The recognition comes 40 years after her death at the age of 73.
The Clinton, Massachusetts native met Orson Welles in 1937 and worked with him on radio’s The Mercury Theatre On The Air, Campbell Playhouse, The Shadow and Orson Welles Almanac. She appeared in his first three Hollywood films: Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons and Journey Into Fear. Moorehead received a New York Film Critics Award and an Academy Award nomination for Ambersons. She received four Oscar nominations during her career.
She once said of Welles, “(He) liked the way I played, and he believed in me. I was lucky. I was with him 17 years! It was he who brought me here to Hollywood. I have him to thank for it. He thought I could play anything. It didn’t make any difference what part. If it was a strange part, he said ‘Give it to Agnes. She can play it.’ It was his confidence in the fact that I could play it, with his direction, that helped me very much in my career.”
Moorehead was much in demand on radio in the 1940s and ’50s. One of her most successful performances was in Lucille Fletcher’s Sorry, Wrong Number for CBS’ popular Suspense. She appeared on Suspense more than two dozen times and was referred to as the “First Lady of Suspense.”
TV viewers knew her as Endora on Bewitched in the 1960s and early ’70s. She also appeared on The Twilight Zone and The Wild Wild West and earned six Emmy nominations for her work on television.
Moorehead returned to radio shortly before her death in 1974 for two episodes of Radio Mystery Theater.
The other 2014 Radio Hall of Fame inductees are: Charlie & Harrigan, Barry Farber, Jon Miller, Dick Orkin, This American Life with Ira Glass, and Stanley E. Hubbard.
The Hall of Fame began honoring radio greats in 1988. Welles and The Mercury Theatre On the Air were among the first to to be inducted that year.
The two-hour induction ceremony will be produced and distributed by Premiere Networks.
[br]
_________
[br]
Post your comments on the Wellesnet Message Board.