I Love the Illusion: The Life and Career of Agnes Moorehead by Charles Tranberg Read Free Book Online

performance:
“Jack Lee did some clever work and has enough personality to get him by
in any part.”
    Two weeks later on Friday, February 15, 1929, Agnes appeared in Gloria
Mundi , described as a macabre one-act play in which the characters are
inmates of an insane asylum. It got good reviews and Agnes was one of
several actors complimented as “competent in their small parts.”
    The biggest production presented by the senior AADA students was on
March 1, 1929 of Frederick Lonsdale’s comedy, The Last of Mrs. Cheney . As
it turned out, it would be the role which helped launch Rosalind Russell,
who was discovered by an agent who attended this performance. Russell
played the lead role of Mrs. Cheney. Also in the cast was both Agnes, as
Mrs. Wynton, and Jack Lee, as Charles. Billboard called this, the sixth
production of the AADA season, “easily the best work of the season and
showed just what these students can do once they get into their stride.”
Russell was lauded as “perfectly cast for the part and played brilliantly,
creating as exquisite and appealing a Mrs. Cheney as ever graced the boards.
Her work alone put the production well above the average.” Jack, in a
relatively big part as Charles, the gentlemanly crook, was also applauded for
“a very good performance.” Agnes along with two other young ingénues
were singled out as “very good in the minor feminine roles.”
    Agnes’ big AADA production occurred in January with the play Captain
Applejack , which was the first production by the senior class of 1929. Agnes
had the leading female role of Anna Valeska in the popular comedy of that era. Billboard’s review maintains: “There was little fault to be found with the
performances of any of the cast. It was played smoothly throughout, and in
the boisterous second act the players manhandled each other with an almost
dangerous enthusiasm.” Agnes was applauded as “outstanding . . . She had a
fine intuition and gave a polished, almost flawless performance.” Like the
other plays presented by the AADA students during the next week, Captain
Applejack was given a week-long run at the Columbia University Theater.
    In addition to these plays,
Agnes also appeared in The First
Year, The Best People, and The
Springboard during her time at
the AADA. As a result of her
performances in these productions
Agnes was offered an opportunity
to join a stock company in
New Orleans, which she declined
because she believed that it
would be of more value to finish
up with the AADA, and the added
opportunity of appearing on
Broadway in the AADA productions
was too great to pass up.
    Agnes graduated from the
AADA on March 18, 1929, in
a ceremony which featured Edward
G. Robinson as commencement
speaker. Of some 350 students in
her class only two would really
make it — Agnes and Rosalind
Russell. At first many thought that
Jack would also be among those
who had an excellent opportunity to make the grade given his fine work at
the Academy. In fact, he would soon be cast in a Broadway show in a role
which would generate a great deal of publicity despite his only uttering at
most three lines and being killed off early in the first act.
    Shortly after graduation Agnes visited Columbus, Ohio, where her
parents and sister moved to in 1925 as Dr. Moorehead took over yet
another pastorate. She stayed for about a month and then it was back to
New York and hitting the pavement in hopes of finding an agent. She
was given a list of theatrical managers in New York City — some 66 of
them including Jed Harris and George M. Cohen. It was shortly after she
was back in New York that she received word from her mother that her
sister, Margaret, had suffered a heart seizure. Margaret was taken to the
Miami Valley Hospital in Dayton, one of the best heart hospitals in
the country.
Agnes at The AADA, circa 1929.
     
Telegram Agnes received from her mother regarding sister Margaret.
    Shortly after learning the news, Agnes was told that