lovely, lush, heavily wooded, rolling, country acreage in a little lazy hamlet, given the Indian name of “Kitchen Middens.”

Although Miss Moorehead was born of Protestant Irish ancestry, Agnes Robertson Moorhead was born on December 6, 1906 in Clinton, Massachusetts, one of two daughters of Rev. John Henderson Moorehead. He was a Presbyterian minister and her mother, Mary Mildred MacCauley, had been reared in rural Pennsylvania. Soon after her birth, Agnes’ parents were moved to St. Louis, Missouri where the Reverend was assigned to a new pastorate. In her younger years, she would travel to Ohio to visit her grandparents at Kitchen Middens. These visits nurtured some of the happiest memories of her life.

It was hard to imagine it, but she loved the grass, the lush green meadows, and used to walk through a densely wooded area making believe she was anything she wanted to be. She had a pet pig that followed her all over the farm and it grew to become a sow. When it came time to have it slaughtered, when it was time for such things, she was never told about it. They were afraid of how she would take the bad news.

Rix Mills was near New Concord, Ohio, home of Muskingum College where Agnes later matriculated in 1919. While there she demonstrated her intellectual nature by majoring in biology. In college, she sang in glee clubs all four years as well as being an active member of the girls’ athletic association and the student volunteer group.

How did I pick up all this information? She liked to talk about it. Her youth was precious to her. She also appeared in and participated in class plays. She was Tonian Chepy in Lewis N. Parker’s “The Aristocrat” her junior year and played Margaret Lightfoot in Paul Kestler’s historical drama, “Friend Anna” in her senior year.

Having received her B.A. from Muskingum, Agnes remained at Muskingum for an additional year of postgraduate work, majoring in education, speech and English. The following year she transferred to the University of Wisconsin to be closer to her home and her father had been sent to a new church in Reedsburg, Wisconsin.

Agnes still traveled to her grandparents. She loved it there and it left her with a great sense of security.

In 1925, in the fall, Agnes began teaching public speaking and English at Central High School in Soldier’s Grove, Wisconsin and she coached the local drama group. She had made up her mind to embark on a professional acting career, so she started saving her money to audition for and hopefully enter the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, a very prestigious organization.

Arriving in New York in 1927, she was accepted as a student of The American Academy of Dramatic Arts (AADA). To support herself, since her parents never really had funds left over to help her sufficiently, she taught private drama classes at the Progressive Dalton School in Manhattan. With Rosalind Russell as one of her classmates at AADA, she graduated with honors.

While at AADA, Agnes had met John Griffith Lee, the same age as she, and they were married June 6th, 1930 in New York. When not doing stage, radio or films, Agnes Moorehead and her husband spent as much time as they could at Kitchen Middens.

Judy Williams, an old friend of mine, lived in Zanesville, about seventeen miles from Agnes’ farm and she was corresponding with me. Learning I was working with Agnes, she enclosed a front page article about Agnes’ farm with a picture of it with weeds all grown up around the old farmhouse and pigstyes on the front porch. When I saw the picture and read the article, written by a reporter who wondered why Agnes was too busy in Hollywood to let such a lovely farm go to rack and ruin, I certainly agreed with it.

I took the paper to Agnes and thought she would have a fit. She had let some struggling actor friend of hers on the farm to run it and had been sending him money, when he would ask her to for seed, gasoline, etc. From the article she deducted that he had absconded with her money and left the farm to go to the devil.

She said to me, “Joseph, get packed, we’re going to Ohio.”

I could hardly wait, since I had heard so much about this wonderful place and, being from Ohio, I knew she wasn’t exaggerating one bit. The first chance that she was off from “Bewitched,” it was spring and cold and damp, we flew to Columbus. There I found a Hertz car, which I had ordered, and we drove to Rix Mills to investigate “the desecration” of her “hallowed haven” as she put it.

As we got close to the farm and as we drove up the typical road that you find in the farmlands of Ohio, we spotted a gray, dingy frame dwelling that was totally surrounded by huge, tall weeds, debris and two pigstyes on the front porch.

Badly deteriorated farm house on the 280-acre Moorehead farm
formerly owned by her Grandparents in Rix Mills, Ohio.

Agnes gasped and said, “I don’t believe what I am seeing.”

My heart ached for this woman whose dream had almost been destroyed.

We drove the car through the drizzle, alongside the house where the weeds weren’t as tall. At first, I thought Agnes would just stay in the car, but she opened the car door and got out. What I remember as being so funny and yet so grave, was that she had her shocking pink shoes on with the matching pink accessories. Also, a lavender sash. Yet she stood in all the stale debris, weeds and the drizzle, surveying her kingdom. It was a sad sight, yet ironic.

We went into the house finally and she explained to me how the house used to be. She explained it in detail. Evidently, they had knocked some walls out and put some other plywood partitions in place of it that took all the charm away from what one could recognize as a marvelous old-fashioned farmhouse. After going up to the second floor and examining the damage and the debris, she looked at me again.

She said, “Joseph, we’re going to rebuild the farm and restore the house.”

When she said that to me, I knew that she meant every word she had uttered, for by this time I really had grown to respect this tower of strength who was determined to hold onto some good old fashioned values and memories that I realized were her foundation.

God, I was glad to be a part of the Lavender Lady’s world during this time. It was challenging, exciting and it was marvelous to see her interest in her work at the farm.

When Agnes started renovating the old farm, it made headlines in the local papers: “Agnes Moorehead prefers life in rural district here to Palm City.” Then there was a subheading, “Husband working on renovation, wife flies to and from work in New York City and soon in Hollywood.”

The story said, “It’s a far cry from singing on Broadway to an old fashioned farm back in the scenic hills of Muskingum County. But the modern airline has formed a connecting link between the two locales, enabling Agnes Moorehead to lead a double life. Last Monday night, Miss Moorhead (or rather, Mrs. Jack Lee) was starred in a drama on the program ‘Cavalcade of America.’ Tuesday night, she played her regular role as Maggie in the radio adaptation of ‘Bringing Up Father.’ Yet, before the sun again arose, the actress was relaxing in blissful peace in the old-fashioned farmhouse near Rix Mills, which to her had become the love of her early childhood.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

SUMMER STOCK

To say that Agnes Moorehead was busy is the understatement of all times. She always was busy. She was busy doing engagements, she was busy physically and she was busy mentally. She was a woman who loved life and lived every moment of it. Between “Bewitched” and weekend jaunts throughout the country with the one-woman show and other traveling, it filled all the time. Yet, she squeezed in her energies and efforts towards restoring the original farmhouse on her farm. She was so determined to right the wrong that had been done to her grandparents’ farm that now belonged to her that she almost seemed to be possessed with the idea. She was thinking and working constantly.

By this time, I was handling most of her college bookings for her one-woman show, coffee lectures, personal appearances, etc.

All the while, she would finish each one saying, “Joseph, this”—and she would show me whatever money or check she got—“is for the farm.”

Earnings, everything began to be for the farm—time, money, energy, etc. It motivated me to automatically jumping on her bandwagon and Lola Wilson, her booking agent, was given orders to take everything—college appearances, concert bookings, etc. Lola was a dedicated, successful, college, concert booker.

I prepared a booking brochure for Lola to help her sell Agnes and her one-woman show.

Everything seemed to revolve around the farm. In her traveling jaunts, we would always stop by Zanesville and make arrangements for carpenters, handymen, farmers, etc. All the people needed to put the farm back in operating condition. Constantly, there were long distance calls to the farm.

Judy Williams, my friend in Zanesville, would be the one to help me get the proper people for Agnes. She was paranoid about the farmer-folk trying to take advantage of her. She always thought people were trying to take advantage of her, but with the farmers it was double. Her theory was that if you were from Hollywood, people automatically took advantage of you. Judy worked very closely with me and Agnes. Also, my brother-in-law was an architect in Newark, Ohio, about forty miles from the Rix Mills farm. That helped a great deal.

I introduced Agnes to my brother-in-law, Orville Varosso, and she seemed to like him. Mostly, because Orville is a good humanitarian. He did extend himself to Agnes in the most gracious ways and although she had already contracted for most of the work, through a Beverly Hills architect, he helped anyway. There was little for Orville to do, yet he was involved. However, he was the go-between with the workers and Agnes.

One day Agnes came to me in the studio, downstairs in the Roxbury residence, and informed me that she had sort of gotten herself into an engagement and wanted me to check it out. Unfortunately, behind my back, she had committed herself to do summer theatre, theatres in the round, to do two weeks of summer stock with her one-woman show. She was to do the full two-hour version. This, without even knowing what she had gotten herself into.

She rationalized it by saying, “I had to do it because of the farm.”

“I thought that since both engagements were close to the farm, we could spend the summer there while they were fixing it up.”

When I saw the contract and realized, after checking some of the staging requirements with both theatres, there would be problems, I wondered. One was the Cherry County Playhouse in Michigan and the other the Canal-Fulton Summer Theatre in Canal-Fulton, Ohio. Both were about three hundred miles from one another, the latter being about hundred and fifty miles from her farm in Rix Mills. When, after checking both these theatres out with their owners, I discovered that both theatres were in-the-round. I hadn’t known that before. When I presented this evidence to Agnes, I thought she was really going to go berserk. She hated theatre-in-the-round with a passion. I had to vow repeatedly that I would never take any bookings where she had to perform in-the-round. She couldn’t believe her ears when I reassured her that she had signed contracts to do two weeks in each theatre, both in-the-round and at the most ridiculous figure imaginable, which included a percentage of the house. It was such an involved deal that her take-home pay for eight gloomy performances in sweltering Midwestern summer theatre, with thunderstorms, mosquitoes, skunks and bats, and croaking frogs during the performances, she would be a mighty sorry woman. Never had I seen her sorry about anything. This time, Agnes really put her foot in her mouth.

She tried to rationalize her actions saying that I was unavailable at the time they called and then there was one excuse after another, when I asked her why she didn’t have both theatres get in touch with me so that I could check them out. Agreeing to what she thought would be a killing for the farm had really done her in. Being the real professional she was, I prepared a new staging for the theatres-in-the-round which she liked and forwarded all the details to the theatres and off we went.

First, the Cherry Orchard Playhouse, which was housed in one of the Traverse City, Michigan resort hotels near the lake. It was a much patronized theatre, I found out in my research in the theatre, and the people from several states came there to vacation. Then, going to the Cherry Orchard Playhouse was also a treat. The owner was a gal by the name of Ruth Bailey, a very capable woman. Agnes was never really fond of women, but I remember after her first performance I was outside Agnes’ dressing room talking with Miss Bailey. She thought Agnes’ show as a bit high-brow for her theatre and I think she was disappointed that Agnes wasn’t making the audience “disappear” by wiggling her nose, as she did on TV as Endora.

This went on for a few minutes until Agnes evidently heard part of the conversation. Out she flew from her dressing room, saying, “What’s the problem, Joseph?”

I explained to her that there was no problem, but Miss Bailey was posing a query about the content of her show. Then Agnes got mad. She went into a tirade informing Ruth that she had “done my show all over the world to people who didn’t even understand English and they all accepted it and I’m not about to change my show for Ruth Bailey, Cherry Orchard or anyone else!”

I only saw her that angry once before when she confronted a pushy dame at a poetry hour in another city. I loved it, I adored it. I gobbled it up. Agnes didn’t take any guff from anybody when it came to this marvelous one-woman show which was indeed a masterpiece.

After that, Agnes did her show each day for the two weeks and on Saturdays and Sundays she did two matinees back to back. The first performance was at seven and the second at nine-thirty P.M. I really felt sorry for her. She was really working harder than she ever had in the past. And the tickets told it by the end of the four weeks. She was a trouper, though, and she never let down during any performances of the sixteen performances there or at Canal-Fulton. She was magnificent.

One very touching and moving moment at Traverse City happened one night while playing there. The astronauts were doing their moonwalk on television. Agnes and I decided that we would announce that the show would stop ten minutes before the moonwalk and that we would provide TV sets all around the center of the stage. So, with about six or eight television sets when the crucial time came, she stopped the show and she went to her dressing room where we had a small portable. She hovered around the TV set with some of the ushers and watched it with the deepest interest. When she resumed her show, she informed her audience, “This momentous occasion is far more important to the audience than my show and I hope that you don’t mind my taking this liberty.” The audience rose cheering and applauding, long and loud in tribute to this very patriotic gesture by the great Lavender Lady.

Again, I loved her more and more. By this time, I felt so much a part of everything she did that I was endeared to her. I also liked the idea that she constantly complimented me in front of others. This had never happened to me before and I finally felt secure and that I had arrived. We made an excellent team. I always knew and supplied her needs and wants and she was always there to cooperate with anything I asked her to do.

On the road with her, I lived like a king, with her paying all my expenses—fare, lodging, plus a weekly salary. She even had me booking her and giving me a ten percent commission. (However, I didn’t realize that bookers were getting anywhere from twenty to forty percent for one-night concerts.) She also paid me an additional fee for staging and lighting her show, which was a compliment to me as I had never been a light man before, but I always managed to make her look ravishingly beautiful. And she knew it. There is an art to covering up wrinkles, freckles and crows feet on the stage and the Lavender Lady taught me how to do it well.

The set was always simple, but it always received a round of applause when the curtains would part, moments before she would make her entrance.

We finished the first two weeks and went on down to Canal-Fulton. It was a nightmare. The theatre was a converted barn in the middle of the boondocks near a huge mosquito infested pond, which was a hundred feet from the barn. It was rustic and had a charm of its own, but our lodgings were downtown Canton, Ohio, which was the nearest place to the hamlet of Canal-Fulton, a suburb. After two hectic weeks of the sweltering heat in Michigan and the sixteen grueling performances, Agnes started looking tired and haggard.

When we checked into the hotel in Canton that had been arranged by the theatre owners for us, I discovered that it was a fine hotel, but it was a downtown hotel where salesmen stayed and everyone seemed to party all day and night. Agnes needed her sleep and rest desperately and finally made the decision to look for a place in Canal-Fulton. The townspeople thought I was crazy not to want to be in the middle of that swinging place. I found an apartment-type motel on the edge of town run by some very quiet rural folks, who were thrilled and delighted to have Agnes Moorehead at their hotel. We had a two bedroom suite with connecting bath and full kitchen, where I could fix pepper-uppers so she didn’t have to leave or worry about a thing. I even found a hairdresser near the motel, which was also near the theatre, so it was a Godsend to this towering genius in the theatre.

The artist’s rooms are on the lower level of the theatre, as the farm had been built in rolling land, so the actual theatre was on the upper level over the dressing rooms. The entrance to the theatre was on the same level as the highway. Of course, cars parked all over the fields, adjacent to the theatres.

One of the funny moments there was that one night there was a torrential, typical Midwestern thunderstorm with rains like you’ve never seen. Thunder, lightning and Agnes was scared to death. As a matter of fact, so was I. She was doing the part of her show about the traveling women in the churches and at one point in this masterpiece—incidentally, she had written this herself-there was this clap of thunder. Then, on cue, like someone had poured gallons of water from the top of the theatre, it came plummeting down in front of Agnes. She turned to the audience, as only she could, in all seriousness and said, “I guess they didn’t fix the crack very well.” The audience broke into pandemonium. It was hilarious. The lights kept going off, flashes of lightning and thunder, rain. It became part of the show. Then several bats dove down from the rafters and an usher and I started chasing them with brooms. All this was going on through the show. Then a skunk made his entrance on stage. It was really hilarious. You see, one of the ushers forgot to close the doors and that’s how the skunk got in.

To see the Lavender Lady with her dignity and the skunk was a bit of drama that will never be duplicated in the annals of the American theatre. I can’t remember what Agnes said, but she remained a pro and the audience gave her the usual standing ovation at the end of the two and a half hours.

After, in the dressing room, she said, “Joseph, never let me ever get myself into a mess like this again.”

I said, “I’ll try,” but in my mind I knew that it could happen again. She couldn’t say no, only because she was so greedy.

It did happen again—several times, but never as disastrously. I think she learned a lesson. By the end of the engagement, she was ready to go to the farm. She seemed weak and tired and I feared for her health, not knowing at that time anything about her health. She felt it was never glamorous to talk about sickness or death.

She said, “People want to remember you alive and the way they remember you.”

I marveled at her philosophy. She had strength and she had guts.

We packed the station wagon when it was over and drove down to the Howard Johnson’s near Zanesville to be near the farm to see what they had done. The old farmhouse had been restored and was excitingly and serenely beautiful. Agnes needed to see this and it was a big morale booster. Up to that time, I had never seen her so pessimistic, tired, out of it. Before that, she would never show it. She looked up at me each morning, like a pathetic child, at Canal-Fulton when I brought her breakfast. She didn’t say a word. Her silence said everything.

Of all the things I ever did for her, I think she appreciated those two weeks at Canal Fulton the most because I took care of her like a baby. I sensed at that time something was wrong, but I thought she had been through such an ordeal that she’d recover from it. We’d return to the motel and she’d collapse. The only meal she ate during the day was breakfast. That was the first hint I had that the marvelous Lavender Lady was starting to weaken. Her health was starting to fail.