Free I Love the Illusion: The Life and Career of Agnes Moorehead by Charles Tranberg Page A

much to his disliking. He was permitted to take special
art courses, in which he showed marked adeptness.” After a year in
Madison, Orson was enrolled at the exclusive Todd School in Woodstock,
Illinois. At Todd, Orson’s creativity flourished and he appeared in numerous
plays and shows.
    His father died in 1930, alone in a hotel room. During these years Orson
did a great deal of traveling — to the Orient, Cuba and Germany. When
Orson graduated from high school (at age 16), rather than going to college
he went on a sketching tour of Ireland; when his money ran low, he
managed to get a job performing at the Gate Theatre in Dublin. He gained
much useful experience in Dublin. When he returned to the United States,
he joined with Roger Hill, the headmaster of the Todd School, who had
been much impressed by Orson’s skills as an actor, in forming a touring
company and writing a play, Marching Song, about the underground railroad.
    A break occurred in 1933 when Orson, now 18, ran into the playwright
Thorton Wilder, who had recalled Welles from the Dublin Theater. Wilder
wrote a letter of introduction for Welles to present to theatrical managers
and other influential people in New York. This led to an introduction to
the critic Alexander Woollcott who in turn introduced Orson to Katharine
Cornell, who cast him as Mercucio in a nationwide tour she and her
husband, Garrett McClintock, were undertaking in Romeo and Juliet. Jane
Wyatt would recall the spectacle of middle-aged Cornell and McClintock
playing the teenage lovers and how the theatre came alive when Orson came
on stage as Mercucio — “we knew a star was born.” In 1934, Orson was
introduced to sometime-actor and producer John Houseman, twelve year’s
Orson’s senior, who invited Welles to appear in his play, Panic. This led to
a partnership between the two which culminated with an all-black version
of Macbeth, which Houseman produced in cooperation with the WPA’s
Negro Theatre Project, with Welles directing.
    Houseman and Orson continued to work producing plays for the WPA
including Dr. Faustus and The Cradle Will Rock . To supplement his meager
income, Orson began to do extensive work on radio His rich, deep voice
and perfect enunciation were made for the medium and, like Agnes, Orson
had a talent for dialects. He became very much in demand and it was
through his work in radio that Agnes got to know Welles, whom she later
would remember as “quiet and introverted.” “He was always very clean,”
Agnes would recall, “but with frayed edges on his shirt. He carried a shillelagh
and had a marvelous voice and diction. Everyone else was afraid to talk to
him, but he fascinated me and we became great friends. One night, he
asked me whether I’d join him and Joe Cotten to do the classics on Mutual
radio.” Houseman and Orson finally left the WPA to form their own repertory
company — The Mercury Theatre — and they wanted Agnes on the team.
II
    While Orson Welles was finding his way on stage and radio, Agnes was
increasingly in demand. She was known by many as a comic “stooge” for
Phil Baker, but had shown considerable versatility on radio performing on
many dramatic programs as well as comedies. Her versatility helped make
her part of the ensemble company of the radio program, The March of
Time. The March of Time dramatized news events using actors to accurately
impersonate the newsmakers of the day along with classic radio sound
effects to make it seem to the audience that they were actually listening to
the real event. Because the show covered all major newsmakers around the
world, the best radio voices were needed and wanted to do the show. It was
on this and other shows of this period, such as The Cavalcade of America, that Agnes got to know and
work with some of the other
great voices in radio. By
the time Agnes joined the March of Time cast in 1936,
the show had been on for
five years. Franklin Roosevelt
was president and among
those who