I Love the Illusion: The Life and Career of Agnes Moorehead Read Online Free PDF

attended Muskingum, Agnes never went on a date without
a chaperon, but this didn’t bother her. She would later remember that this
was a simpler time and that young people appreciated their elders more
than the young people of the 60’s and 70’s did. “I never had a date by
myself until I was in college. I was always chaperoned. There were parties,
dances, and great sleigh rides but always there were older people with us,
but not hampering us. Oh, we had a great time.”
Agnes played Romeo in a Muskingum College Girls’ Glee Club Concert on March 11, 1920.
    While at Muskingum, Agnes read many brochures on acting schools and
decided that she most wanted to attend the prestigious American Academy
of Dramatic Arts (AADA) located in New York City. She wanted to attend
this school not only for its fine reputation, many top stage actors came out
of the AADA, but because they used actual Broadway directors to stage
their shows, something she felt was a great way to make contacts in the theatre.
But to attend such a prestigious institution took a good deal of money for
those days — money she didn’t have and that her parents couldn’t afford on
a pastor’s salary. She knew she would have to earn the money herself.
Cast credits from Glee Club Concert program (inside).
    Upon graduating from Muskingum in 1923, Agnes joined her family in
Wisconsin. She attended the University of Wisconsin in Madison, working
on her Masters in English and Speech. To earn the money she would need,
not only for her living expenses but to put toward her goal of attending the
AADA, she took on the job of school teacher at Centralized High School
in tiny Soldiers Grove, Wisconsin, where she taught English, Speech and
Ancient History. Agnes would look back on her years in Soldiers Grove
with great affection and in many respects always considered herself a
teacher as well as an actress. After she was established in Hollywood, she
would become popular in the acting community for tutoring actors for
roles; an example of this would be her stint as unofficial dialogue coach for
Jeffrey Hunter, playing Christ, in the film King of Kings in 1961. She would
also spend many years operating an acting school.
    Agnes spent the next five years in Soldiers Grove and became very
popular with the students and community. One student, Orland Helgeson,
recalls Agnes as “nice and nice looking, but I didn’t fully appreciate her
because I was interested in other subjects at the time.” He also recalled
Agnes as having “a smile for her students — she was a good teacher and
could be strict at times especially regarding manners.” Agnes also coached
the debate team to many championships, as well as directing school plays.
One such play was Peter Pan which, according to local historian John Sime,
had begun as the senior class play, but, by the time Agnes had finished, she
had involved practically the entire school, but “it was very well-done and
received.”
    Agnes maintained fond memories of her teaching days throughout her
life. “That was a heart-warming experience,” she would recall, “being
among those kindly Scandinavian people in that little Kickapoo valley
community. Everyone was so kind to me, and I had great luck preparing my
youngsters for the oratorical contests with other schools. We won time after
time, and Soldiers Grove went right to the top.”
    As a teacher Agnes considered herself a role model for her young
students and tried to instill in them the values of good citizenship and hard
work. “I feel strong about them that to compromise any one of them would
be, for me, an act of hypocrisy. As a teacher, who is not true to his or her
own values, is not a teacher at all.” In the turbulent 60’s and 70’s, Agnes
would become quite outspoken about what she perceived as a lack of
manners and respect among the young people of the day. She often longed
for these earlier days.
    She could have continued teaching had she wanted to. But she had