Sean is probably the murkiest of the multitude of people who floated in and out of Aggie’s life.
A great deal of misinformation, much of which originated from Agnes, has been circulating in the ether for about seventy-five years. There is nearly no paper trail to follow with him, but what there is flies in the face of everything we’ve been made aware of about Sean. After addressing the misinformation, I will focus on the truths that can be verified and investigate the untruths.
Fallacy one is that Agnes and Jack Lee adopted Sean. In fact, Sean was never adopted by Agnes, Jack, or Robert. His last name was Moorehead until he jumped ship and headed out. He was never Sean Lee or Sean Gist; he was just Sean Moorehead. Sean was Agnes’ midlife crisis. It was a fanciful idea that flitted through her head whilst she was in over her head, running hither and yon with Robert Gist. Sean went home with Agnes on December 24, 1951, and he was two years old.
Agnes had no business attempting to raise a child, and her skill at it was put under a harsh light regarding Sean. Agnes actually had very little to do with Sean's rearing when he was young. The bottom line is that he spent most of his time with Aggie’s staff and Kathy Ellis, who stood in for Agnes as his mother when he attended events involving other children. She saw very little of Sean for a long time, and by the time she was spending more time at home, she was shipping Sean off to one European boarding school after another.
The second fallacy, or rather fallacies, has to do with Sean’s education. Sean attended several schools, but only a handful are named. In 1965, Sean was sent to Llandovery College in Wales. It was Sean himself who brought boarding school to a screeching halt, and he did it by taking a walk. A very long walk. A very long three-day walk from Llandovery College in Carmarthenshire, Wales, to Swansea in May of 1965. That’s a thirty-six-mile journey on foot. The area between Swansea and Carmarthenshire is not developed land. There are a few villages, but it took him three days, so he likely stopped for food and sleep. We’ll never know the exact means by which he made his way because he took off on his own. When he reached Swansea, Sean simply walked into a police station and identified himself. Never mind that half the country was searching for him; he was as independent as could be. By September 1965, Sean was in California and enrolled in Lycée Français in Los Angeles. The school itself is guilty of pushing false information. For their sixtieth anniversary, they put out this blurb:
“60 Years - Walk Down Memory Lane 3 - We celebrate our first ever enrolled Lycée student! On August 22, 1965, actress Agnes Moorehead, best known as Endora from Bewitched, enrolled her son Sean at our Doheny Drive campus. Sean became an integral part of our community, serving as yearbook editor and proudly noting he was the first student to join. Mrs. Moorehead also led parent events, such as galas and balls. Here’s to the legacy they helped build as we celebrate 60 years!”
Agnes had no choice but to enroll him in a California school that she had access to and could monitor his behavior. Sean definitely threw a wrench in the works, and I can’t imagine Agnes was happy about it at all. All of a sudden, Sean was underfoot, and Agnes was incapable of handling him. She tried cracking down on him, but he pushed back much harder, and I think as he neared 17, she was actually afraid of him.
After his time at Lycée Français, things must have deteriorated at home, as evidenced by Sean's second escape in November 1966. This time, he made it from Los Angeles to Placerville, California. In case you didn’t know, that is 432 miles. He was spotted at a service station on Auburn Boulevard and Whyte Avenue just standing around killing time. Sean told the police that he left his home in Malibu and was headed to Reno to look for work. He also indicated he was not living with his mother but had been staying with another family in Malibu, stating he’d left home due to problems. They also discovered that he’d done all of this without any money at all. Agnes was notified and arranged for him to return to Los Angeles, but he likely did not go back to her home. In 1967, Sean changed schools again. He became a junior at Santa Monica High School. The thing that struck me is that in January 1967, Sean turned 18 years old, and he was still only a junior. Sean should have graduated in 1967, but didn’t.
Furthermore, after the 1967 yearbook, Sean didn’t return to Santa Monica for his senior year. I believe he may not have graduated at all. It is possible that he managed to complete two years of school in one. Either is a possibility. Sean was highly intelligent, as the police commented, and he was very well-mannered, as noted by the police.
Sean had bounced from Paris, where he was stranded with no plane ticket, to Switzerland, to Wales, and finally to California. No stability was provided for a young man who had been, in his youth, bounced from two foster homes to a hospital and finally to the lap of luxury—zero stability.
Fallacy number three is that Sean and Agnes had the same color hair. Instead of imagining Agnes with darker hair, the mind tries to put that flaming orange hair on his head. Well, the opposite was true, and they were technically both redheads. Agnes and Sean had auburn hair, which looks brown or black when photographed. I know this because I literally held Agnes’ hair in my own hands, and it’s auburn, peppered with gray and dull brown. This is a fact. The hair color we all remember Agnes having wasn’t anywhere close to her natural hair color. She dyed it to match Robert Gist’s hair, if newspapers are to be believed.
Fallacy number four is that Agnes was Sean’s “foster mother.” She wasn’t. She was his legal guardian, and the fact that she had his name changed proves that. A foster parent is not permitted to change the first or last name of a child in their care. They don’t have legal standing to do it, but a legal guardian could. I came across a letter from Kathy Ellis to Agnes regarding the obtaining of a passport for Sean. Passports require a birth certificate, and if a name has been changed, you must provide all of the supporting paperwork for the name change and prove that it has been done legally. Sean had a passport. Agnes was his legal guardian until he turned 18, which occurred in January 1967. She had no explicit parental rights, only a charge to pay for her ward's care and education.
Fallacy number five is that all communication from Sean is pleading for Agnes to come home. It’s simply not true. There are several “letters,” I use quotes because these were written by a very young Sean, that are sweet. In one letter, Sean refers to Robert as “Daddy,” and Robert’s father, Marion, is referred to as Grandfather. Sean was writing by 1953. Actually, the early stuff I’d call scratching as opposed to writing. He managed to write to his mother and father on scraps of paper several times, long before Robert was escorted out of the house. After Robert's departure, Sean sent his mother birthday cards, Valentine's cards with artwork added, and small notes. His pleading letters are peppered throughout all of this. I don’t know what turned the relationship, but I do know his last birthday card was not the loving Sean of earlier years, but the one who was beginning to dislike his situation and longing for escape from it.
Fallacy number six is that Sean had a twin sister who was adopted by another Hollywood powerhouse. To be sure, Sean did have a sister, and a very prominent Hollywood family adopted her. Kathie ended up living just a few blocks from her brother. I have no idea whether Sean or Kathie were aware of each other's whereabouts. Her adoptive father was a Hollywood legend named Harry Cohn, and her adoptive mother was a Hollywood legend named Joan Perry. She was not, however, Sean’s twin. Kathleen Perry Cohn was born in April 1947, making her almost a full two years older than Sean. Kathleen called herself Kathie, spelled with an "ie," and, like her brother, the minute she could get away, she did. Like Sean, she ran from the glare and the privilege afforded her. Unlike Sean, she was legally adopted. She married six times and had one child. Ultimately, she ended up fighting for the trust Harry Cohn had left her. She won the case, and she promptly turned her back on her adoptive mother and siblings. Kathie ended up on the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska, about as far from Hollywood as one could get. She owned property as well as a bar and cafe. She died there in 2024
Fallacy number seven is that Sean was born in California. On December 24, 1951, the newspapers ran an item about Agnes adopting a son and naming him Sean. We have all seen those, but there is another story that appears in various papers, and that story strongly suggests that Sean was born in the East. If you track where Agnes was during that latter part of 1951, you will find that she was heavily involved in “Don Juan In Hell,” and you’ll also find that Sean was definitely not from California. How do you say? Simply follow the paper, or in this case, follow the newspapers. On November 29, 1951, “Don Juan In Hell” opened on Broadway at the New Century Theatre, where it remained until December 31, 1951. Sean was “adopted” in 1951. Logic dictates Sean was born in New York. If you’ve been looking in California, you are on the wrong coast.
Agnes did not drop everything for five minutes and run to Los Angeles to pick out a child. She went looking where she was, and that was New York. Everybody seems to forget that Agnes considered New York her home for a very long time before going to Hollywood. She had lived in New York from 1927 to 1940-42. She had a doctor there. She was very familiar with the hospitals in the area. If you want to believe he was from California, I surely won’t stop you, but facts say he wasn’t.
Fallacy number eight is that Sean broke into a safe in Agnes’ home in 1967 and stole money. Sean did break into her safe, but he didn’t just steal money. It was much bigger than that. He did get 2700 dollars in cash, but he also got these:
Star Sapphire and rose cut diamond necklace set in gold
Rose Topaz Maltese pin in gold
Rose Topaz Maltese earrings gold
Pansy enameled pin with diamond center
Square Aquamarine ring set in white gold
Garnet necklace set in gold
Gold ring set with garnets about the size of a half-dollar,
1 pair of drop garnet earrings set in gold
Garnet cross
Garnet bracelet set in gold,
Cross with a tiny amethyst set in gold
Alexandrite ring set in gold
Gold sun medallion, size of a 50-cent piece,
Pearl heart pin with diamond center
Unset platinum rings
Large green tourmaline ring set in gold
Pink topaz ring with six tourmaline stones in gold
Platinum amethyst ring
Large Amethyst ring set in gold
Large square topaz set in gold
Platinum bracelet with carved emeralds and diamonds,
Platinum bracelet with sapphires and diamonds
Jade bracelet hinged in gold
Carved jade necklace set in gold,
Amethyst tiara set in gold,
Drop Amethyst earrings set in gold
Drop Amethyst necklace set in gold
Drop gold earrings with square amethyst
Drop Amethyst necklace featuring light green tourmaline stones in heart-shaped settings set in gold.
Rose topaz Maltese necklace, part of the set
A large box of expensive costume jewelry
Two boxes of Joy perfume
A small white jeweler's box containing seven or eight loose emeralds
A lock box made of blue metal containing essential papers.
Between the jewelry and the cash, Sean made off with nearly $63,000. So, no, it wasn’t about stealing money; it was about hurting Agnes as much as he could. Every piece of her jewelry was locked in there. He stole the necklace that matched the ring that has become her hallmark. This entire thing was three-fold: he received the money to get out, the jewelry to sell when needed, and the box that likely contained all the paperwork related to his birth and her guardianship. This is why she excluded him from her will. He hurt her a great deal with this robbery, and he got 63K, so he had his inheritance. In her mind, he was a costly mistake. He was now right up there with Jack and Robert as persona non grata.
The final fallacy is that nobody knows whether Sean is alive or dead. Sean is dead. He did not die in 1996. He died after 2013 in Florida, and he kept a diary about everything that happened in Hollywood, as well as the reasons behind his departure. His grandson contacted me about it, and, like the absolute fool that I am, I accidentally deleted it very, very carelessly. They were going to empty his grandfather’s garage. So, if he perhaps reads this, FOR GOD’S SAKES, EMAIL ME AGAIN PLLLLLLEEEEEAAAASSSSE!
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