The phrase “The Elephant In The Room” is used frequently in discussions. It represents a significant problem or controversial issue that is quite obviously present but avoided as a topic of debate or discussion because it’s more comfortable not to discuss it. What I’m going to do here is talk, or rather write, about all those “uncomfortable” things people are reluctant to discuss concerning Aggie. The topic is sexuality, and you are going to be shocked. Let’s not waste time.
First Things First
You must remember that Agnes is a product of the Victorian Era. Everyone born before the death of Queen Victoria is technically Victorian. That being said, the Victorians were a peculiar lot, often at odds with themselves and their intimate relationships. They were repressed on the street and a wee bit extra in the sheets.. That repression was channeled into respectable behavior and manners. The respectable behavior and manners were channeled into the brothels, both male and female, affairs, peccadillos, and French porn postcards. To go along with this, they wrote poetry on anything they could find that was writable upon, and it was abysmal.
Their sexuality was a crazy quilt of opposites. There were rules of engagement, chaperones, and practice “marriage,” which occurred between young girls and women as “training” for the real thing. It was called “Romantic Friendship.”
What Is A Romantic Friendship Anyway?
Before I get any further, I want to clarify a few things.
Today, we look at relationships between women through the eyes of sex, and the plain fact is that you cannot judge someone born before the end of the Victorian era in 1901 with the morals of the 21st century. You can’t even do it at the end of the 20th century. The way Victorian parents raised young women bears little resemblance to that of those of us raised by either “The Greatest Generation” or “Baby Boomers.” The Victorians viewed things in a manner that we are no longer accustomed to. While we are tempted to think of Victorian morals as being antiquated, the twist or spin that the Victorians put on their view of sexuality rivals the spin that issues forth daily from the halls of government. That said, you didn’t see what you thought you saw; you saw what I wanted you to see. It is fine if they love each other because they are just women.
Here begins the story of “Romantic Friendship.” In her book “Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers,” Lillian Faderman begins chapter one with this statement by Frances Willard: “The love of women for each other grows more numerous each day, and I have pondered much on why these things were. That so little should be said about them surprises me, for they are everywhere… In these days when any capable and careful woman can honorably earn her own support, no village does not have its examples of two hearts in counsel, both of which are feminine.”
Middle-class women in the early 20th century were raised in an environment where love between young women was considered normal and viewed as preparation for marriage. It was “ a rehearsal in girlhood of the great drama of a woman's life,” where love for one another was thought to constitute the richness, consolation, and joy of their lives. In this environment, which I must add falls squarely in the middle of both Molly and Agnes’ lives, it was envisioned as “romantic friendship.” Sex was rarely, if ever, involved; it was about the deep emotional attachment of one young woman to another. It was believed that these relationships freed females from the necessity of marriage and allowed them a certain level of independence. This, of course, led men who were Sexologists and/or psychiatrists to begin to poison the well, calling the relationships unnatural. When Agnes did her interview with Boze Hadleigh in 1973, she explained her relationships with other women as deep emotional attachments that were beautiful and even spiritual. Voila, this is the very definition of a romantic friendship.
Every woman that Agnes attached herself to emotionally was precisely this kind of relationship. That doesn’t mean that sex didn’t enter into it. This means that there was a considerable chance that it wouldn’t happen. If I had to predict which relationships she entered involving sex, I would point to the two where no communication between Agnes and the two women, Peg and Alice, has survived. But that being said, it doesn’t mean that sex ever entered into it where Agnes was concerned, either. I believe her avoidance of sex with either men or women had more to do with her father being a minister than anything else. Think about her mother and her companion, Grace. The two women lived together for twenty-seven years. Agnes followed in her footsteps, attaching herself to various women. Sex wasn’t part of the plan for either Agnes or Molly. It was companionship and emotional fulfillment that drew them to these relationships. This doesn’t mean no kissing or hand-holding happened; I’m sure it did, at least with Agnes. Molly is a whole different animal.
Agnes viewed marriage as a responsibility, not a bond between a man and a woman. The responsibility was thrust upon her by the untimely demise of her sister. I’d bet cash that Agnes would never have married if Peggy had not died. I believe that was always meant to be her sister's role, but when tragedy steps in and takes her sister, it becomes Agnes’s role. Agnes had men in her life, to be sure. In her postmortem letter to her sister, she admits in a Victorian manner that she had loved a man like Peggy did. His name was Fred Halverson, and she further instructed her sister to ask him because he’d verify it. Conveniently, Fred was now available to Peggy for queries, as they were both in heaven. Agnes dated young men in college. I know of at least two, and she was married twice. But in her view, marriage was a responsibility, and love had no place in it. At least not in the way we think of it today. Her emotional capacity was dedicated primarily to the women she collected. The legend of her argument with Robert over his infidelity was accurate. “If you can have a mistress, so can I.” I believe she was referring to Alice MacKenzie, and I know his mistress was Jacqueline Mickles.
In any case, we cannot judge Agnes according to today’s standards. We must incorporate the idea of romantic, feminine friendships. To leave the idea out is to create division. I say this because there are folks who just won’t accept that Agnes loved women because their brains go first to the bedroom, second to her marriages, and third to her religion. Romantic friendship erases all of these and allows us to see her through the eyes of her upbringing and the ideals of the early twentieth century that incorporated the idea of friendship with the idea of romance. There need not be an argument about her physical sexuality, but to understand the woman completely, you must understand her heart. Her body belonged to a man, but her deep love for another human being was directed solely toward the woman in her life. She admits to Boze Hadleigh that she had “loved” women in soul-to-soul spiritual ways and that my friend is a romantic friendship.
Elephant 1: Fred Alonzo Halverson
On March 15, 1929, a man died in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He was thirty-seven years old when he died after a period of failing health. His name was Fred Halverson, and he was from Soldiers Grove, Wisconsin. Fred is important in this story because of a letter written to Peggy Moorehead by Agnes after Peggy died. Agnes mentions the words Peggy spoke the past summer that rang in her ears still, “You have never loved a man like I have.” Agnes’ response, unknown until I found it this year, was buried in a notebook written in a coded type of script:
“-Now you know that I have–Fred will tell you–your spirit will know. Now you know how I feel toward Jack…”
On the face of it, given the slang used today, it looks simple, uncomplicated, and grief-laden. This woman has just lost her sister to suicide, yet she tells her dead sister that she, like Peggy, was not a virgin. Peggy would never have described it in terms of slang because she viewed sex and love as being the same thing. What does that mean? Agnes just told her dead sister she’s not the prude Peggy thought she was, and not the only one in the family who wasn’t a virgin, without actually using any of those words. Confused yet? No. Well, I am.
If you like a large number of people who are on the team, where Agnes is strictly a lesbian, are now reading that she wasn’t a virgin and had sex in a tiny town with a local guy who worked in a grocery store and market, before June of 1928, close your mouth! There are two options left for us here.
Agnes is making it up.
Agnes isn’t making it up.
I have opted, after reading everything I have and hearing from the people who have reached out with some personal knowledge. I’m opting for door number 2. She isn’t making it up. She had two boyfriends in college as well. This is what I think happened. Agnes left Soldiers Grove in October 1927 to attend the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, cramming two years of work into six months. In May of 1928, she returned to Soldiers Grove to finish the school year. On June 21, 1928, Agnes was in Wisconsin visiting friends, and among them was likely Fred Halverson. More than a friend, it appears.
Fred Alonzo Halverson was born in Soldiers Grove, Wisconsin, on September 5, 1891. He graduated from high school there and remained in the area until joining the military to fight in World War I. After the war, he returned to Soldiers Grove. Fred was a huge football fan. Look at any local newspaper, and you’ll see Fred going to games all over the place. In May 1924, Fred bought a brand-new Ford coupe. Agnes had been at Soldiers Grove for a little less than a year before Fred bought his new car. On July 17, 1924, Fred and a group of his friends went seventy-three miles to Devils Lake in Baraboo, Wisconsin. Who do we know who was in Madison, a mere forty miles south at that point? That’s right, Agnes. She had been in Madison, forty miles from Devils Lake, since July 7, attending a summer session at the University of Wisconsin. If they spent the day in Devil’s Lake, you can be sure Agnes did too.
The following 3 years are peppered with trips made by Fred. These include trips to Madison during football season with Agnes, as well as other friends, to see the University of Wisconsin's big games. Fred was a Mason. Agnes joined the Daughters of Ruth. It speaks clearly, but are you willing to hear it?
The question remains regarding her sexuality, but these men she was involved with outside of her marriage, or in Fred and Dwight’s case, before her marriage. For so long, we have all, in our way, been desperate to label her sexuality, and I do not believe that it can be labeled in any way or form. Agnes probably comes closer to being pansexual than bisexual because, in her head, sex was a guy thing, as she said to Boze Hadleigh.
In his book Hollywood Lesbians, Boze Hadleigh had the opportunity and the skills to garner an interview with Agnes, I believe, in 1973. These are her words:
“I don’t like the comparing…I mean, not that it matters to me. Men are this sexual or that sexual, but females, in that sense, are a different species. A woman may love a person who is this or that, male or female. Love doesn’t have a sex. It’s men who always have to bring sex into everything. They can’t help being heterosexual, homosexual, or the other one. Women operate on a different plane; feelings are emotional, not physical.” Pretty much supports my hypothesis, don’t you think? So I am in the capacity of a family member declaring Agnes bisexual, emotionally and potentially physically, but that remains unproven. Yeah, that’s right, I said emotionally and physically. My point is, she may or may not have acted on her emotions. It is hinted at repeatedly through hand-holding and unnecessary touching. I can immediately lay my hands on two pictures where Agnes is holding another woman's hand. Agnes stretched the truth about many things, but I believe she was frank in her interview with Hadleigh; every single word rings with truth.
Elephant 2: Dwight Dear
Dwight dear, Tuesday
You amaze me. I wonder if you realize how tactless your letter reads. Did you read it again before you sent it to me? But, since you did send it, my dear, all well and good; my dear. Don’t for a minute feel that you aren’t exactly “free.” For really, you are. Don’t blame girls for falling head over heels, you know, since the “Battle Creek Lady” has and still is, since you feel very much worried over her hurt and disappointment. I’m afraid you have gone off again on another target
when you think that you are in love with me. (scratched out “Said you thought you were before
You were kind to tell me about it–I admire you loads for that. I shall not class you as a heartbreaker, so don’t mind me.
Some of these days, we need to talk it over–you know, kind of seriously. That’s that.
I’m working like the dead–made my first step before a new career.
Who is Dwight, dear? Guess what, I have an answer. Dwight was living in Dayton, Ohio, at the same time as Aggie’s family. He had just completed medical school and was an intern at the Miami Valley Hospital, where Peggy died. He is the same Dwight mentioned by Molly in her special delivery letter to Agnes. Dwight is the gentleman who blurted out to Agnes that Peggy had tried to commit suicide. He thought he was in love with Agnes. “ Said you thought you were before,” was her response. This letter, while appearing benign and good-natured, is pure Agnes. She could tell you that you were an ass with many benign words mixed with an ocean full of sarcasm spiked with razor blades and cyanide. She was blunt, very blunt. It’s a family defect that lives on today in the woman writing these words. Blunt like a velvet-covered brick.
The letter above is the only one that survives, and that is because Agnes created a draft of the letter in the notebook she used for school. It has remained there for 103 years. Dwight, clearly someone she was “seeing” romantically, and also someone who got under her skin via the written word. While the letter from Dwight doesn’t survive, the one she drafted in her AADA notebook did, and it’s clear that while Dwight was serious about her, she was meh about him.
Elephant 3: Howie Page, Shortstop
Chicago “The Auburn Parker”
9 February 1938
Penny Postings
Tommy Hutchinson ‘n Howie Page are feuding over Agnes Moorehead.
“The Auburn Parker” indicated that Tommy Hutchinson and Howie Page were feuding over Agnes Moorehead. You could have pushed me over with a feather when I read it. But there it was in all its glory on the newsprint I was staring at while it undeniably stared right back at me with a sense of indignation. There she was, a married woman with two men who were not her husband fighting over her. Where is her husband? Firstly, what an ego boost, and secondly, Tommy was himself a married man and Catholic to boot.
Howie
Howard Erford, aka Howie Page, was a baseball player, a shortstop with a wicked arm. I’ve played that position; it’s challenging and very demanding. He was born on September 29, 1914, in Greene, New York. He died in Lake Saranac on May 11, 2012.
Howard got married on the 28th of June 1939, about a year after the Agnes article came out. Howie married a woman named Emily Jane Warner. Emily Warner was seven years Howard’s senior. It appears to me that Howie had an eye for older women. Agnes would have told Howie she was born in 1906, and Emily seemed to be a year younger than Agnes. He remained in Chenango County his entire life. To call his life quiet would be an insult to the word. By 1940, Howie had become a Physical Education teacher and a baseball coach.
This article mentions that both Howie and Tommy serve as a rough starting point for the deteriorating marriage of Jack and Agnes. We know that in her divorce suit against Jack, it was mentioned more than once that Jack had been drinking steadily since 1937. This article appears at the beginning of 1938, and I do not think it’s accidental that Agnes is mentioned dallying with other men in New York. It’s the first time in any newspaper that she's mentioned as a love interest for not one, but two prominent men. I believe wholeheartedly that this entire situation was meant as a slap in the face to Jack. It was the only time it happened before 1945 that she did this or somebody did it for her. This would not happen again for eleven years when she split from Jack and her affair with Robert Gist hit the Hollywood news machine. The men are never mentioned together with her name again. This was Agnes’s first taste of controlling the romantic narrative of her life.
In any case, Howie would have been more her type. Howie was a good-looking gentleman who was very physically fit. Howie married in 1939, but in February of 1938, his eyes had settled on Agnes. Clearly, if there was any type of hanky panky going on, the hanky and the panky fell sound asleep in the middle of the round. Howie is never mentioned again as being lovesick for Agnes, and definitely no feud. Was it real? Who knows. Did Agnes manipulate it, probably. But since no correspondence to her survives either from or to the two men, your guess is as good as mine.
Agnes once said she was no prude, and boy, was she not joking about that!
Elephant 4: Tommy Hutchinson, Boxer/Cop
Chicago “The Auburn Parker”
9 February 1938
Penny Postings
Tommy Hutchinson ‘n Howie Page are feuding over Agnes Moorehead.
Tommy
On February 9, 1938, an article in The Auburn Parker indicated that Tommy Hutchinson and Howie Page were feuding over Agnes Moorehead. Tommy Hutchinson was a professional boxer. This article serves as the starting point for the deteriorating marriage of Jack and Agnes. It’s the first time in any newspaper that she's mentioned as a love interest for not one, but two prominent men. This would not happen again for eleven years when she split from Jack and her affair with Robert Gist hit the Hollywood news machine. The men are never mentioned together with her name again. This was Agnes’s first taste of controlling the romantic narrative of her life.
Thomas J Hutchinson was born in 1890 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His parents moved to Atlantic City sometime between his birth and 1900.
Tommy was the Police Champion of Atlantic City, whose bout against Eddie Slattery, “The Fighting Cop,” in 1921 was listed in the Atlantic City papers.
Likewise, Tommy was referred to as “Atlantic City’s Fighting Cop,” a boxer whose heyday appears to have been the 1920s. He was not a boxer on any primary circuit, but he fought strictly in the police league, adhering to the league's rules. He was not a heavyweight boxer; he appears to be a bantamweight. He was also a motorcycle cop. Odd that Agnes bought Jack a motorcycle all those years later and then took to riding it herself. Personal lessons? Tommy, it was said, had a mean right hook. He also belonged to a shooting club and was a marksman. By 1930, he had retired from boxing and went on to become the Chief of Police.
Tommy was also a married man. He got married in 1925 to a woman named Kathryn in a Catholic ceremony. He was unavailable but playing the field.
Elephant 5: Buster Wiles
William Donati:” I lived in Los Angeles for twenty years and do not have much to convey about Agnes Moorehead, except for her romance with stuntman Buster Wiles, whom she met at the Warner Studio in Burbank. Buster had affairs with several famous women but did not want their names in his autobiography (1988). When I suggested that we include the stories, he said that he did not want to "kiss and tell" or to come across as a braggart. Flynn let Buster and Agnes use his studio bungalow for their romance.” I'm not sure how long they were together, “ Donati said in an email to me. Once I read it and reread it, I realized that there is a level to Agnes that none of us has seen. Not once in her seventy-three years of life would she ever admit to any of it, and she only came close to admitting she was a wanton in her conversation with Boze Hadleigh.
This one blew my mind a thousand percent. Agnes cheated on Jack with Buster Wiles, and that information came directly from the man who wrote the biography, who shared it with me via email.
Agnes was human, just like anybody else. She made good decisions and bad decisions, although she seemed to make more bad than good when it came to romance. Agnes herself admitted she never went on a date unchaperoned until she went to college. You know what you get when your life is that sheltered, naivety. Agnes was naive when it came to men. Her choice of husbands proves that. What she wasn’t was stupid. She managed her private life far better than she managed her career. Only the circus created by her marriages garnered her negative press, and she managed to keep her name out of the gossip magazines. Do you know how much work that had to have taken?
Buster and Agnes used Errol Flynn’s bungalow to have an affair. True story, or at least Buster believed he was telling the truth, and what a gentleman not to want to kiss and tell. There is no reason to think it didn’t happen, because Agnes and Buster were on the Warner Bros. lot together many times during her tenure there. Agnes did three pictures for Warner’s “Dark Passage in 1946, “Johnny Belinda” in 1947, and “The Woman In White” in 1947/48. So, did the affair start in 1946, 1947, or 1948? I cannot answer that, but I would hazard a guess based on her marriage to Jack that it was 1946. Jack and Agnes were separated for the majority of 1946. It seems natural that she may have sought comfort of some sort, and it probably lasted until 1948 when Robert Gist stumbled into her life, and the slow-motion explosion that would end her marriage to Jack Lee began.
Elephant 6: Mr. Trent
The Orchid Card
Monday A.M.
Dear Mr. Trent:
Received your fascinating letter and your picture. I like your philosophy of life and believe you to be a person well worth knowing. I would like to meet you and will make a suggestion which I trust you will follow.
The fact that you have no finances makes no difference to me if you are the man I am looking for.
I will ask you to use the enclosed two dollars for bus fare and come to Laguna Beach tonight. I will meet the bus, which leaves Long Beach at 7:30 pm, and hope you will be there.
Please bring your bathing suit, as we may spend some time on the beach if you'd like.
When I see you, I will explain my entire situation, and you can also tell me yours.
Looking forward to seeing you tonight. Am sending this letter Special Delivery in order that you will receive it this afternoon.
Sincerely,
Agnes Moorehead
Original written by Kathy Ellis and not dated.
Who Is Mr. Trent?
I have no idea who he was, but I have been and will continue to try to locate him while randomly genuflecting in hopes of either finding him alive or dead. Seances can be fun when done correctly.
Honestly, though, it has been a rough search for this man. The first thing that was tantamount to finding him was to identify the year the card had been printed. Fact: It is not a Hallmark card. Fact: It would be impossible to date if it had not had this on the back of it:
“Orchids, by the celebrated artist Lillian Grow.” 1121 Made in the USA.
How does this help? You find Lillian Grow, and then you read every single thing you can find on the internet in the hope of finding a date. Three hours uncounted Visine and a ton of coffee later, I saw her, Lillian Grow. As I reviewed the document, I discovered that Lillian was a watercolor artist, and her art was featured on greeting cards from the beginning to the end of the 1940s. But then, in the following paragraph, there was a discussion of a limited reissue of her flower paintings on note cards in 1956: the telltale factor was the gilding and slight scalloping of the edges of the card. Agnes wrote letters constantly, so note cards would not have lasted more than two years. Genius! Jackpot! Kathy Ellis wrote this card between 1956 and perhaps 1958. Kathy habitually wrote everything in green ink, which, along with the handwriting, makes it something to be studied. Agnes wrote letters constantly, so note cards would not have lasted more than two years. Genius! Jackpot!
Whoever Mr. Trent was and/or is, he had contact with Agnes during the nightmarish three years of her divorce from Robert Gist. Was he solace? Was he a craftsman of some sort? God, I hope he brought his swimming trunks, and fingers crossed, perhaps I can sift through it all and find his story.
Not The Ending Everyone Hoped For?
If you are sitting there either screaming at me in your head or screaming at me while reading the blog, let me say this. Human beings are the most confounding creatures on this planet. They do, mostly, what they want when they want. Agnes was a superhuman. By that, I mean she was the Queen of doing what she wanted when she wanted to.
The fact that I didn’t find a letter espousing love for Agnes from a woman should bother nobody. Lack of a letter or letters means nothing. We should accept the woman's own account, in which she stated that she had loved women and that the relationships were spiritual. Did Agnes have sex with men? Yes, she did. Did Agnes have sex with women? The answer is deeply complex, especially when you throw in the fact that she was Presbyterianized heavily by her parents. I have deemed Agnes mentally bisexual. But what about her sexually flagrant little sister? Wasn’t she Presbyterianized, too, and it didn’t stop her from doing a damn thing. I recall the letter Agnes wrote to her sister, in which she admitted that she, Agnes, was terrified of everything, while Peggy had no fear. Because of her upbringing, Agnes did the same things as Peggy, including sleeping with Fred Halverson. The difference is that Agnes did it quietly and carefully. Agnes kept her sexuality to herself and kept away from the prying eyes of, well, everybody really. Agnes did not save but a handful of pieces of correspondence from women. Some have innuendos, and some are downright out there with nicknames like Vampress Julie. But they all fell in love with her women, men, dogs, cats, birds, and piglets. The list is tremendous. This information carries advice in it. It says be yourself, whoever you may be.
