Remembering... Agnes Moorehead

Having been a sensation in such acclaimed black & white films as The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), Dark Passage (1947), and Johnny Belinda (1948), not even Agnes Moorehead herself (born on this day in 1900) could have predicted what impact colour would bring to her career... Anyone who doubts it should watch and compare the first season of Bewitched to the second.

Being a serious actress, Moorehead disdained the 'hack' scripts of situation comedy, refusing to see Bewitched for the trenchant social commentary it was. She had a clause in her contract that she would only appear in eight of every twelve episodes filmed long after it was obvious that she was the fan favourite.

In the time-honoured sitcom tradition, though, it was second-fiddle Endora who made that show as great as it was; without her the show would have had no tension - no 'situations' and therefore no comedy - no raison d'etre. Still, comedy is used to getting the short shrift; as important as making people laugh is, too many still consider the considerably easier task of making people cry to be the more important one.

Moorehead's devout Christianity also gave the show a touch of verisimilitude; in any of the scenes she has with Samantha (Elizabeth Montgomery) replace the word 'witch' in her dialogue with 'Christian' or 'Presbyterian' and you'll see what I mean. Endora is the most evangelical of witches, and therefore the most complex character on the show, heart and soul.
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Remembering... Sandra Gould

Far be it from the Pop Culture Institute to impugn the good work Alice Pearce did in aid of that archetype of suburban nosiness Gladys Kravitz during the first two seasons of the legendary sitcom Bewitched; while Pearce was the ideal black and white version of the character*, though, the show's transition to colour at the outset of Season Three demanded an actress who was also in colour, and Sandra Gould - whose vivid hair the colour of tomato soup made her the mortal counterpart to Endora - more than filled the bill.

Her performances were as vivid as her hair colour, to such a degree that to this day just by shrieking 'Abner! ABNER!!' even a middling impressionist can reduce me to a giggling mass.

After Bewitched went off the air in 1972 Gould never lacked for work; by the time she died - on this day in 1999 - she'd also appeared in The Brady Bunch, Punky Brewster, Friends and Veronica's Closet as well as reprising her role in the short-lived 1977 Bewitched spin-off Tabitha. On the big-screen, her accomplishments include an appearance in The Ghost and Mr. Chicken with no less a comedy legend than Don Knotts.

*Pearce died of ovarian cancer in 1966, during the filming of Season Two.
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