The Gist of the Matter or What's the Matter With Robert Gist?

One cannot write a line about Agnes Moorehead without talking about her personal relationships.  Twice married she divorced her second husband in 1959.  He was a man of  interest as was her relationship with him.  Of course the only two people who can say with any certainty what actually went on between them are dead but a great deal can be gleaned from learning about the man and separating fact from fiction regarding his history.

If you choose to believe the Internet Broadway Data Base Robert Gist was born June 16, 1924 in Miami Florida.  However, if you choose to believe the Internet Movie Data Base you'll be a whole lot closer to the truth but not exactly on top of it.  IMDB says he was born October 1, 1917 in Chicago actually he was born March 1st 1917 in Chicago.  A least the year is correct.  In any case he was at least 17 years the junior of Agnes according to his Social Security death record.

He was born Robert Marion Gist.  His parents were John Marion Gist and Winifred Josephine McMahon.  He has been described as growing up in tough circumstance and allegedly was somewhat of a reform school boy.  He grew up on the East side of Chicago.  His father John, who went by Marion, worked for the railroad as an engineer.  If you look you will see that the social security number issued to Robert was issued via the railroad that his father worked for.  Marion Gist was from Kentucky as were his parents.  He apparently came to Chicago around 1910.  Winifred McMahon was born in Illinois.  Her father was from Ireland and her mother, according to the 1920 census, was from England.  The story of him being from difficult circumstance does seem to hold water if you look at where he came from.  The story goes that he injured another boy in fist fight and was reform school bound.  He ended up at Hull House in Chicago and that was what apparently made the difference.

According to the IMDB he worked in radio in Chicago and went from there to Broadway where he appeared in Harvey with Josephine Hull and subsequently made his motion picture debut in Miracle on 34th Street as an uncredited window dresser, the year was 1947.  The first mention I found of him was in a Nebraska Newspaper:

The Nebraska State Journal
November 8th, 1944
To Theater
First Lieutenant Robert Gist was a gunnery officer during the Guadalcanal invasion and went through three major engagements without a scratch, although in one of them his company suffered a seventy three percent casualty rate.  Then a mosquito got him down.  Recovering from a malaria attack he went from 175 to 128 pounds.  Now he is coming to Broadway in Frank Fay's supporting case of "Harvey" which opens New York, November 1.

I assumed, incorrectly, that this would be the beginning of the story and then I decided to look a little further.  Lo and behold there was more to the hero mentioned above than the almighty IMDB knew anything about.
It seems that the troubled boy had some ambition and some ambitious parents.

Southeast Economist
Chicago Illinois
November 10th, 1938
Mr. and Mrs. Marion Gist and their son Robert,
formerly of  461 East 83rd Street are now settled
in their new home at 7930 Rhodes Avenue.

Southeast Economist
Chicago Illinois
November 3, 1938
Robert Gist, of the Rhodes Avenue Gists,  Has the
leading role in "Gangster" which opens at the Goodman
Theater.

I was blown away that someone with so much apparent clout because of an apparently stellar military history and a successful career in Chicago would fail to mention either on his resume.  Not once in any bio that I've found does Gist converse about his harrowing escape from death or the show "Gangster," or the upwardly mobile status of his family delivered in the blurbs from the newspaper in Chicago.  If it were me, I'd talk that up all over the place.

I took a look at the military records and I found that Robert M. Gist enlisted on January 28 1941 in Chicago.  He was noted as having accomplished 4 years of college.  No mean feat considering his hard scrap roots.  If the enlistment records are accurate he was finishing college around the time he starred in "Gangster" in 1938.  He was inducted as a private and identified as an actor who was single.  They did not document what company he was assigned to or what battles he fought in.  But it seems he saw heavy combat and as the small newspaper article of 1944 says only to be felled from by a  little mosquito.  To lend credence to the story there is a photograph of him in uniform above it and it definitely is the same man that married Agnes in 1953 in Yuma Arizona.

I am curious to know what change of fortune occurred that took him from the child of the mean streets to a college man.  It doesn't say anywhere that he actually graduated from college but I assume the military records lend credibility to his being a college graduate.  The dates of the battle of Guadalcanal also gel with his date of enlistment having occurred between August of 1942 and November of 1943.   The interesting thing is that generally college graduates enlisted as officers.  The blurb from 1944 identified him as a First Lieutenant and a jump like that in a span of three years seems not just improbable but close to impossible.

Let's return for a moment to the ambitions of Robert Gist and his family.  If you take at face value everything written about Agnes Moorehead you believe that she met Robert Gist while filming "The Stratton Story" and you believe that their relationship did not begin in earnest until the divorce proceedings with Jack Lee were underway.  I've got a shocker for you.  It seems that Agnes played hostess to Robert's parents, you know the poor ones from the south side of Chicago, in November of 1949.  It seems that Marion and his wife "motored" to the west coast where they were graciously hosted by Agnes who had simply met Robert while filming "The Stratton Story."


Southeast Economist
November 3rd, 1949
Chicago, Illinois
Mr. and Mrs. Marion Gist, 7930 Rhodes Avenue have returned
from a motor trip to Hollywood where they were guests of 
Agnes Moorehead.. They visited their son Robert, who
played a part in "The Stratton Story" as did Miss Moorehead.

I had to stop and ask myself when the last time was that I put up the mother and father of someone I had met during a brief stint of employment?  To be honest I could not come up with one instance during which I had done anything close to that.

Don Juan in LA

Robert Gist truly seems to have been the earthly reincarnation of Don Juan. It seems fitting that he should have stage-managed that show especially in light of the circus that seems to have been his private life. The most unfortunate aspect of all of this seems to be the number of people he violated and kicked aside during his brief but meteoric rise to the top of the Hollywood ladder. There are women and children punctuating his life of which he neither seems to take little notice nor appears to have any compassion for. I believe, although as I’ve stated before the only 2 people who know for sure are dead, that he plotted and planned every single blessed inch of this nearly 20 year stint from 1949 to 1969 for his sole benefit. If one judges him purely on his apparent actions one can only assume that today he would be referred to as a “player.” Let’s take a look at his list of conquests:

1. Louise Van Dyke whom he marries August 14, 1943 in Chicago Illinois. Louise literally disappears and I can find no record of a divorce in New York, Illinois or California to date.
2. Agnes Moorhead whom he marries in Yuma Arizona February 14th 1953 and is divorced from March 1958 in California.
3. Phyllis Jeanne Moore Colville. There is no record of marriage in California between Gist and Colville. There are 5-recorded births naming Gist as the father and Colville as the mother, however, two of these do not allow for 9 months of pregnancy between the last children and the ones in question. I must assume that they cannot be the same parents.
4. Jacqueline Franklin Mickles. There is no record of marriage for them but there is a record of divorce in July of 1966 in Los Angeles California. There are 3-recorded births naming Gist as the father and Mickles as the mother.
5. Edwina Muehlberger Pegram whom he married April 14 1969 in Los Angeles. There is no record of a California divorce but Edwina remarries in 1973.

The real curiosity of all this lies in the birth dates of the children fathered by Gist. The fact that there appear to be two women with whom he sired children during the same span of time lends support to Agnes’ story that she was called by various women who urged her to divorce Gist quickly. In light of the contact between these various women and Agnes I can only assume that Colville and Mickles were both aware he was legally married to someone else and that listing him on the birth certificates of his children as their spouse was done strictly to give their children legitimacy. Here are the children born to both women in order of their birth dates:
1. David L. Gist 1956 mother Colville
2. Jason Gist 1958 mother Mickles
3. Jeanne Gist 1958 mother Colville
4. Jeb Gist 1960 mother Mickles
5. Elizabeth Gist 1961 mother Colville
6. Jacqueline Gist 1964 mother Mickles

It appears that he did not father children with Louise Van Dyke or Edwina Pegram. At least one of the children listed above has publicly referred to Agnes as his “Stepmother.” So either they were aware of her and she wasn’t aware of them or she was not in a position of any kind to use this ammunition to rid herself of Robert with a minimum of expense and time. He was divorced from her awarded real estate and in some cases appears to have been awarded alimony of $1.00 per year. It has been alleged that she spoke to her attorney at the end of the process and told him to write a check for twenty dollars to Robert so that she wouldn’t have to deal with him again for at least twenty years.

The other thing that must be considered is that during his time with Agnes she became a foster mother to the young man she called Sean and in several newspapers it is alleged that they adopted him. It also alleges that he, like Agnes and Robert, had red hair. I have to believe that because Sean may have looked at Robert as sort of a father figure Robert’s behavior must have had some influence or effect on Sean. Perhaps some of the difficulties that Sean had in his later years were the result of the behavior he undoubtedly witnessed as a young child in Agnes’ household.

The bottom line is that the separation and divorce from Robert undoubtedly robbed Agnes of her dignity and certainly played havoc with her already strained ability to trust others. It is post 1959 that Agnes begins to withdraw from the public and begins the ironclad grasp on her personal life that she would come to be known for. She did not discuss Jack at all publicly at all. She rarely spoke of him privately except to say he was a violent drunk. She never discussed Robert publicly by name. When she spoke of him privately she spoke of him as the “Malaria Kid” and was very aware that she had been deliberately used to further his career. She made a point of telling interviewers that she did not discuss her family at all. Her detachment from Sean was a very visible thing that she never acknowledged to anyone. She completed her fortress of air with her divorce from Robert and nobody but nobody was going to get beyond that boundary again. Or would they?


The Fabulous Redhead Is Reborn

As 1959 drew to a close the once brilliant movie career of Agnes Moorehead was showing signs of dimming. Her personal life was a disaster that she had spent the last 5 years attempting to put back together. She was a victim of her own brilliance really. She had built her reputation in Hollywood on the back of several stellar movies in which she played characters that she would never be able to duplicate. She had run afoul of typecasting. She was a maiden aunt, a hysterical mother or a harpy born of the feverish imagination of a screenwriter. She gave 200 percent of herself in everything she did but she was only ever going to be as good as the part would allow and her age was pushing her toward parts that she found unappetizing. 1959 finished with the release of “The Bat.” For me, although Cornelia Van Gorder is an amusing character, this movie is the first low point of her career. The camp of the part would have swallowed a lesser actress but not Agnes, she was a phoenix and this would be the rebirth of  the "Fabulous Redhead."

I point to the character of Cornelia as the rebirth of the “Fabulous Redhead” because with this part Agnes loosed for the third time in her career her ability to be a comedienne. She suddenly seemed to let go of the tragedy and embrace the comedy. She created in that role the embryonic Endora. Cornelia was flashy, tart, forward, strong, determined and most of all did not give a damn what anyone thought about her. At that point Agnes was simply playing Agnes or Endora, one in the same really.

As the phenomenon of “Don Juan In Hell” faded Agnes had been confronted with a series of not so hot parts. She did them because they paid the bills not because they would ever be considered a fine dramatic moment but something else was going on behind the scenes. A phenomenon in itself it was a one-woman show called “The Fabulous Redhead.” It was the brainchild of Charles Laughton. During his time with Agnes in “Don Juan” he was impressed with her ability to converse, tell stories, emote and play comedic bits. It was under his tutelage that she began formulation of “The Fabulous Redhead.”

The birth of this child of theatre was to have included Robert Gist, however, fate intervened and he was cast in “The Caine Mutiny” in New York. I’ve often asked myself if Laughton had done that on purpose? He pushed Gist right into the part and right out of Agnes’ professional and personal life. The first performance of “The Fabulous Redhead” was scheduled to have taken place in January of 1954 in Reno Nevada but it was postponed allegedly because Gist could not free himself of the obligation of "Caine Mutiny."  Initial press releases had included Robert in the credits but by the time it actually opened in Reno in April of 1954 it did so without the presence of Robert Gist. The really great thing is that people loved it. They loved Agnes and they loved her ability to make them feel like they were being spoken to directly. This was a gift that she would use repeatedly over the next 15 years of her life doing the same show by herself on as many stages as she could stand to get out of bed and get on to. It would go through many incarnations, “The Fabulous Redhead,” “Lean Closer and I’ll Give You an Earful” and finally “The Lavender Lady.” The latter was nickname given to her by Laughton and it is the one that the majority of us remember her for because it was, fortunately for us all, the one that got recorded.

The next installment will begin with
The Swinging Sixties Agnes Style

I Lead A Conservative Sort of Life

I Lead A Conservative Sort of Life

Documentation of The Not So Conservative Life of Agnes Moorehead

The tale unfolds.
For many long years I’ve been interested in the life of Agnes Moorehead. As a child I grew up knowing that she was a distant relative and I, like every other breathing “Baby Boomer” on the planet was fascinated with the character I associated with her, Endora.

It was not until the fad for genealogy that prompted digitization of huge amounts of information that I would become personally familiar with the person named Agnes Moorehead as opposed to the image of the person herself.  In doing this research, in part for family documentation and in part out of curiosity,  I discovered everything I knew or thought I knew was a version of the truth open to the interpretation of the reader of the information.

The very first half-truth I discovered was her date of birth. If you believed everything you read, and back in the day we did because there was no way of verifying it, you thought that Agnes was born on December 6, 1906 in Clinton Massachusetts. It didn’t take long after the digitization of record to learn that she had shaved 6 years off her age. In all honesty most women in the entertainment industry did alter their birth dates or place of birth to keep up with a field that demanded, even then, that you be younger, faster, and more beautiful at any cost. But why six years it seemed such an odd number to me. Ten yes, five definitely but six? In plowing through records and books I took notice that in the only biography written about her talked, albeit briefly, about a sister. No other paperwork of any kind mentioned any siblings. I had come to think, as most people did, that she was an only child. It wasn’t until I began reading census records, I still blame them for my trifocals, that I found in Saint Louis in the year 1910 the Moorehead family. Reverand Moorehead, Mary Moorhead, Agnes Moorhead and Margaret Moorhead. I felt as if I’d hit the mother load. Not only was there a sister but a sister who was born in 1906. I continued reading census records and located the family again in Reedsburg Wisconsin on the 1920 census. The 1930 census was not yet available so I moved on to other family things.

I stopped looking at documents for well over a year, actually probably closer to 2 years. It wasn’t until the sight Ancestry.com started loading newspapers into their database and updating their census files that I would start again in earnest reading. As the technology improved so did my ability to research. I have continued reading ever since. I also began the process of obtaining family documents to support the research I was doing online. I finally managed about three years ago to get my hands on the game-changing piece of documentation, the death certificate of Margaret Ann Moorhead. Peggy, as her family knew her, committed suicide in 1929 by drinking Bi chloride of Mercury. It seemed that Agnes had paid homage of sorts to her sister by taking her sisters year of birth.

I was actually shell shocked when I found out about this suicide. It made me look at Agnes in a completely different way. I found that I was open to a perspective that the vast majority of people who were interested in her would never see let alone understand. The psychology of her creation, her forensic psychology if you will, became the tablet I began to tell her story on. Suicide is a burden even today but then it was a scandal, a mark of shame, a genetic weakness and something that a family did not talk about ever.

As I read through a letter that Agnes wrote to her sister after her sister’s death it chilled me to a level I had not expected. What torture to have to endure being the one left behind to carry the weight of family expectations. Many long years later during an interview with Boze Hadleigh Agnes said that marriage was an expectation, something that had to be done and so she did it. I began to run through scenarios in my head of what life would have been like for her had Peggy not taken her own life. It is my firm belief that she would have remained single her entire life because Peggy would have taken on the burden of marrying and producing grandchildren there would be no need for her to do the same thing. It was an established pattern in her father’s family. Her maiden aunt Camilla Moorhead never married along with an uncle who remained a bachelor. She would have been able to do as she pleased and nobody would have been put out by it one bit. She would have been free.

“John, she’ll get her name in the paper!”
In a bit from her one-woman show Agnes poked fun at her Aunt Cam’s concern that she would gain notoriety that was disrespectful if she pursued her career in the performing arts. I used to laugh at it thinking Agnes was a paragon of virtue and I had never seen her name in any paper except to announce an appearance or give a television schedule. I could not have been more wrong if I had deliberately tried to be.

Centra, although at the time she was a married woman so it seemed odd that she would have a roommate, everyone had to do with radio. The further down the history line I went the more I found radio, radio, and more radio. Then in 1941 the game changed again she was beginning to make a name in motion pictures.

The Hollywood Tabloid has existed as long as Hollywood itself. We’ve all read one and we’ve all read the gossip that they throw out. Back in the 1940’s it wasn’t a tabloid world it was a neatly groomed press machine that told you exactly what to believe and whom you should believe it about. They did it in movie magazines and directly to the newspapers. The nation devoured it and most importantly, they believed it. But every once in awhile a piece of news not rubber stamped by the studio machine made its way into the mainstream.  Mostly having to do with court events or family tragedy they are out there if you look closely enough.

Once I began reading the newspapers of the 1940’s I began to see her name becoming a standard mention. She would firmly plant her feet in Hollywood with an Oscar Nominated performance in “The Magnificent Ambersons.” The Foreign Press Corp awarded her a Golden Globe for her performance. The world took notice of her and she took notice of them right back. She began to feel the need to control what was printed about her. She openly courted the opinion of Hedda Hopper and won her over. From that point forward she would begin a tightly fisted control over her public image.

The Volcano Goes Off.
Agnes went out of her way to achieve good press. She ate it up by accepting honorary degrees from her Alma mater or by donating time to help support the troops. She created visions of a perfect life. Her perfect life was horribly, horribly flawed though because she could not control the man she had married. A would be actor whose career, unlike her own, went absolutely no place. They had started out on even footing but John Griffith Lee could not keep pace with his wife no matter how hard he seemed to try. You see, Jack, as he was called, was quite docile and happy as long as he was permitted to be the man of the family but once his wife stepped into those shoes he became a belligerent drunk with a very bad temper.

For the first four years or so life was quiet on Monte Mar Terrace in the Lee household but then August 25th 1945 happened. The illusion was shattered and the newspapers noticed.

Hollywood August 25 (UP)
Actress’ Husband Barred From Home
Fearing bodily harm actress Agnes Moorehead today had her husband, Jack G. Lee, barred from their home and filed a suit for separate maintenance.
In her suit, filed in the Santa Monica Branch of Superior Court, Miss Moorehead expressed fear that her husband of 15 years might attempt to destroy their home. Superior Court Judge Clarence M. Hanson issued a temporary order barring him from the home.
She asked maintenance of only $1.00 per year, saying she is able to support herself.

It would not be until October 7, 1946 that they would reconcile for the first documented time.

Over the next 3 years Agnes maintained control of the media output surrounding herself and her husband. There would be a visit to the family farm complete with happy shining pictures. There would be articles about her flying to New York to spend Christmas with him while he was appearing in a show. There would articles about her home showing photo’s of her cooking for him. It appeared as though everything was just right. The key word is appeared. Under the surface tension was rising like a volcano. In 1949 the volcano blew and the results were down right horrendous.

May 8, 1949
Nevada State Journal
Reconciled
Agnes Moorehead and her husband Jack Lee have reconciled after a 4-day trial separation.


June 9, 1949
Nevada State Journal
Hollywood
The Agnes Moorehead-Jack Lee marriage is coming apart at the seams.

June 15, 1949 Agnes filed for separation from Jack again but this time he remained in their Monte Mar Terrace home and she was residing at the beach. The majority of what follows are blurbs about movies. One is even tempted to forget about the problems until May 16, 1950. Then the door to her private life is kicked open with tremendous force and everyone settles in for what promises to be a long drawn out fight.

May 16, 1950
Married 19 Years Files for Divorce
Los Angeles May 16 (AP)
Actress Agnes Moorehead, suing to divorce actor Jack G. Lee her husband of 19 years, says she does not want alimony. She charged cruelty in her suit filed yesterday and said they separated last June.

June 1, 1950
Portsmouth Herald
Portsmouth New Hampshire
Actor Jack Lee is blocking the path for a Reno divorce by his estranged wife, Agnes Moorhead. The community property fight may be a bitter one.

August 15, 1950
Actor Does About Face, Sues Ex-Wife
Los Angeles August 15 (UP)
Actress Agnes Moorhead’s husband demands $200,000 in community property in a counter divorce suit.
Radio-television actor Jack G. Lee charged the actress with extreme cruelty and asked that he be given all the property including securities, three automobiles, two Ohio farms and a home here.
Miss Moorhead in her divorce action last May said all the property was acquired by her earnings and should be considered hers alone. Both she and Lee are 47. They married in 1930.


August 25, 1950
Berkshire Evening Eagle
Pittsfield Mass
Table Missile Held Divorce Grounds
Los Angeles August 25 (AP)
Among other things, says actress Agnes Moorhead, her estranged husband threw a table at her.
She wants a divorce. So does Lee, a radio actor. Both want all the community property estimated at $200, 000. Each charges the other with cruelty, Miss Moorhead didn’t throw any tables however.
They were married in 1930. Miss Moorhead originally filed for divorce. Lee filed a cross complaint last week. Yesterday Miss Moorhead amended her suit and mentioned the table-tossing episode.

October 4, 1950
Syracuse Herald Journal
Syracuse
Los Angeles October 4 (AP)
Miss Moorhead Cruel, Says Hubby
Actor Jack G. Lee says, his wife, actress Agnes Moorehead, berated him because of his dress, speech, posture and manner of eating. The assertions were contained in a cross complaint filed yesterday.
Lee also alleged that she humiliated him by instructing that the servants in their home answer the telephone with the phrase: “Miss Moorehead’s residence.”
On one occasion, he added, she banned him from her bedroom on grounds that he snored too loudly.
He charged that she hired a publicity man “whose purpose was to break up the marriage.” And that she then began keeping company with “a strange man.”
The actor cited these instances as cruelty in asking a divorce and all of their $200, 000 worth of community property.

I feel the need to insert the following into the aforementioned insanity that began in 1949. It’s one thing to have a nasty divorce drag you into the courts but it’s quite another when your family feels compelled to do the same thing. None of this made it beyond the pages of the newspapers in Zanesville Ohio but it illustrates another stress on an already stressed out individual.

April 14, 1949
The Times Recorder
Zanesville Ohio
Mark Moorehead Illness Fatal
Mark Moorehead 78, life resident of Rix Mills, died Monday afternoon at 8:15 o’clock at the Hesket Rest Home, Cambridge, after two weeks illness.
He was born December 18, 1870, the son of Robert and Hannah Moorehead, and was a member of the Mills United Presbyterian Church.
Surviving are a brother, Howard A. Moorehead of Denver, and a niece, Mrs. Agnes Moorehead Lee, well-known Hollywood actress. A brother and a sister are deceased. The body is at Speck Funeral Home, New Concord.

July 13, 1950
The Times Recorder
Zanesville, Ohio
Film Actress Is Named In Suit
A partition suit filed in common pleas court yesterday names Mrs. Agnes Moorehead Lee, motion picture character actress, defendant together with her mother, Mrs. Mary Moorehead of Reedsburg Wisconsin.
Agnes Moorehead, as she is known on the screen, owns five eighths of an eighty-acre tract in Union Township according to a petition filed by Mrs. Lou E. Park of New Concord.
Mrs. Park, a cousin of the actress, claims ownership of one quarter of the property and states that Mrs. Mary Moorehead owns one eighth.
Another piece of ground adjacent to the land in question, in Rich Hill Township, is owned completely by Mrs. Lee. She spent summers there as a child.
Joseph McNerny represents the plaintiff


July 30, 1950
Times Recorder
Zanesville Ohio
Legal Notice
Agnes Moorehead Lee, who resides at 1720 Monte Mar Terrace, Los Angeles, California and Mary Moorehead who resides at Reedsburg Wisconsin, will take notice that on the 12th day of July 1950, the plaintiff, Lou E. Parks, filed her petition against them in the Court of Common Pleas of Muskingum County, Ohio, the same being cause number 31248 in said court for the partition of certain real estate in said petition described to-wit. Situated in the county of Muskingum, Township of Union, and being the south half of Lot 1 Township, Range 5 and containing 80 acres.
The prayer of said petition is for the partition of said real estate and/or other equitable relief. Said defendants are required to answer said petition on the 11th day of September 1950 or judgment will be taken against them.

What this translates to is pay me or I’m suing you for money and property. Mrs. Park was also a niece of Mark Moorhead and you’ll notice she wasn’t even mentioned in the obituary. She was living locally. Most of us would expect to be in the obituary of a close relative that practically lived next door to us. I have no doubt that property in question was owned by Mark Moorhead and either he died in testate or he divided it up in his will in a manner that was unclear allowing for this suit to be realized. Personally, I cannot imagine having all of this tossed on my plate at one time. Not to mention the expense of legal teams for both cases had to be staggering financially.

The Don Juan In Hell Years
As she stumbled into 1951 she found that she would continue to be at the forefront of this divorce case as well rumors that had been circulating in newspapers for well over a year about her relationship with Robert Gist. Agnes also found herself involved in a theatrical phenomenon that placed her exactly where she wanted to be, treading the boards in serious theatre productions.

Reading through all the things that transpired in 1951 is exhausting but most likely only a fraction as exhausting as the actual year was for the woman who lived it. It stunned me to read where she had been, when she had been there and to know that in between all of that she was juggling, movies, a divorce, a relationship, and most of all touring the United States and Britain in “Don Juan in Hell” as Dona Ana. When did this woman sleep? I’ve worked in theatre for thirty years myself and I know first hand how exhausting a touring schedule can be. I just can’t work out when there was time for anything peaceful in her life. A sample of her schedule gleaned from all the newspaper accounts, incoming passenger lists, UK passenger lists and other documentation:
February 13th, 1951 2 performances North Texas State College
February 23rd, 1951 University Field House Fayetteville Arkansas
February 25th, 1951 Kiel Opera House St. Louis Missouri
March 4th & 5th, 1951 Lincoln Auditorium
April 1951 50 performances of “Don Juan in Hell” have been completed
June 6th, 1951 Arrives on the Queen Mary at Southampton England bound for the Savoy Hotel in London.
July 23rd, 1951 Departs the United Kingdom on a BOAC flight arrives in New York
1951 The Blue Veil
1951 Fourteen Hours
1951 Adventures of Captain Fabian
1951 Showboat
October, 1951 Carnegie Hall New York City
November 29, 1951 Don Juan in Hell New Century Theatre closes December 31, 1951

In addition to the grinding schedule the tour presented she also manages to testify in her suit for divorce in Los Angeles:

May 21, 1951
The Landmark
Statesville North Carolina
Agnes’ Cruelty Tale, Judge Says, Is Too Ancient
Los Angeles May 18
The movie actress is seeking a divorce from husband, Jack Lee, and in court she testified to numerous incidents which she described as cruelty. She also said Lee had been drinking heavily for more than 15 years.
But all events described in the testimony dated from 1945. The couple did not separate until 1949. The judge said it wouldn’t do. So, Miss Moorehead has to do it all over again providing testimony about more recent events. She says she can do it.

The Don Juan phenomenon grabbed peoples attention.  It made her a physical being to people who had only seen her on the screen or heard her on the radio.  It was a spotlight and she adored it right up until she realized that the spotlight could not be controlled.  During the tour of Don Juan it began to leak out whether on purpose or by accident that she was being courted by a man who was substantially younger than  she was.  He would be identified from the get go as Robert Gist an actor with whom she had appeared in "The Stratton Story" in 1949.  You have to ask yourself if her pairing with Gist was simply a coincidence or a plan.  Personally I believe the later of the two and I think that it was purposeful on the part of Gist to attach himself to Agnes.  He had a mission, he wanted to be "somebody."  Unfortunately he seems to have accomplished that and the price for it was the dignity of the woman that he used as a stepladder to Hollywood.

Coming in the next installment
The Gist of The Matter or What's the Matter with Robert Gist?

Hamilton Evening Journal Tuesday January 28, 1929

Agnes Moorehead Former Hamilton Girl, Achieving Success On Stage

That the drama and the church are nor far separated on many occasions is illustrated in the success that is coming to Miss Agnes Moorehead, daughter of Rev. and Mrs. John H. Moorehead, who has chosen the career of an actress.  Miss Moorehead is well known in Hamilton having spent a number of the years of her life here, while her father, now pastor of the Memorial Presbyterian church in Dayton, was the  pastor of the First United Presbyterian church of Hamilton.
Miss Moorehead is now a senior at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City, admittedly the outstanding school for the training of serious stage aspirants in the country.
Miss Moorehead had the honor of appearing in the head role of Anna Valenska in Walter Hachett's popular comedy, "Captain Applejack," when the senior students of the academy presented this play on Broadway for three performances the past week--one on Friday at the Lyceum Theatre and two yesterday at the McMillan Theatre.
During this week, the play will be repeated at Columbia University.  The presentation of "Captain Applejack" was the first of the year series of productions of the senior students of the academy and in other to follow Miss Moorehead is also to play the lead roles, she has been informed.
Miss Moorehead has been a diligent student of the drama in its more serious phases during the last three years she has been attending the academy, and during the last two years she has played all but two leading roles in the academy productions, so outstanding has her work been considered.
Miss Moorehead, a girl of striking beauty and vivid personality, was born while her father was in charge of the pastorate in Clinton Mass.  While he was a pastor in St. Louis, Miss Moorehead, who also has an excellent singing voice, was often heard over station KMOX, being referred to as the "Lady Tenor" because of the peculiar timbre of her voice which is decidedly of that register.
Miss Moorehead's ambition, according to her proud mother, is to conduct a dramatic studio of her own, but she does not propose to do this until she has gained some actual stage experience following her work in the academy.
During the summer, she expects to go into stock, a course which she regards as excellent training for her particular needs.  She will complete her studies in March and will visit her parents at 10 Stonemill Road in Dayton, where she has been on but one occasion before starting her professional work. 
A short time ago she had an excellent opportunity to join a stock company in New Orleans, but declined in the belief that completion of her course in the academy, with the training she is getting by appearing on Broadway with the academy production, is of too great value to pass up.
Though the initial play in which she appeared publicly is a comedy, Miss Moorehead's leanings are more toward the strictly dramatic and it is this line she hopes to win her laurels when she enters her work professionally

Evening, May 23, 1938 The Zanesville Signal

Rev. Moorehead Dies In Church
Rev. John H. Moorehead, pastor of the Kohr Memorial Presbyterian church in Columbus died suddenly while conducting services at the church Sunday morning.
Rev. Mr. Moorehead was a native of Rix Mills and received his education at Muskingum and Monmouth colleges.  He graduated from Xenia Theological Seminary of which his uncle, Dr. W.G. Moorehead, was president for 22 years.
In 1900 he was ordained to the United Presbyterian ministry and during the World War served as chaplain at the Great Lakes Training Station at Chicago.  He served at pastorates in Scottdale Pennsylvania, Clinton Massachusetts, Hamilton Ohio, St. Louis, Dayton and Columbus Ohio.
He is survived by his wife Mrs. Mary Moorehead, a daughter Mrs. Agnes Lee, New York, a sister Miss Camilla Moorehead, New Concord, and two brothers Mark Moorehead, Rix Mills and Howard Moorehead, Denver.
Funeral arrangements are incomplete pending the arrival of the daughter from her home in New York.  Mrs. Lee is Agnes Moorehead comedienne of the Phil Baker Sunday evening programs originating in New York.  She formerly appeared on the Al Pierce Show, Ben Bernie Show and The March of Time.

Happy Birthday Sweet Violet

110 years ago today Agnes Robertson Moorehead was born.  The world was yet unaware of the talented secreted away in this tiny baby.  Lavender Lady, Sweet Violet Shakespeare surely predicted your coming:

Sonnet XCIX.

The forward violet thus did I chide:
Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,
If not from my love's breath? The purple pride
Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells
In my love's veins thou hast too grossly dyed.
The lily I condemned for thy hand,
And buds of marjoram had stol'n thy hair:
The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,
One blushing shame, another white despair;
A third, nor red nor white, had stol'n of both
And to his robbery had annex'd thy breath;
But, for his theft, in pride of all his growth
A vengeful canker eat him up to death.
More flowers I noted, yet I none could see
But sweet or colour it had stol'n from thee.

Happy birthday darling girl!  We are all the better for having known you.

You May Come Close.....But Not Too Close

This article was written by Bernice Mason.  I don't know exactly when because all I have is a copy that was among some papers that I got several years ago.  It is intriguing because it illustrates many instances of the abandoned sibling who has detached themselves from reality.  Interestingly enough the author picked it up as well.

"What is Agnes Moorehead really like as a person?  Since there seems to be some mystery surround her, it follows that there is much curiosity in the mind's of her TV fans who, for four years, have been highly entertained by her antics as the witch Endora, in ABC-TV's popular "Bewitched."

Throughout her career, audiences have always granted her enormous respect due her as an actress who has distinguished herself in radio, on the Broadway stage, in motion pictures and most recently, on television, which has accorded her two Emmy nominations for her role as Endora.  To these honors add the New York Critics Award for Best Actress of the Year for her screen performances in "The Magnificent Ambersons," plus five Academy Award nominations for "Johnny Belinda," "Mrs. Parkington," All That Heaven Allows," Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte," and , of course, "The Magnificent Ambersons."

So much mention has been made of her stellar career, but details of her personal life are not known.  There are things that have set people to wondering.  Signs....trail signs.  Signs that aren't actually there but you read them anyway--like Private Property, No Trespassing, and Stranger, Keep Out.  There also seems to be a general impression that she lives within a created impenetrable fortress composed of layer on layer of self protecting covering, perhaps to guarantee the safety of a hypersensitive spirit against the knife thrust of living...a fortress to which nobody would probably lay ruthless siege but which evokes the wonder if this fine, beautiful granite strength would crumble at too cruel a jest, too sweet a song, a too knowing surgeon's probe.

Any conversation with Agnes Moorehead should properly be held on or near a stage.  Which is why we caught up with her in the cavernous depths of Columbia Pictures' Stage 4, where Screen Gems is filming the fifth season of Bewitched.  Agnes comes off the set looking 20 years her junior, and we pick our way around cables, the lamps, the directors chairs to her dressing room. (For those who are color conscious, it is decorated in shades of violet.

She is gracious, professional, sincere, interested--and impersonal.  Lacking the terrible hardness of many other long established celebrities, her flexibility of manner is something like that of a good fencing foil, which can be bent into a circle without breaking yet is made of finely tempered steel.  For openers, she skates around for a long while on the edge of things.  In April, during the long filming hiatus, she had put on 23 one night stands of lectures in colleges across the country.  In May she had gone to Germany to act as a judge of seven plays produced by American  soldiers in different areas of the Western sector.  She had crossed into East Germany and found the wall sad.

We perceived that our questions would have to be abrupt and direct.  "Are you married, Agnes?"
"I was married--twice.  My first husband died.....The second one I divorced."  She speaks of it with a surprising lack of interest.  "I've been single since 1954,"  she adds--the only information she was to volunteer.
"Do you have any children?"
"My foster son Sean."
"How did you find him?  How old was he then?"
"He was a year and a half old.  My doctor told me about him...He was a legitimate child with about 14 brothers and sisters.  His mother had put six of them up for adoption.  Sean was very anemic, his little eyes were crossed, he had  bad teeth and a spot on his lung."
"A foster son....You didn't think of adopting him?"
"I couldn't.  I was single at the time and single women then weren't permitted to adopt babies.  But I took him into my home and raised him as my own son.  He's grown now and has gone out somewhere on his own."
"You don't know where he is now?"
"No, I haven't heard from him in quite a while."  There is no emotion in the things she says.  Now, quite suddenly, she flashes a most unexpected and radiant smile. "But that's all right.  That's the way boys are."


Agnes comes from a religious family, the daughter of a Presbyterian minister Rev. and Mrs. John H. Moorehead, of Scottish descent.  "I'm a religious girl," she says, "a fundamentalist not a modernist in any sense.  I've lived my life by prayer and faith and the belief that I will always be guided.  I've never had a problem that the Lord couldn't solve.  I put everything into the lord's hands.  It has given me serenity.  Of course, I got much of my religious thought from my father and mother.  In college I didn't think about religious things; I didn't know the depth and meaning.  But now....well, I'm no paragon of virtue or anything like that, but I am aware-I'm very aware...I know who I am.  I've been blessed materially and I'm really grateful for everything.  But if it were all to be gone tomorrow, I could adjust to that.


Cotten became co founders of the acclaimed Mercury Theatre Players.


There was her first trip to Hollywood when Welles sent for her to play an important role in his still remembered "Citizen Kane"- a short time after a movie representative in New York had stripped her hide off by telling her with disdain that she had absolutely nothing of interest to Hollywood, and had left her so desolate after a series of personal insults that she wept for three days and was ready to give up everything, feeling she was unattractive and without any talent at all.  But she went to Hollywood-and to triumphant success.  The three men who believed in her and opened doors to great opportunities--Orson Welles, Charles Laughton and Paul Gregory--earned her undying gratitude.  There are the one woman shows that she has put on since 1951, keeping herself before audiences; and now television, making her known to the young audiences of the future.  She has poured her life blood into her career.


She doesn't dwell much on what she doesn't have: the son who has gone, the husbands of yesteryear, the hundreds of acquaintances-but only two friends; the absence of anyone close to give her affection, the final lack of any present romantic interest.


"I don't know why I shut it out," she confesses "I don't know why.  I haven't sought it, it would have to come to me.  I can't go out and get involved in some scandalous affair--I owe something to the public that has kept me going.  And....I'm not really alone.  I have many pets-- three dogs and three birds.  And then there are the two girls who work for me--one has been with me for 20 years, the other for 14.  They look after me and take good care of me.  As for personal loves---you can't always depend on a human being, you know.  Then again, I seem to need a certain amount of solitude.  It renews me.  Solitude enriches ones being....."


Sometimes, in solitude, it is good to rest,
Either to mend the broken blossoms
And the life that hurts within....
Or be forever reconciled.
 

The Other Moorehead Girl

On Thursday April 12, 1906 Margaret Ann Moorehead was born in Hamilton, Butler County, Ohio to John Henderson Moorehead and his wife Mary McCauley Moorehead.  It has been reported that Margaret was born on April 23rd but the date on her certificate of birth is April 12th.
Margaret had an elder sister. Her sister would grow up to become the gifted actress Agnes Moorehead. Agnes was a woman who would become well known by several generations of radio listeners, moviegoers, theatre attendees and television watchers. From what little is known of Margaret it is hard to know exactly what she was like. We do know from the very few references made to her by her sister Agnes that she, like Agnes, had a gift for mimicry and mischief, but beyond that her life, as well as her death, is shrouded in mystery. A mystery I hope to abate somewhat.

I have said to many friends and associates that I would never talk publicly about my family, I’m an eighth cousin, but recent events have changed my mind. Speculation about those who have passed on is a waste of time, in my opinion, so in an effort to end some of that and shed some light on why people were who they were I’ve opted to end my self-imposed silence.

It has been rumored off and on that Margaret died by her own hand. Let me end that rumor with the truth of it, she did. Margaret Ann Moorehead died on the 14th of July 1929 at 7:50am in the Miami Valley Hospital, Ward 8 of Bichloride of Mercury poisoning which the coroner ruled a suicide. A contributing factor to her demise was listed as Nephritis which was a fancy way of saying her kidney function was impaired.

It took Margaret four days to die. The “attack”, as it has been referred to, began on Wednesday July 10th. I do not know when Margaret was hospitalized but I do know that her sister was sent a telegram telling her “Things are not so well come at once.” This telegram was received in New York at 9am on July 12th 1929. I also know that her mother telephoned her but I do not know when. I know that during that conversation she was told that her sister had attempted suicide and I know that from Molly Moorhead’s letter to Agnes transcribed below:

My Dear Agnes,
I didn’t intend to frighten you so last night for I didn’t want that word to go over the telephone but as you know what happened why you are prepared for the worst if things don’t go on well. I came down early and Margaret is sleeping –had a fair night. The kept her doped and we have two good nurses…we will send for you if we things are going against us. Mother came and is at the house, we dad and I can take turns being here. I in the morning and he in the afternoon. Peg realizes now what a mistake she made and says she was to blame and wants me to forget all the trouble which I told her I would and ask her to forgive me for being crass and unreasonable. I told her, she and you were the only things we had in this world and we couldn’t lose her. She said she would fight and has been. She says that she took care of girl who was worse than she is and she pulled through. Agnes, I think Frank was cruel to her, for out of a clear sky he said they would quit and she fainted and he never called me. And if he had I could have watched her. I’ll try to keep calm and keep your dad cheered up. Please think of us…He has been a peach and he directed things when we needed a cool head around. Let us hear from you.

We all send love.

Lovingly yours,

Mother

It is apparent “that word’ Molly was so desperate to avoid using on the telephone is suicide. In the ensuing years it was always said that Margaret died of a heart seizure or heart attack. Every obituary written from Xenia to Zanesville contains disinformation from “a brief illness” to “a sudden illness while at her occupation as a nurse in New York.” Suicide was then and continues to be today a stigma that families are saddled with. In addition Margaret’s father was the minister of a Presbyterian church and to have the daughter of a minister die by their own hand was unthinkable. If you read between the lines of that letter you will witness a family dynamic that formed the personalities of both children. Molly refers to herself in the first person 9 separate times. She only refers to her husband and herself as we 4 separate times. Rev. Moorehead is only referred to only 3 times and finally Agnes is referred to only as Agnes once and as “you” 6 times. Blame for the suicide is laid squarely on the shoulders of Margaret who accepts it willingly. Frank, the lover/boyfriend who instigated the ending of the relationship, is chided for simply failing to call Molly but not for driving a disturbed young woman to suicide. I believe that Charles Tranberg makes a valid observation when he says that Agnes was “daddy’s girl” and Margaret was “mommies girl.” However much we may want to believe it suicide is never a momentary lapse in judgment. There are always signs and portents that someone is on their way down the one-way street of suicidal behavior.

Many physicians have listed characteristics of suicidal people. These are thought to be:

1. Preoccupation with death.

2. A sense of isolation and withdrawal.

3. Few friends or family.

4. Distraction and a lack of humor.

5. A focus on the past. Often voicing that the world or people would be better off without them around.

6. Being haunted and dominated by hopelessness and helplessness.

7. Viewing themselves as helpless is 2 ways. First by being unable to free themselves from the sea of despair that is swallowing them and secondly that nobody else can help them either.

There are certain life events that precipitate suicidal behavior and one of them is the loss of a love relationship. It has also been said that past emotional or physical damage to the person can lead to self-destructive behavior. It has been written many times over “suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.” If a person is what they call “presuicidal” they are in a state of extreme anguish in which there is no ability to neither make rational decisions nor distinguish rational options to the problem. For most people who are in the right state of mind the decision to end ones own life seems not only irrational but also incomprehensible. Loved ones cannot understand or accept that somebody they love could possibly do this to himself or herself. Unfortunately that inability to comprehend the depth of a loved one’s pain can act as a blinder to family or friends preventing them from picking up on the clues that may be right in front of them. The person who dies by suicide is in so much pain emotionally that they cannot focus on anything but ending that pain by whatever means possible.

Margaret appears to have been isolated from her parents by distance for quite a long time.  Margaret did not, as has always been believed, move to Dayton with her parents in 1925 nor did she remain in Reedsburg with her parents after their fall 1919 relocation from Saint Louis. Margaret, who would have been 13 at the time of the move, remained in Saint Louis with family. She graduated in June of 1925 from Cleveland High School in Saint Louis. I can only assume that between 1925 and her move to Dayton in the fall of 1928 that she attended college to become a nurse. I have never been able to find any record of her nursing degree or what college she might have attended to obtain it. All there is to go on is misinformation in an obituary that gives her occupation as a nurse and her mother’s reference in the letter to Agnes of a girl that Margaret had taken care of who was far worse off but survived. It has made me wonder if she might have been a psychiatric nurse but I’m afraid that we’ll never really know for sure. Her death certificate, which I have, lists her occupation as “at home.” This indicates to me that she either couldn’t find work or wasn’t capable of it any longer. The reference to her moving from Saint Louis to Dayton comes from a front-page obituary in a Xenia, Ohio newspaper and is specific in the details of the move happening the year before her death. It is transcribed below:

“Miss Margaret Moorehead, 22, daughter of Dr. and Mrs. J.H. Moorehead of 19 Stone Mill Road, Dayton, died at Miami Valley Hospital early Sunday morning after a brief illness. Dr. Moorehead is a first cousin of Miss Margaret Moorehead and William Moorehead of this city.

Miss Moorehead had been a resident of Dayton for a year, coming to that city from St. Louis last fall when Dr. Moorehead assumed the pastorate of Patterson Memorial Presbyterian Church.

She is survived by her parents and one sister, Agnes Moorehead, New York City. Funeral arrangements have not been completed.”

The Evening Gazette, Xenia, Ohio, Monday, July 15, 1929

This brings us to one of the roots of Margaret’s problem, “Frank.” Whoever Frank was, obviously there was a romantic relationship. Margaret either moved to Dayton from Saint Louis to be near him or she met him after her move to Dayton. If the latter is true then she couldn’t possibly have known him for more than a year before opting to end her life over his rejection. I think that it was a very intense affair as evidenced by Agnes’ quoting of Margaret’s words to her in her postmortem letter to her sister, “your words of last year ring in my ears, “You never loved a man like I have.” The truth of it is you can search forever in a sea of Frank’s and never find the exact one. He is never referred to in any document that I am aware of other than Molly’s letter to Agnes. There were several young men with the right name and of a similar age within a short radius of her parent’s home at 19 Stone Mill Road but we will never know if “Frank” was one of those young men. Her parent’s home now falls within the campus confines of the University of Dayton and even then may have housed students among the families that lived there. It is possible that Frank was a student. What is less likely is that the decision to end their relationship came out of “a clear sky” as Molly states in her letter to Agnes. Rarely do children dole out specific details of their romantic relationships to their parents so we have to accept Molly’s statement as coming from her own point of view. Margaret and Frank’s relationship may have been one sided or extremely stormy from the very beginning. There were obviously difficulties that had drove Margaret down the road toward suicide long before Frank ended their relationship. I have never read of anybody just suddenly on a whim decide to take their own life. It could have been a long lasting depressive state that pushed Frank to sever ties with Margaret, however, we’ll never really know for sure because we weren’t there. I do know from the letter to Agnes that Margaret asked Molly to forget “all the trouble.” This statement seems to indicate that there were tensions within Margaret’s family as a result of her relationship with Frank. There is also mention in the letter of forgiveness between Molly and Margaret. It is a confusing statement. I don’t know whether Margaret is asking Molly to forgive her for “being crass and unreasonable” or if Molly asked Margaret to forgive her for “being crass and unreasonable.” The sentence says specifically “and ask her to forgive me for being crass and unreasonable.” Anyway you cut it family tension added to Margaret’s already apparently fragile emotional state. This leads me to the method Margaret chose to end her own life.

BiChloride of Mercury is highly, highly toxic. If Margaret had been a nurse she would have been acutely aware of the properties of this poison. It was used primarily as a topical treatment for Syphilis before the advent of antibiotics. It was also used as a fungicide. It usually came dissolved in alcohol, which, if ingested, took it into the bloodstream more quickly thereby making it all the more deadly. It was a long drawn out extremely painful way to die. In the early 1920’s the actress Olive Thomas, wife of Jack Pickford, died from BiChloride of Mercury poisoning. It was widely covered in the popular press of the time and perhaps that was what made Margaret think of it. The symptoms are a litany of severe pain and are as follows:

1. Severe abdominal pain.

2. Severe difficulty in breathing.

3. Decreased urine output potentially stopping completely.

4. Diarrhea

5. Metallic taste

6. Mouth lesions

7. Severe pain in the mouth and throat.

8. Shock

9. Severe swelling of the throat.

10. Vomiting

The prognosis for survival of this type of poisoning depended then on what symptoms manifested themselves within the first 10-15 minutes of ingestion and how rapidly you got to a hospital. It didn’t take much of dose to kill you. Kidney failure and death could occur with small doses of the poison. It simply appears as though even having expressed regret, according to her mother, that Margaret was determined to end her life. What a painful tragic end it was.

This brings me to the second reason for talking about this incident, Margaret’s sister Agnes. Everyone who knows of Agnes Moorehead and has a sense of devotion to her reads whatever they can about her. I think perhaps in an attempt to understand her better. What I want to talk about here is how it affects a person when a sibling takes his or her own life.

So much has been published now about how suicide affects the surviving sibling or siblings. I have read that they are often called the forgotten mourners. Most typically people fixate on the parents of a dead child rarely on the remaining child or children. This leaves them to fend for themselves with their grief. Often they put that grief aside in an attempt to help parents cope with the loss and never fully grieve on their own.

Agnes was 28 years old when her sister died. When a sibling dies by their own hand at this stage in life the surviving sibling learns, in a most difficult way, that life does not hold the unlimited promise they once believed it did. They are literally blindsided by reality. At this point in their lives siblings have spent more time together than they have with their parents. We know this to be true of Agnes and Margaret because it is documented that Agnes spent a great deal of time in St. Louis in the 1920’s. The two of them had shared their whole lives with each other. Sharing a room, secrets, dreams, wishes, fears and plans. Now, at 28, she would find herself having lost her other half. Typically when there are only 2 children they are always grouped together. In 1925 there is a reference in the Zanesville newspaper to the “Misses Agnes and Margaret Moorehead,” returning to Saint Louis after visiting their grandfather. You can believe that they were a tandem, Aggie and Peggy. Suddenly you are left without your right hand. You are without the one person you would talk to about something this life altering and tragic. The anguished letter Agnes wrote to her sister the week after she died and transcribed below evidences that:

“A week later so many things have happened and my own dear sister where are you? Where can you be? How brave and courageous you are to face death so young—how you know our maker—the secret of life and death you know…How I wanted to see you and yet the thought of seeing you was beyond my strength. I loved you—I love you know—you asleep in a cold little bed in a tomb like the good father who created you. And you were beautiful. I only wish you could talk to me sometimes. I know you are alive and well and even so much better off than we. If only you could have come to us. Men are so heartless so cruel. Poor dear little girl your words of last year ring in my ears, “ you never loved a man like I have.” Now you know I have your spirit will know how I feel toward Jack. My little sister I loved you so. I have always loved you and prayed for your happiness. I dreamed of you last night—I love you.”

Agnes never spoke of her sister’s death. This is typical of a time when the stigma of suicide was considered a black mark on the family. The public denial of the sibling’s suicide often leads to a failure to cope with the grief. It would be then that grief, like a mold, would force its way out of the person in many other ways. Frequently it would manifest itself in a physical illness. Sometimes it would come out in deeper more damning ways such as difficulty in establishing healthy long term relationships, fear of rejection, control issues, isolation, and not least of all guilt. The guilt of believing that they could have done something to change what happened or the guilt that they should have been able to tell something was not right. It is my opinion that all of these things are evident in Agnes’ personality. Agnes had difficulty in establishing long-term relationships. She isolated herself from everyone emotionally. She was distant and was often described by those who adored her as being “cold.” I think she demonstrated a fear of rejection and yet a willingness to involve herself in relationships that would end in rejection. Perhaps it was a form self-punishment because of the guilt that hung in her over her sister’s death. Agnes definitely had control issues but, again, constantly put herself into situations over which she had no control. She literally was two people living in one body, one mind. The eccentric outgoing woman the world saw and the troubled, isolated, abandoned sibling that the world only caught fleeting glimpses of. Her career was literally her salvation. She could spend time not having to be herself. It allowed her to leave the isolated sibling behind and become anything she wanted to be. It seems to me that Margaret’s suicide was one of the things that made her so successful at her career and so unsuccessful in her private life.  Despite the issues surrounding her private life Agnes is still one of the most loved and respected names in entertainment history and that would please her no end.