Co-Stars: Agnes Moorehead. Part 2

From “Orson Welles Volume 2 Hello Americans” by Simon Callow

Agnes Moorehead gave an account of working with [Welles] that illuminates the way he collaborated with actors. She felt the scene [in “The Magnificent Ambersons” where Aunt Fanny’s (Moorehead) feeds her nephew, George (Tim Holt) food before breaking down] needed something more. Welles accordingly encouraged her to improvise, he would then shape the results, and then they would improvise more, and Welles would make further suggestions while “poor Tim Holt,” remembered Moorehead, “eats more and more cake and turns green.” “From a little over a minute, we had ad libbed until the scene was almost four minutes in length. And the effect was like peering through or listening at a keyhole because Fanny was suddenly stripped of her pretensions and her sad truth revealed. And that was what it was like to work for Orson.” [Her performance] is a supreme example of an actor’s creativity, as much Agnes Moorehead as Fanny Minafer, and greater than either.

[The producer] George Schaefer, who with certain selected executives had been shown about an hour’s worth of the footage, immediately saw the power of her work: AGNES MOOREHEAD DOES ONE OF THE FINEST PIECES OF WORK I HAVE EVER SEEN ON THE SCREEN, he wired Welles. I AM VERY HAPPY AND PROUD OF OUR ASSOCIATION.