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  TWITCH

  UPON A

  STAR

  The Bewitched

  Life and Career of

  ELIZABETH

  MONTGOMERY

  TWITCH

  UPON A

  STAR

  HERBIE J PILATO

  TAYLOR TRADE PUBLISHING

  LANHAM • NEW YORK • BOULDER • LONDON

  Published by Taylor Trade Publishing

  An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.

  4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706

  www.rowman.com

  16 Carlisle Street, London W1D 3BT, United Kingdom

  Distributed by National Book Network

  Copyright © 2012 by Herbie J Pilato

  First paperback edition 2014

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

  The hardback edition of this book was previously cataloged by the Library of Congress as follows:

  Pilato, Herbie J.

  Twitch upon a star : the bewitched life and career of Elizabeth Montgomery / Herbie J Pilato.

  p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  1. Montgomery, Elizabeth, 1933-1995. 2. Actresses—United States—Biography.

  I. Title.

  PN2287.M69335P55 2012

  791.4302’8092—dc23

  [B]

  2012017147

  ISBN 978-1-58979-749-9 (hardback)

  ISBN 978-1-63076-025-0 (pbk : alk. paper)

  ISBN 978-1-58979-750-5 (electronic)

  The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

  Printed in the United States of America

  For the highest good of all those concerned …

  Also by Herbie J Pilato:

  Glamour, Gidgets, and the Girl Next Door:

  Television’s Iconic Women from the 50s, 60s, and 70s

  The Essential Elizabeth Montgomery:

  A Guide to Her Magical Performances

  Retro Active Television:

  An In-Depth History of Classic TV’s Social Circuitry

  The Bewitched Book

  Bewitched Forever

  The Kung Fu Book of Caine

  The Kung Fu Book of Wisdom

  The Bionic Book

  Life Story: The Book of Life Goes On

  NBC and Me: My Life as a Page in a Book

  “Win, lose, or draw, I’m going to keep on being Elizabeth Montgomery.”

  —Elizabeth Montgomery, 1965

  “Lizzie didn’t want to walk around for the rest of her life being Samantha.”

  —Ronny Cox, friend and co-star of Elizabeth Montgomery’s

  “I ain’t never met another woman I wanted to be like.”

  —Belle Starr, as played by Elizabeth Montgomery in the 1980 TV-movie of the same name

  CONTENTS

  Preface

  Introduction

  PART I Prewitched

  1 Once Upon a Time

  2 Grim

  3 Elizabeth Montgomery Presents

  4 Brush with Fame

  5 The Equestrians

  6 Training Days

  7 The Europeans

  8 Spirits and Demons

  9 Two Plus Hundreds

  PART II Bewitched

  10 Lizmet

  11 Remember the Mane

  12 Double Double …

  13 … Toil and Trouble

  14 Public Broadcasting

  PART III Disenchanted

  15 To Twitch Or Not To Twitch

  16 Temperatures Rising

  17 Post Serial

  18 Awakenings

  PART IV Reconciled

  19 Spirits and Angels

  20 Humanities

  21 Political Science

  22 Final Exams

  23 Graduation

  Afterword

  Appendix

  Sources

  Bibliography

  Acknowledgments

  Suggested Reading

  About the Author

  PREFACE

  In 1979, Elizabeth Montgomery appeared in the NBC TV-movie Jennifer: A Woman’s Story, in which she played Jennifer Prince, the widow of a wealthy shipbuilding executive. In this backdoor pilot for a new series (that Montgomery chose not to pursue), Jennifer battled the highbrow board members of her late husband’s company that she struggled to control.

  On Bewitched, which originally aired on ABC from 1964 to 1972, Elizabeth portrayed the beloved nose-wriggling house-witch Samantha Stephens. In an episode from 1969, “The Battle of Burning Oak,” Samantha and her feisty mother Endora (Agnes Moorehead) forged one of their rare but sturdy alliances, and set out to discredit the braggart members of a private mortal club. With this and every segment of Bewitched, Elizabeth played Samantha not so much as a witch-with-a-twitch, but as a woman who just so happens to be a witch who just so happens to twitch. How she machinated the magic was secondary to the sorcery itself; the supernatural acts were not nearly as pertinent as the distinguishing and ironic essence of Samantha: her humanity.

  In like manner, Elizabeth eagerly utilized her benevolence with an extraordinary life and career, relinquishing an arrogance that could have easily evolved by way of her prestigious upbringing. As the liberal daughter of film and television legend Robert Montgomery, a staunch Republican, and Broadway actress Elizabeth Allen, an elegant Southern belle, she became disillusioned with the loftiness of Hollywood. She retained an unaffected demeanor on the set of any one of her nearly 500 individual television and film performances, or when approached on the street by some random fan. In either scenario, she relished the simple treasures of life, just as Samantha embraced the “everyday, mortal way.”

  Elizabeth, however, was not immortal in real life. Her light was dimmed too soon. On May 18, 1995, she died a victim of colon cancer—only two months after completing production of Deadline For Murder, her second CBS TV-movie as true-life Miami crime reporter Edna Buchanan (her first, The Corpse Had a Familiar Face, aired in 1994).

  The shining star, the iconic actress, the outspoken political activist, the kind and loving mother to three children (with Bewitched producer/director William Asher: William, Jr., Robert, and Rebecca), and the very private and all-too-human woman was gone. It was devastating news for those within her intimate circle and to the millions of fans who continue to worship her from afar.

  More than fifteen years after her painful demise, countless Facebook pages are adorned with her name; over 800,000 readers of TV Guide once voted her more popular than Barbara Eden, the star of classic TV’s other supernatural blonde-led sitcom, I Dream of Jeannie (a blatant replica of Bewitched that infuriated Elizabeth); and her TV-movies remain classics.

  In 1974, she received an Emmy nomination for A Case of Rape, which originally aired on NBC (a decade before the network aired the similarly themed film, The Burning Bed starring Farrah Fawcett). Case became the first issue-oriented TV-movie of its time, helped to change human rights and legislation for rape victims, and registered itself as one of the highest rated TV-movies in history.

  In 1975, Elizabeth received another Emmy nomination for ABC’s The Legend of Lizzie Borden (a namesake and alleged distant sixth cousin that she took a particular delight in portraying), which will soon be remade for the big screen.

  Her feature films remain rev
ered as well: 1955’s The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell; 1963’s Who’s Been Sleeping in My Bed? (in which she co-starred with Dean Martin and good friend Carol Burnett); and Johnny Cool, also released in 1963, directed by William Asher (who died in Palm Desert, California, on July 16, 2012, at age 90, due to complications from Alzheimer’s disease), whom she met and fell in love with on the set.

  Approximately one year later, on September 17, 1964, Bewitched debuted and was party to the escapist entertainment that America sorely needed amidst the upheaval of the era. Elizabeth, like her contemporary, actress Jane Fonda (to whom she was frequently compared in appearance and talent), protested the country’s involvement with Vietnam. Her father was none-too-pleased with his daughter’s political views. Such opposition was an earmark for their entire relationship until the day he died, in 1981, succumbing to cancer, like Elizabeth.

  A few years later, she delivered the chilling narration for two controversial feature film documentaries: Cover Up (1988), which detailed the murky circumstances surrounding the Iran-Contra affair, and The Panama Deception (1992), about the American invasion of Panama (which won the Oscar that year for Best Feature-Length Documentary). Into this mix she, along with Elizabeth Taylor, another legendary actress and good friend, became one of the first courageous few to lend support in the mid-1980s to those suffering from AIDS, then a widespread and misunderstood disease affecting mostly homosexual men.

  Subsequently, among her multitude of enthusiasts are those within the gay community. Her appeal and notoriety with this portion of the population is unparalleled thanks in part to her humanitarian efforts for research into AIDS (no longer just a “gay disease”). In 1992, she sealed that acclaim when she served as Co-Grand Marshall for the Los Angeles Gay Pride Parade with former Bewitched star Dick Sargent (who had recently exited the closet).

  Through it all, the central message of Bewitched, as she suggested, believed, and trumpeted, was prejudice. Samantha was a sorceress isolated in a mortal world, a witch out of water, a repressed housewife instructed by an overbearing human husband (Darrin, played by Dick York, later replaced by Sargent) to never reveal her true identity.

  Despite what critics perceived as confinement, Samantha was a free spirit, an independent soul. It was her choice to live the mortal life, and Elizabeth sought to convey the significance of that directive. Liberated women embraced her contributions with Bewitched and beyond, and Samantha became the first independent and powerful woman of the television age. She reflected the progress womanhood had made in the eyes of the public at large. This on the heels of Betty Friedan’s blockbuster book, The Feminine Mystique which, when released in 1963 (one year before Bewitched debuted), documented more than any other single factor the launch of women’s lib.

  Like many raised in the glare of Hollywood, Elizabeth lived a life that was sprinkled with stardust and littered with trauma. She had loving but disparate relationships, including a core-shaping and life-shifting association with her father, who objected to her liberal views and her initial decision to become an actress.

  She loved life and life loved her back, although not always as evenly, particularly in the form of marriages to first husband New York blue-blood Fred Cammann, and her second husband, the troubled and alcoholic actor Gig Young. Her third and fourth husbands, William Asher and actor Robert Foxworth (best known as Chase Gioberti on CBS-TV’s Falcon Crest), were equal lights in her life, but like all true love affairs, even these relationships proved uneven.

  Eight years after her divorce from Asher, she appeared in the 1982 TV mini-series The Rules of Marriage, which co-starred Elliot Gould. They played Joan and Michael Hagen, a successful suburban couple who found new partners after separating on their fifteenth wedding anniversary. Like much of Elizabeth’s work, Rules broke the rules, when its characters “broke the fourth wall” and periodically talked to the camera, documentary style, as on contemporary shows The Office and Modern Family. But The Rules of Marriage was not a comedy, and no one was laughing on stage or off.

  Joan Hagen was a seemingly happy affluent wife, and so was Elizabeth when wedded to Asher during the original reign of Bewitched. Marriage showcased the disintegration of a seemingly perfect marriage, as both husband and wife became involved in a series of affairs. Asher strayed from Elizabeth throughout their marriage and into the final years of Bewitched, which ultimately led to her two-year affair with Bewitched producer/director Richard Michaels and to their subsequent divorce and business dissolve. Bewitched was cancelled in 1972 and the Asher marriage ended in 1974, around the time she met and fell in love with Foxworth on the set of her TV-movie Mrs. Sundance. She didn’t leave Asher for Foxworth; she fell in love with Foxworth after her marriage ended.

  Foxworth was to have played Michael Hagen in The Rules of Marriage, but when cast as Chase on Crest he was replaced by Gould (formerly married to Barbra Streisand, another high-powered, strong-willed independent female force in the entertainment industry).

  Elizabeth now sought work diametrically opposed to Bewitched, but periodically opted to play characters that represented her role in real life. She gave 100% to each character she portrayed, but savored parts that were leaps and bounds from Samantha. Unsuppressed ambitions may have taxed at least her first marriage (to Fred Cammann), but beyond that her career took a backseat to family. There was no stopping her always forthright but elegant manner; while the parallels between her and twitch-witch Samantha—her most famous role (for which she was Emmy-nominated five times)—were undeniable:

  Elizabeth was born to two actors not of the ordinary (screen idol Robert Montgomery and Broadway thespian Elizabeth Allen). Samantha was born to two extraordinary beings (Endora and Maurice, played by acting legends Agnes Moorehead and Maurice Evans).

  Elizabeth was raised in privilege with mansions, movie stars (like Bette Davis and James Cagney) as good friends, the best schools to attend (including Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles and the Spence School for Girls in New York), and traveled the world. Samantha was raised in opulence, had the best teachers the witch world had to offer, and enjoyed otherworldly travels.

  Elizabeth shunned the arrogance of her elitist background and retained an approachable demeanor. Samantha rejected the arrogance of her supernatural heritage and remained down-to-earth.

  Elizabeth’s first upper crust New York husband (Cammann) was thrown out of the social register because he married an actress, a profession frowned upon by his aristocratic family. Samantha’s clan believed her mortal husband Darrin disgraced their aristocratic family heritage, and just as Cammann wanted Elizabeth to give up her craft of acting, Darrin wanted Samantha to give up witchcraft.

  Elizabeth made frequent attempts to stop acting but failed. Her talent was her destiny. Despite Samantha’s earnest attempts to embrace the mortal life, she never quite stopped using her powers to assist Darrin and friends. Her magic was her birthright.

  Elizabeth deeply loved each of her four husbands. Samantha deeply loved her two Darrins.

  Elizabeth embraced her theatrical gifts and challenging marriages. Samantha embraced her special powers and mixed marriage.

  Elizabeth raised her family in the traditional manner. Samantha raised her children in again—the “everyday mortal way.”

  Elizabeth played childhood games with her look-alike cousin Amanda Panda Cushman. Samantha’s adult life was challenged by her fun-loving look-alike cousin Serena (played by Elizabeth, but billed as Pandora Spocks).

  Elizabeth became a beloved celebrity worldwide and Queen of the TV-movies. Samantha was elected Queen of the Witches.

  Elizabeth was a political activist who defended her rights and the rights of others, from Vietnam to the Reagan era and beyond. Samantha fought city hall in the mortal world, defended her rights to the Witches Council, and decried arrogance in both realms.

  Elizabeth represented the grassroots movement of the day: women’s liberation. Samantha defended her personal witch’s honor.

  Elizabeth
cherished her family and home life beyond Hollywood, and ultimately accepted her immortal legacy as Samantha. Samantha treasured her family and human life, and ultimately accepted her mortal existence.

  This book is about Elizabeth’s mortal existence. From the day she was born, she had a nervous facial tic that was destined to inspire Samantha’s magical mugging twitch. It was a mere spec in a vast list of traits and characteristics, characters, and performances that appealed to a mass group of people; that’s also what this book is about … and everything else in between.

  INTRODUCTION

  Elizabeth Montgomery welcomed me into her hushed world.

  I was enamored with the rise, demise, and rebirth of Bewitched, and she was intrigued. She marveled in my appreciation of not only her most famous show, but her varied accomplishments, talents, and charitable ways. Initially reticent then unrestrained she, for the first time in twenty years, offered in-depth conversations about her life and career. She explained during the first of what would become four interviews in the spring and summer of 1989:

  It’s a strange thing … I loathe to chat away about me. I’ve never liked it. I always hate interviews. I just want to act, and do the best job I can. Hopefully people will appreciate it. That’s what my job is. It isn’t sitting down and talking about me. If I were a gardener (which she fancied herself as around her home in Beverly Hills), I would be out there trying to make gardens as pretty as I could, and not expect people to come up to me and ask a lot of questions. What it boils down to is this: It’s always easier for me to talk about other things than it is to talk about me.

  She described our conversations as “cathartic.” She spoke about her famous father, film and TV idol Robert Montgomery; her childhood; years of education; early motion pictures, stage, and television appearances. She addressed what it means to be an actress; her friendships with President John F. Kennedy (assassinated on November 22, 1963—the day rehearsals began for Bewitched), Carol Burnett, and her Bewitched co-stars, including Agnes Moorehead and Paul Lynde; her TV-movies and feature films and, of course, Bewitched itself. She discussed all she did and didn’t understand about herself and her massive following; all she gave, all she became, all she hoped to be, all she was: a wife, a mother, a friend, a TV legend, a pop-culture icon, a courageously bold endorser of human rights.