For eight spellbinding seasons, veteran actress Agnes Moorehead enthralled “Bewitched” fans as Endora, the glamorous, headstrong, mortal-hating witch who was also mother to one of the best TV witches of all time: Elizabeth Montgomery’s Samantha. Throughout the series, Endora — who was fond of rocking blue eye shadow — delighted in conjuring up surreal spells and endlessly tormenting her mortal son-in-law. By the time “Bewitched” wrapped in 1972, Moorehead had played the elder spellcaster for 147 episodes, but the four-time Academy Award nominee didn’t just hang up her broomstick and retire.
That very same year, Moorehead took top billing in “Dear Dead Delilah,” a Southern Gothic horror film about a plantation owner who sends her greedy relatives on a deadly hunt for a hidden family fortune. Moorehead didn’t give up on the small screen, either; she landed roles in two made-for-TV movies, the drama “Rolling Man” and the thriller “Night of Terror,” in addition to delivering a memorable guest-starring appearance in the Emmy-winning medical drama show “Marcus Welby, M.D.” She also did some voice acting, bringing her distinctive vocal talents to the fussy chatterbox Goose in the classic 1973 animated film “Charlotte’s Web.”
Agnes Moorehead took to the stage after Bewitched
Agnes Moorehead starred in the 1973 Broadway revival of George Bernard Shaw’s “Don Juan in Hell” after “Bewitched” ended, sharing the stage with Paul Henreid (“Casablanca”), Ricardo Montalbán (“Fantasy Island”), and Edward Mulhare (“Knight Rider”). Soon after that, she took on the role of Aunt Alicia in the Broadway musical adaptation of “Gigi.” Following her stint back on the stage, she also booked the TV movie “Frankenstein: The True Story,” and she followed that up with a role in the TV anthology film “Rex Harrison Presents Stories of Love,” playing Hercule’s wife in the segment titled “The Fortunate Painter” — this would be her final role on the small screen.
Even though she stayed busy dedicating so much time to her craft after her time on “Bewitched,” behind the scenes, Moorehead was dealing with uterine cancer. Her final professional performance fittingly brought her full circle back to radio drama, where her career had first taken off decades earlier as a charter member of Orson Welles’ Mercury Theater. On January 6, 1974, she starred as the sharp elderly sleuth Mrs. Ada Canby in “The Old Ones Are Hard to Kill,” which served as the inaugural broadcast episode of the long-running “CBS Radio Mystery Theater.” Her final voice role was in the January, 26, 1974 episode “The Ring of Truth.”
Just a few months later, on April 30, 1974, Moorehead died at age 73. It’s been suggested that Moorehead’s cancer stemmed from her exposure to fallout from nearby atomic bomb testing during the filming of the 1956 film “The Conqueror” in Utah. Of the 220 cast and crew members, 91 were diagnosed with cancer, with 46 of them ultimately dying from the disease, including Moorehead’s co-stars John Wayne and Susan Hayward.
