Agnes Moorehead - Death

Death

Moorehead died of uterine cancer on April 30, 1974 in Rochester, Minnesota. Her mother, Mary M. Moorehead (August 25, 1883 – June 8, 1990) survived her by 16 years, dying at the age of 106 in 1990.

Moorehead appeared in the movie The Conqueror (1956), which was shot near St. George, Utah – downwind from the Yucca Flat, Nevada nuclear test site. She was one of over 90 (of 220) cast and crew members—including costars Susan Hayward, John Wayne, and Pedro Armendariz, as well as director-producer Dick Powell – who, over their lifetimes, all developed cancer(s); at least 46 from cast and crew have since died from cancer(s), including all of those named above. No bombs were tested during the actual filming of The Conqueror, but 11 explosions occurred the year before. Two of them were particularly "dirty," depositing long-lasting radiation over the area. The 51.5-kiloton shot code-named "Simon" was fired on April 25, 1953, and the 32.4-kiloton blast "Harry" went off May 19. (In contrast, the bomb dropped on Hiroshima was 13 kilotons.) "Fallout was very abundant more than a year after Harry," says Dr. Pendleton, a former AEC researcher. "Some of the isotopes, such as strontium 90 and cesium 137, would not have diminished much." Pendleton points out that radioactivity can concentrate in "hot spots" such as the rolling dunes of Snow Canyon, a natural reservoir for windblown material. It was the place where much of The Conqueror was filmed. Pendleton also notes that radioactive substances enter the food chain. By eating local meat and produce, the Conqueror cast and crew were increasing their risk. Dr. Robert C. Pendleton, director of radiological health at the University of Utah, stated, "With these numbers, this case could qualify as an epidemic. The connection between fallout radiation and cancer in individual cases has been practically impossible to prove conclusively. But in a group this size you'd expect only 30-some cancers to develop. With 91, I think the tie-in to their exposure on the set of The Conqueror would hold up even in a court of law."

Moorehead was one of the first members of the company to make a connection between the film and the fallout. Her close friend Sandra Gould, who was featured with her on Bewitched, recalls that long before Moorehead developed the uterine cancer that killed her in 1974, she recounted rumors of "some radioactive germs" on location in Utah, observing: "Everybody in that picture has gotten cancer and died." As she was dying, she reportedly said: "I should never have taken that part."

Moorehead is entombed at Dayton Memorial Park in Dayton, Ohio.

Moorehead bequeathed her 1967 Emmy Award statue for The Wild Wild West, her private papers, and her home in Rix Mills, Ohio, to her alma mater Muskingum College. She left her family's Ohio estate and farmlands, Moorehead Manor, to Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina, as well as some biblical studies books from her personal library. Her will stipulated that BJU should use the farm for retreats and special meetings "with a Christian emphasis", but the distance of the estate from the South Carolina campus rendered it mostly useless. In May 1976, BJU traded the Moorehead farmlands with an Ohio college for $25,000 and a collection of her library books. Moorehead also left her professional papers, scripts, Christmas cards and scrapbooks to the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research at the Wisconsin Historical Society.

In 1994, Moorehead was posthumously inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame. The Touchdown Tavern in Reedsburg, Wisconsin, opened the Agnes Moorehead Lounge, exhibiting memorabilia.