Chapter 1: The Mirror of Life
I've repeatedly said that the end makes the best beginning, so that is where we will start with Agnes
Robertson Moorehead. It was once written that "She is Agnes Moorehead. She is legend." Whether
you're a legend, like Agnes Moorehead, or one of the billions of people on this planet, you are just like
she was. You may have been irritable, charitable, incredible, broken, sad, happy, joyful, loud, and quiet,
but guess what? So was she. I've been told that there are only two things we cannot escape from doing
as human beings: being born and dying. Will we start at the end, or is it a beginning disguised as an
ending? I shall let you be the judge of that. The year is 1974, and the place is New York City, which is
the beginning of Aggie's final journey.
January 1974
New York City, New York
It was bitterly cold on this gray New York day.
There was no snow on the ground, but with the wind chill, there might as well have been
a blizzard. It might have been warmer if that had happened.
But it didn’t happen. As the sun began to go down, it got colder and colder.
She sat in the chair of her room, gazing out the window, her mind wandering
through the past. She wasn’t alone in the room as friends and assistants packed her trunk
and bags. It was 1:30 p.m. and in two hours.
She knew she was leaving New York for the last time.
This would be one of her last journeys anywhere.
She had given my two weeks' notice to the production company of “Gigi.”
On January 2424, Arlene Francis would step onto the stage as Aunt Alicia, and the thought of that
broke her heart even though Arlene is a good friend. She thought.“ I am not ready for this. I wanted
one more time on that stage.” She knew that she was exhausted, and she knew the cause.
She just wasn’t ready to give in to the idea of dying, but she had begun to suffer extreme
pain so crippling that she couldn’t stand up. She had to take pain medicine all day long just
to stay on her feet. She was tired of the future. Standing for any length of time had
gotten more complex and more challenging.
Sometimes, she seemed afraid she wouldn’t be able to stand again when needed.
Some days, just getting out of bed seemed like an impossible task she barely managed to do.
She couldn’t eat much of anything. Aggie had been staying at her friend Mary Roebling’s
apartment. Mary was so happy to have her for Christmas and prepared a fabulous feast, but
all Aggie could manage were mashed potatoes. She snapped out of her reverie and discovered
that it was 2:00 p.m. Jerry had arrived to take her to the train station.
The trip to the station was quiet. Jerry sat quietly. She knew he was hesitant to speak to her.
She could feel it. He was reluctant to talk because he knew where she was going and why she was
going there.
Aggie couldn’t tell because she was entirely in her head, making notations about her whole life
and asking herself hard questions about everything she had experienced. This would be tricky, as she
would have to discuss everything she had experienced. This would never be a joyful ride, so they
just sat quietly and calmly, saying nothing to each other.
Jerry had been given access to an underground parking area for VIP passengers.
He quickly found space, and before he could put the car in park, a porter
and the senior conductor were right next to the vehicle.
The conductor had a junior porter with a wheelchair to help me get to the train.
When she began to get out of the car and saw that wheelchair,
Agnes suddenly found the strength of ten thousand men and announced that she would
walk to the train unaided.
She put my arm through Jerry’s, and he took her to her compartment.
Her assistant was placed in another bedroom, and before the train departed, she put away all of
Aggie’s things.
Agnes sat in her compartment, not moving but just staring out the window, trying
to take in all the sights and sounds as if I had a film camera in her head, recording
them for posterity.
At 3:30 p.m., the train shuttered and started to move. It quickly entered the underground tunnel leading
out of Grand Central. In the tunnel's blackness, she wondered if this was what it would be like to die. A
long dark tunnel and then suddenly a pinhole of light that suddenly grows, and you’re home. Her father
would be there, and so would Pegg.
God, how she missed Pegg. Part of her was glad to be going home, and part of her, like any human, was
terrified about that, not knowing what would happen next. In an interview the year before, she said,
“Fear of life closes off more opportunities than fear ever does.” Boze was a lovely, very nosey, but
charming young man. She was impressed he had the nerve to ask some of what he did. “You have to
take risks,” she said. “I have both taken them and avoided them. I did a little of each with my
fervent interviewer,” she said, smiling wryly. The train went on through the night, and Aggie
pondered the universe, her ending, and what came next. Presbyterians are nothing if not practical.
The public had been told she was simply going for a checkup at the Mayo Clinic.
Friends and acquaintances had been told she was being treated for pneumonia
and an eye infection. At that point, three people knew what was going on. Aggie’s Mother, of course,
knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, as did Freddie, who had worked for
her for years, and she trusted Freddie completely. The third person was the assistant
who had been attending to her while she was performing in “Gigi.” Only Molly and
Freddie was present at the hospital. Close to the middle of January,
Aggie began a course of chemotherapy that felt like it was going to kill her long before the cancer did.
The chemotherapy that she was placed on had two components. The first was something called.
Vincristine, and the second was Adriamycin.
There is an indication of the severity of her cancer in the type of medication she was given. These two
medications treat metastatic cancers widely in tandem with a third.
That means it was already metastasized and had begun to spread through her body.
The side effects of these medications are not for the faint of heart, believe me.
You must have an incredible will to live if you’re willing to suffer these kinds of side effects:
IS lost every single bit of her hair. There were rashes in places one should not have a rash. Oh lord,
everything, even water, tasted of metal. She was so nauseous she couldn’t eat a thing. She had blisters
on her hands, and writing became impossible. Agnes couldn’t sleep, and she couldn’t stay awake. It felt
like the seventh circle of hell, and I mean that with every fiber of my being.
Adriamycin kills cancer cells but damages DNA. It also blocks an enzyme required for cell division and
DNA repair. Technically, it’s an antibiotic with murderous tendencies. These medications were not
given lightly or even given freely in 1974. But they gave them to Agnes!
Agnes was most assuredly not ready to throw in the towel. Then, a month into the chemotherapy, Her
Mother decided that she would fare better at her Mother’s home in Reedsburg. It was ridiculous. It hurt
just to sit up in bed, but you know her Mother would not hear of her staying in the hospital. It is about
163 miles from Rochester to Reedsburg; it was the worst ride of her life. Not for one second did she
have any peace on that drive. The staff kept telling her Mother it would have been better to stay put. It
was an absolute failure, and by April, she was back in the hospital in Rochester. She had managed two
months at her Mother's. She was miserable, as was her Mother, but even at her age, she would not let
Agnes do anything for herself, and she hovered around her like a moth to a candle.
What was happening was those in charge were allowing Aggie’s Mother to sway their opinions of
where Agnes would heal faster. They sent her home to die, and awkward as she was, she failed to do
that for them. Her hair was growing back, and it was itchy. Aggie managed to tell Debbie that she had
lost her hair. She could hear the tears in Debbie’s voice. That is why she did not want to see or be seen
by anyone. Aggie couldn’t leave them with that horrible memory of her being in a hospital bed, bald,
tired, and drawn. Nobody wants to be remembered that way.
As she got worse, they were forced to take her back to that hospital for the remaining three weeks of
her life because her Mother could no longer care for me. After all, her Mother was 90 years old at the
time. April 9 9th, 1974, she had three weeks of life left. Aggie knew it would not be comfortable and
would not be pretty.
April 30, 1974
Rochester, Minnesota
Tuesday
It was 6:00 a.m. April 30, 1974, in Rochester, Minnesota. The sun had begun its slow journey through
the sky, just peaking over the tops of buildings. This sunrise was the kind of amber color that only
someone who had spent time on the stage would know and appreciate. The color was so warm that it
seemed to fill the rooms like warm water. Technically, it was Spring, but as anyone who has been to
Minnesota will tell you that doesn’t mean much. But the sun was coming up—the warm amber sun
with its rays filling each room methodically. There was a sense of something extraordinary in the air
that day. I use the term “wonderful” relatively because today, someone was going to die. Someone
exceptional. Not that many exceptional people don’t die every day; however, for this woman,
her death would be a journey of love.
While her Mother sat and read the bible to her, Agnes gently touched the buzzer to ring for the nurse.
She didn’t want to disturb her Mother. She was nearly flat on her back and couldn’t see the sunrise at
all, but neither did she have the strength to lift herself to see it. The nurse walked in, quietly crossed
over to the bed, and placed her head near Agnes’s face. “I want to see the sunrise,” she whispered. The
nurse obligingly lifted her frail, thin, and worn-out body and placed an extra pillow under her head.
Then she raised the head of the bed ever so slightly. The sun had just begun to stream through the
window. She closed her eyes and let the sun wash over her like soft, warm water. It felt so wonderful
on her thin, tired skin. Still, she shivered from a cold that had suddenly invaded her soul. She opened
her eyes to look directly at the sun. Its warmth and color were the only things that mattered now,
anyway. After a good, long look, she closed her eyes once again. It felt like she had stage lights directly
on her face. Oh, what a wonderful feeling that was.
I believe something mystical hovers around all living creatures who are dying. It was certainly right
there in Aggie’s hospital room. A soft white mist hung in the air like thin clouds hanging in a blue sky.
She could see it. She had been watching it for weeks. She opened her eyes to look around the room.
The mist was there, but today, it seemed heavier, thicker. It hung above the floor, just like the mist over
a pond, as the water began to warm after a cold night. “Maybe,” she thought, “this is my life flowing
out of me.” “Maybe these are my memories.” It turned out she was right on both accounts. Our lives
are made up of memories that stay with us forever. You could walk down this wing of dying humans,
peer into any room, and find it filled with memories. Some memories the dying exude are so luminous
that they could easily be mistaken for a star. Some only glow like an ember left behind by a blazing
fire. Neither is more or less important than the other, for they are what our very souls are made of.
Agnes had both kinds of memories along the way; some were brilliant as the sun, and others glowed
softly like coals in ashes left behind by a blazing fire. As she looked around the room, she smiled
softly. “This was a good life,” she thought.”I know there are many things I should have done
differently, but really, it was a good life.”
She looked absentmindedly out the window, her thoughts wandering from year to year. She relived each
memory in wonderful warm tones and feelings of comfort and delight. They seemed genuine enough,
but it felt as though she was viewing it all through my grandfather’s stereoscope. It would have been
perfect if time could have just stopped in one of these beautiful memories. “What a pity, “ Aggie
thought, “that nobody can see these diamonds from my life.” How funny that even though her Mother
was in the room, She was alone. She had always known that she would die alone and had always
thought that would bother her at all. Aggie wanted the illusion of glamor, but that did not play well in a
hospital gown, nor could it hide a bald head, but now, it seemed to be the right way to die. She smiled
weakly, turning her head toward the sun. “This is the last day I will ever see this,” she whispered. Her
Mother continued reading to her, not noticing that minute by minute, second by second, she was
leaving this earthly plane until she heard Agnes whisper, “Mama.” Molly looked up, closed her bible,
and touched her daughter's face as if she were just a baby. A solitary tear rolled down her cheek. Molly
was utterly alone. Like the end of a magnificent play, the room slowly faded to black.
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