Agnes Moorehead is remembered today primarily for playing Endora on Bewitched. But long before that, she was the most celebrated dramatic actress in the history of radio.
Her performance in "Sorry, Wrong Number" on Suspense (1943) is universally regarded as the single greatest performance in radio drama. Playing a bedridden woman who overhears a murder plot on a crossed telephone line, Moorehead carries almost the entire play herself — the other characters are mostly voices on the other end of the line — building half an hour of escalating terror around a single frightened woman.
The episode was so popular that CBS restaged it seven times between 1943 and 1960. Each performance was slightly different, and collectors prize all seven versions.
But Sorry, Wrong Number was far from her only radio triumph. Moorehead was part of Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre company on radio and followed Welles to Hollywood, making her film debut in Citizen Kane (1941). She appeared on Suspense dozens of times, and her range — from vulnerable victims to calculating villains — was unmatched.
She also appeared regularly on The Shadow, Inner Sanctum Mysteries, and virtually every prestige dramatic program of the era. Directors consistently cited her as the most professional, most prepared, and most electrifying performer in radio.
When you listen to her work in our archive, you're hearing an artist at the absolute peak of her medium. The microphone captured something in Moorehead's voice — a quality of intelligence and emotional depth — that made every story she touched feel urgent and real.
You can hear her work in our Suspense archive.