Sean Moorhead

Moorehead and her husband, John Griffith Lee, were on the verge of divorce in 1952. They'd long talked about adopting children, but never had any. They separated in 1950. In late 1951, while visiting a children's hospital, Moorehead learned about a woman with 14 children.

Sean was one of them, born in California (with a twin sister) allegedly on January 6, 1949. The boy suffered from anemia, gum disease, severe malnutrition, and some undiagnosed lung problem (bronchitis, pneumonia, or tuberculosis). His mother was putting six of her children up for adoption, and Sean had been in two foster homes already.

Moorehead took pity on Sean, and about December 20, agreed to become Sean's foster mother. (She did not foster Sean's sister. According to Debbie Reynolds, another wealthy Hollywood actor or actress adopted her.)

Moorehead divorced Lee on June 11, 1952. She never adopted Sean (by her own admission), but acted as his foster mother and legal guardian until he was 18.

Moorehead was often on the road in plays or doing films, and Sean lived alone, supervised by maids Freddie Jones and Polly Garland and by a man named Jack Kelk.

Sean spent summers at Moorehead's farm in the Muskingum Valley in southeast Ohio. His letters to her are heartbreaking, begging her to come home and love him, telling her how much he missed her, how he'd been a very good boy and wanted her to see him.

When Moorehead was home, she was a strict disciplinarian. She believed in proper manners, and forced him to act like a Victorian child. She never permitted Sean to be himself around her.

Larry and Mark Russell, the grandsons of a wealthy neighbor, played with Sean sometimes when he was at Moorehead's home in Los Angeles. They said Sean became increasingly possessive of toys, even food.

Sean wanted to be called Eric (although no one knows if "Sean" or "Eric" was his birth name) because he said he hated "being Sean". No one seemed to like him.

Debbie Reynolds and her kids were the exception. She said Sean was nice and well-mannered. Some time between 1965 and 1967, he broke into Moorehead's home safe and stole money from her.

Moorehead sent Sean to boarding schools in Wales and Switzerland. He played piano well, spoke French like a native, and became acquainted with Paulette Goddard (then living in Switzerland).

When he came home for the summer in 1963, he'd grown his hair long. Moorehead, who loathed the hippie movement and anything libertinous, demanded he cut his hair. Sean ran away for three weeks. When he returned, Moorehead again demanded he cut his hair, and he did so.

Moorehead finally brought Sean home in 1965, and enrolled him at a private school, Le Lycee Francais de Los Angeles. Sean hung out with hippies and counter-culture types, wore outrageous clothes, drank alcohol, wanted to experiment with drugs, and listened to psychedelic rock. Moorehead was enraged.

The following year, Sean wanted to enlist in the U.S. Army and go fight in Vietnam. Moorehead refused to let him. He was on the verge of running away from home and lying about his age when Debbie Reynolds intervened. She said, "You should learn about what you're getting into," and Sean agreed to visit a VA hospital with her to talk to soldiers about war. Meeting mained veterans unnerved him, and he dropped the subject.

Sean graduated from Le Lycee Francais in 1967. A few weeks later, Moorehead found a dismantled gun in a drawer in his bedroom. She confronted him, and demanded that he leave her home. He did.

Sean had left the country with Mark Russell. They went to Switzerland, and stayed with Paulette Goddard for a time. Russell returned to the U.S., but no one knows what became of Sean after he left Goddard's home. Moorehead apparently heard a few times from friends about his whereabouts, and he may (or may not) have tried to obtain money from her once or twice.

Moorehead had only six more years to live, and Sean did not come to see her while she was in the hospital during her final illness. Moorehead left no provision for him in her will.

To this day, no one knows if Sean Moorehead is dead or alive, where he is, or what name he's been living under.

agnes was one heartless bitch.

No good deed goes unpunished.

What a fascinating post. Thanks OP.

r5

so what do you think became of him?

Moorehead died of uterine cancer on April 30, 1974, in Rochester, Minnesota, aged 73.

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

Moorehead bequeathed $25,000 to Muskingum College, with instructions to fund one or more "Agnes Moorehead Scholarships".

She also left half of her manuscripts to Muskingum with the other half going to the University of Wisconsin. Her family's Ohio farm went to John Brown University in Siloam Springs, Arkansas, along with her collection of Bibles and biblical scholarship materials.[

Her mother Mary received all of Moorehead's clothing and jewelry, and Moorehead made provisions to support Mary for the rest of her life.

The Beverly Hills home was left to her attorney Franklin Rohner, along with the furnishings and personal property within.

Small bequests were made for friends and domestic staff along with some charitable contributions.

Most tellingly, in her will, she made no provision for Sean whom it was alleged she had adopted, the will stated that she had "no children, natural or adopted, living or deceased"

It seems like Sean's relationship with Agnes was toxic for him. I hope he's alive and well and living his own life.

If he was alive, why wouldn't he have wrote a tell all book?

I think she had something to do with his death and then covered it up by saying "he went away."

As if he's only a "foster child," so he doesn't matter.

Truly sad...I wouldn't be surprised if she killed him and said he ran away.

Agnes and Sean.

Can you imagine that hideous voice yelling at you night and day?

This whole story sounds fishy to me.

There are too many red herrings. The biggest being kids weren't named "Sean" until after 1961.

The name was pronounced as 'Seen' before Sean Connery arrived,

Something is off that the young man disappears and no one has heard from him since. Especially with all the tell alls written, if he hated her that much, he'd have had a say.

Debbie Reynolds defended Agnes from any negativity, blasting Paul Lynde for his comments on her.

Years ago I read that Agnes was very strict with the boy. When he grew his hair long, which was the fashion back in the 1960's, she utterly insisted that he cut it and they had an awful argument over it. He took off, left home, and she never saw him again.

She sounds like she was a difficult person.

[quote]I was single at the time and single women then weren't permitted to adopt babies.

But you could buy them.

I remember years ago seeing an article - proof - that she had not actually legally adopted him. I'm searching for this source. But it was in the exact window of time when was legally divorced.

Her mother died in 1990 at the age of 106!

She could have watched her late daughter in afternoon TV reruns for decades.

We had a thread not that long ago about Sean and the newspapers at the time, in 1952, reported Agnes officially adopted him. Who knows if it's true.

OPs information comes almost entirely from this Facebook post, which has a little more info in it that OP snipped out.

She sounds like a real piece of work, a far-right evangelical Republican who basically kicked Sean out of her life because he wasn't conservative like she was.

[quote]Agnes was married twice. First in 1930 to actor John Griffith Lee 1952. The couple served as foster parents of a boy named Sean, who she “kept,” though there may or may not have been an actual adoption. She married actor Robert Gist in 1954, but that relationship ended in divorce four years later. A real victim in all of this was Sean, who begged Agnes for attention, though she all but ignored him, the hired help more or less raising him. Providing a bit more detail, Geoffrey Mark explains, “Sean did not grow up to be a conservative Christian, and being a Christian was very important to Miss Moorehead. When he did not grow into the conservative, God-fearing model that she wanted him to be, she disowned him. You talk about Jesus, his love, and then because this man won’t behave the way you want him to, you just walk away from him? I’ve never heard anyone say that she was anything but a total professional on any set, but that situation with Sean shows a side of her that informs her spirituality and how tight her heart was on some things.”

The Facebook post ripped off the OP

The Facebook post is from over a year ago, r23.

I wonder how the liberal Liz Montgomery got along with Moorehead. Did they socialize with one another?

Liz Montgomery was also a Christian.

Elizabeth Montgomery was a proud American as well as a Christian.

She was proud her father was a good naval officer who saw action in Europe and then helped American allies after the Japs bombed Pearl Harbour.

[quote]The biggest being kids weren't named "Sean" until after 1961.

There are news articles dating to 1952 that list his name as "Sean."

Google Ngram doesn't have him

Wait a minute, weren't all these Proud Americans also well known pussy eaters?

I wonder if Sean ever met Dion Fay.

They would have a lot to share.

R30 Are you attempting to make a link with R27?

The above stories all track to me, especially the one about trying to raise Sean (or having the staff raise Sean) like a Victorian child. Agnes was a lot of things, but "nurturing" does not strike me as being a forte of hers. Some people are and some people aren't; her scissor sister Debbie definitely was, insofar as we know. And then some people choose to be more nurturing with animals, like Betty White.

Can someone clear up the lesbian rumors with the conservative Christian Republicans please?

I don't get it.

Elizabeth Montgomery hated her father and detested her first husband then turned on Asher Brawner.

She was a clusterfuck.

The point you all are missing is a human being is missing and no one cared, not even the famous "mother" responsible.

What happened to him? I say Agnes had something to do with it.

This counters a number of things posted here.

The End of the Sean Moorehead Saga

Just when you think that you are done with twists and turns and loop the loops you crash headlong into new information. So here goes.

The Tip of the Iceberg

A while back I mentioned in an update that I had found Sean Moorehead. I did but I made one small mistake. I assumed that he was still alive. Newsflash, he is no longer living. The man the world knows as Sean Moorehead died at the age of 48 in 1996. He did come from an extremely large family and they were not incredibly well off but there were never 6 or 7 siblings as Agnes said. As far as I can tell, there were two who were fostered out... Sean and a younger sister. I have found no evidence that Sean was frail, ill and hospitalized at the time he was fostered. His family did have relatives in California though and that may be how this all came to pass. His father was a construction worker and the family often moved with him as he went from job to job. In 1963 Sean ran away from Agnes' home for 3 weeks. Everybody assumed he ran to San Francisco but what if he ran to his birth home. The family was living in the upper midwest at the time.

A Ticket To Die For

One of the things that often gets mentioned in biographies about Agnes is that in 1967 she had a massive blow out with Sean. Sean had a dismantled gun in a drawer in his room. Agnes found it and immediately demanded Sean leave her home. He obliged and that would be the end of that. Once Sean had departed Agnes learned that he had a warrant out for his arrest for failure to appear in traffic court and failure to have a driver's license. I found an article that correlates to this identifying him by his birth name because it happened where his family lived. He ran a red light then backed up through the red light and had no driver's license. He was charged with careless driving and assessed a fine of $166.00 in October of 1966. That's a steep fine for the time. Perhaps Sean went back to Beverly Hills to escape what had happened.

Enlistment

One of the things Sean wanted to do before graduating from high school was to enlist in the military. In 1968 he did just that under his birth name. He served in the Army for two years. His enlistment actually proves his lungs were fine despite what we were led to believe or he would not have made the medical cut. He also did not wear glasses and his eyes appeared to be just fine.

Tying Up Loose Ends

Sean died at the age of 48 of a cardiopulmonary arrest, pericarditis, and renal disease. He was a 2 pack a day smoker as well as a truck driver. He did reunite with his family. His heritage was Scottish and French Canadian. He married twice and I am unaware of any children. I have opted not to release his birth name because the majority of his siblings are still very much alive and it would be incredibly unfair to do so. His name wasn't Sean or Eric but he did travel under the name Sean Moorehead when he went abroad. However, he was never legally adopted nor does it appear he ever legally change his name so this was long before you had to ante up mega identification in order to obtain a passport to board a plane. Since he enlisted on July 24, 1968, we now know he remained in Europe until 1968.

Sean was troubled and when compared to his siblings he definitely lived a colorful life. In the end, it's enough for me to know he's no longer with us and to hope that by the time he left this planet he found peace.