NUMBER ONE
1. Agnes Moorhead:
Radio’s greatest actress is Agnes Moorhead.
In later life she did a lot of television, including Bewitched where she played Endora, Samantha’s Mom.
In radio she was brilliant. She was the first “Margot Lane” to Orson Welles' Shadow.
On the big screen she appeared in many of Orson Welles’ projects, including Citizen Kane.
She performed many other great gigs, but she gets the Top Actor Spot for a single role……..”Sorry Wrong Number”.
She plays a sickly wife who has taken to her bed and is awaiting her husband’s return from work when she overhears an ominous telephone call.
The show plays in real time as she frantically makes phone calls to get help when she imagines that her life is in danger. She can’t leave her bed and has to rely solely on the phone for her rescue.
This performance was so well received and so highly rated on the “Suspense” program that it was annually rebroadcast “Live” many times. After the first airing in 1943, the show was repeated every year or to right up until the final performance in 1960 during the last days of radio.
Orson Welles said the script, by Lucille Fletcher, was the finest in the entire history of dramatic radio.
Welles also was a believer in the incredible talent of Agnes Moorhead. He admired her work so much that he wanted her for the lead in the 1946 production of The Stranger, which is one of the greatest Noir films ever made. Welles wanted Aggie, but the studio fought him. They wanted Eddie (Edward G.) Robinson. Orson lost. Robison was hired and he was brilliant in the film.
Agnes Moorhead lost another role in another Noir in 1946. When the studio decided to turn Sorry Wrong Number into a film, they bypassed Aggie and chose Barbara Stanwyck for the part.
In the 1960s she was offered role of Endora, the second lead witch, in Bewitched. Being an accomplished stage, radio, and big screen artist, she was reluctant to take a television role. She finally gave in and took the part, which ironically brought her more fame and wealth than her 40 previous years of ‘serious’ work.