Born in Clinton, MA. The daughter of a Presbyterian minister, she first appeared on stage at the age of three and made her professional debut at 11 in the ballet and the chorus of the St. Louis Opera. In her teens she sang regularly on local radio. After graduating from college, she taught speech and drama in high schools and spent her vacations appearing in stock. In 1928 she began playing small parts on Broadway but soon after turned to radio, appearing in "The March of Time," "Cavalcade of America," and starring in a soap opera series. Between 1933 and 1936 she toured in vaudeville with Phil Baker. Things began happening to her career in 1940 when she joined Orson Welles' Mercury Theater Company. Welles cast her in the small but memorable role of Kane's mother in his first film, CITIZEN KANE (1941). The following year she won the New York Film Critics best actress award and was nominated for the best supporting actress Oscar for her portrayal of a spinster in Welles' THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS (1942). It was the first of her four Academy Award nominations. Miss Moorehead subsequently appeared in numerous films, typically portraying possessive, neurotic, puritanical characters but also playing a wide range of other roles from somber to humorous, with equal subtlety and skill. In the 1940s, too, she gave a memorable performance in the oft-rebroadcast radio play Sorry, Wrong Number. In the early 50s she toured the US and Europe with Charles Boyer, Charles Laughton, and Sir Cedric Hardwicke in readings of Shaw's Don Juan in Hell. In 1954 she began touring with her one-woman show, The Fabulous Redhead, which she later played intermittently in some 200 cities throughout the world. She appeared on a number of television programs, lastly as Endora, the witch, in the series "Bewitched." She died of lung cancer.  Nominated for Supporting Actress 1942: THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS  Nominated for Supporting Actress 1944: MRS. PARKINGTON  Nominated for Supporting Actress 1948: JOHNNY BELINDA  Nominated for Supporting Actress 1964: HUSH... HUSH, SWEET CHARLOTTE 4 nominations