This angular, versatile character player is best remembered for her vibrant turn as Endora on the sitcom "Bewitched" and for her dramatic roles in two Orson Welles films: as the protagonist's misguided mother in "Citizen Kane" (1941) and as the lonely, forbidding spinster in "The Magnificent Ambersons" (1942). The New England-born Moorehead had appeared in every kind of 20th century entertainment. She started in the late 1910s in an opera company and was singing on the radio by 1923. Eking out her living with teaching jobs, Moorehead moved to New York in the late 20s and made her Broadway debut in "Scarlet Pages" (1929).
Moorehead continued her stage work into the 30s. including a 1933-1936 vaudeville tour with Phil Baker, but most of that decade was spent honing her vocal skills on the radio. She turned up regularly on such shows as "The Seth Parker Family Hour", "The Phil Baker Show", "The Gumps", "Terry and the Pirates" and "Suspense" (the famed "Sorry Wrong Number" episode, in 1943). Moorehead was even the heroine of the soap opera "Joyce Jordan, Girl Intern". By 1938, her versatility earned her a berth in Welles' radio stock company on "The Mercury Theater of the Air."
Welles took Moorehead and other radio players with him to Hollywood, where she made her impressive film debut in "Citizen Kane" and had a greater showcase in "The Magnificent Ambersons". This last role earned her a New York Film Critics citation as Best Actress, as well as her first of four Supporting Actress Oscar nominations. Moorehead made a total of 65 films over the next four decades, appearing in everything from high drama to low comedy to musicals to slashers. No matter how bad the film, the always-professional actress gave her all, and the results were sometimes magical.
Among the many notable Moorehead performances were the Runyonesque drama "The Big Street" (1943) and the light comedy "Government Girl" (1943). In 1944, she was Mrs. Read in "Jane Eyre", a meddlesome do-gooder in "Since You Went Away" and a French society woman in "Mrs. Parkington" (her second Oscar nod). Continuing to display her versatility, Moorehead was a murderess in "Dark Passage" (1947), the aunt of a deaf mute (Jane Wyman) in "Johnny Belinda" (1948, her third Academy Award nomination), a sympathetic prison matron in the classic "Caged" (1950), an hysterical mom in "Fourteen Hours" and Parthy Ann in "Show Boat" (both 1951). Later she played a queen in "The Swan" (1956); Montgomery Clift's mother in "Raintree Country" (1957); a pioneer in "How the West Was Won" (1963); Bette Davis' loyal, slatternly housekeeper in "Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte" (1964), which earned her a fourth Oscar nomination; and a crusty old sister in "The Singing Nun" (1966). It was a long, varied and impressive filmography--although Moorehead never starred, she often outshone the box office "names" with her sly, intelligent performances.
The actress made her TV debut in the early 1950s and did guest spots on such anthology shows as "Revlon Mirror Theater," "Suspicion," "Shirley Temple's Storybook," and "The Twilight Zone" (in a classic 1959 episode without dialogue in which she battled tiny spacemen). After playing the aunt on "My Sister Eileen" (CBS, 1960-1961), Moorehead was signed as Elizabeth Montgomery's campy, delightfully evil witch mother on the hit sitcom "Bewitched" (ABC, 1964-1972). Moorehead gained a whole new, younger audience as Endora; decked out in flowing gowns, glamorous makeup and an outlandish orange wig, she traded barbs with her co-stars and performed magic both through special effects and expert scene-stealing. When not doing "Bewitched" or a film, the very busy actress appeared in such TV movies as "Alice Through the Looking Glass" (as the Red Queen, NBC, 1966), "Suddenly Single" (ABC, 1971), and "Frankenstein: The True Story" (NBC, 1973).
Moorehead never abandoned the stage, doing shows right up until her death. She was a stunning Lady Macbeth in 1947 (directed by Welles), toured with a reading of "Don Juan in Hell" in the early 50s and did a one-woman show of readings off and on from 1954. She returned to Broadway in "Lord Pengo" (1962) and, shortly before her death, in the musical "Gigi" (1973), as Madame Alvarez (the role created by Hermione Gingold in the 1958 film). The reclusive actress did not enjoy the public side of acting, throwing a smoke screen over her private life, her birth and even, posthumously, her cause of death.