In both episodes, Samantha lets Sheila “have it.” She twitches to her heart’s content, at one point twirling Sheila into a frenzy of wardrobe malfunctions, leaving her emotions frazzled and her clothes unraveled, while Darrin stands by in amusement and somewhat guarded approval.
But Lizzie’s wardrobe approval rating with her father wasn’t as flexible as Sam’s nose wriggle. So she’d keep things simple. He liked her in suits and thought blue jeans were acceptable only in the summer, as long as they were clean. She wore little makeup, liked pearl chokers, face veils, and poodle haircuts. Her father also insisted that she watch her posture. “I get a slap on the back if I don’t stand up straight,” she told TV People and Pictures.
Unphased, Lizzie would merely get annoyed when in her youth her schoolmates and her dad called her “Betta,” just as when Bette Davis called her “Betty.” More than anything, her ambition, at least at this acting stage of the game, was her true calling—to become as accomplished and respected a performer as either Davis or her father, despite her wardrobe or lack thereof.
Bill Asher directed her third feature film, Paramount’s 1963 release Johnny Cool, the year before they combined their powers to be on Bewitched. As author Ronald L. Smith observed in his book, Sweethearts of ’60s TV (S.P.I. Books, 1993), the studio had been grooming Lizzie as a “sultry, super bewitching sex symbol, five foot eight in heels.” The New York Times deplored the “flaccid direction of William Asher,” but not the scenes featuring Lizzie, especially when she does her soul searching wearing nothing but a lap robe. “Miss Montgomery, without the benefit of wardrobe, attracts more attention then the entire uncomfortable cast,” all of whom remained clothed.
Four
Brush with Fame
“My art belongs to Daddy.”
—Elizabeth, to Screen Stars magazine, August 1967
Both of Lizzie’s parents were very talented and artistic individuals. They were also wise in other ways of the world, and she trusted them for counsel in all areas, specifically when it came to her choosing a vocation.
According to TV Radio Mirror, April 1970, her mother once told her not to be “foolhardy” or “back away from obstacles … enjoy everything you do to the fullest or don’t do it. There’s nothing worse for the people around you than if you’re doing something which makes you miserable.”
And in Lizzie’s jubilant and advantaged youth, acting made her the happiest, although it was merely first on her list of four main potential career choices. The remaining three were: a jockey, a criminal lawyer, or an artist for Walt Disney. Of the last, she mused in 1989, “For some reason he never asked me. Can you imagine? The poor thing … certainly ruined his career.”
As Modern Screen magazine pointed out in May 1965, the walls of Lizzie’s dressing room were lined with some quick sketches of a child named Anna-belle about whom Elizabeth was writing a book. Annabelle had pigtails with polka dot bows but she also had ragamuffin eyes, “round, listening eyes, full of warmth and love like Elizabeth’s.”
Today, her friend Sally Kemp says Elizabeth was very serious about her artistic endeavor:
She always wanted to draw for Disney. She drew all the time. We would get in trouble in class at the Academy because she was always drawing little creatures and caricatures, and she’d sometimes get caught. I knew she was talented, but I didn’t know how seriously she thought about it. We never talked about it. That was just one of the things that Elizabeth did … was draw charming pictures. I pretended to be a ballerina. And Elizabeth would draw pictures.
Soon, Elizabeth would be starring in moving pictures, including Bewitched, the opening animated credit sequence of which featured the cartooned caricatures of her first with Dick York and then later with Dick Sargent. But she wasn’t impressed. As she explained in 1989:
I didn’t like those things. They were real stick-figury. They didn’t look right to me. It was a cute idea. If that had been a basic storyboard, I would have said, “Great! Now, where can we go from here to make it a little more snappier and sophisticated” because I thought (the way it was) was too simple.
She said the Bewitched animation didn’t have to be as elaborate as in the 1988 animated feature film Who Framed Roger Rabbit but, in another nod to Walt Disney, she smiled and suggested, “I’m talking Bambi, maybe.” Meanwhile, her own artwork looked right to Bewitched director R. Robert Rosenbaum, who was later crowned Head of Production for Lorimar Television (which produced shows like Falcon Crest, starring Lizzie’s future husband, Robert Foxworth). But while still guiding Samantha’s live-action adventures, Rosenbaum praised not only Lizzie’s on-screen abilities but her off-screen artistic talents. “One gift I’ll always treasure,” he said in 1988, “is the painting of a man in a director’s chair that Elizabeth created for me.”
As was detailed in TV Guide, May 13, 1967, Lizzie had dabbled in watercolors and in quite effective pen-and-ink sketches. Her art had a fetching quality. “I’d love to do watercolors like Andrew Wyeth,” she said, but added firmly, “I know I never can.” A friend then theorized, “Liz is not sure of herself artistically. She is not willing to put herself on the line until she is damn sure she is the best artist in the whole world.” The friend likened all this to Bewitched. “The show is fun, but no challenge. Liz is too happy being Samantha to try anything truly difficult.”
All of that would later change with her post-Bewitched TV-movies like 1972’s The Victim and 1974’s A Case of Rape, both of which explored the darker themes that Lizzie had experimented with in pre-Samantha TV guest appearances like Kraft’s Theatre ’62 rendition of “The Spiral Staircase” (NBC, October 4, 1961) and the Alcoa Premiere episode, “Mr. Lucifer” (ABC, November 1, 1962).
According to the August 1967 edition of Screen Stars magazine, Lizzie once said, “My art belongs to Daddy.” And although she was an artist of many colors, she wasn’t referring here to her painting and drawing ability, but to her talent as an actress. In her heart, she knew she inherited her theatrical abilities from her father. She appreciated that talent and she ultimately credited him for helping her to hone it, whether that guidance took the form of general advice over the years, for example, by his insistence that she attend the New York American Academy of Dramatic Arts, or actual hands-on experience during early TV performances on Robert Montgomery Presents. Either way, Lizzie received formal dramatic training, although sometimes melodramatic training by way of Presents. As she told Ronald Haver in 1991, that show became an outlet for her dad’s need for “control … the desire to thin-line.” She wasn’t sure how well-liked her father was as a person, but Robert Montgomery Presents was liked by the audience. It became one of television’s pioneering live dramas.
Her initial performances on Presents elicited excited responses from various producers. So much so, she eventually made her Broadway debut as the ingénue in Late Love, which ran from October 13, 1953 through November 7, 1953 at the National Theatre (today known as the Nederlander), and from November 9, 1953 to January 2, 1954, at the Booth Theatre, for a total of 95 performances.
Love also starred Arlene Francis, and Cliff Robertson who, after prolonged failing health, died at age eighty-eight on September 10, 2011 (the day after his birthday and two weeks following his interview for this book).
In his prime, Robertson was a handsome actor with a stellar resume and even more fascinating life, one worth noting if only because it peaked and somewhat mirrored Lizzie’s life.
Born on September 9, 1923, in La Jolla, California, he was two years old when he was adopted by wealthy parents who named him Clifford Parker Robertson III. After his parents divorced and his mother passed away, he was reared by his maternal grandmother, whom he adored. He later gained attention for his second marriage to actress and heiress Dina Merrill, daughter of financier E. F. Hutton and Marjorie Merriweather Post, heiress to the Post Cereal fortune and one of the world’s wealthiest women. (The two would periodically work together, notably in a two-part episode of the ABC/Screen
Gems 1960s camp series, Batman, in which he played a villain named “Shame” to her “Calamity Jan.”)
In 1963, he portrayed John F. Kennedy (who was good friends with Lizzie via Bill Asher) in the feature film PT-109, and would go on to win an Oscar for his lead performance in Charly, the 1968 feature film in which he played a mentally challenged man who undergoes an experiment that temporarily transforms him into a genius. Although never elevated to the top ranks of leading men, Cliff remained popular from the 1950s into the twenty-first century with roles such as the kindly “Uncle Ben” in the first Spider-Man feature film (released in 2001).
Like Elizabeth, he did not shun controversy or tolerate injustice. In 1977, he blew the whistle on a Hollywood financial scandal. He discovered that David Begelman, president of Columbia Pictures, had forged his signature on a $10,000 salary check, and contacted the FBI and the Burbank and Beverly Hills police. Hollywood insiders were none too pleased with the unattractive publicity and Robertson said that neither the studios nor the networks would hire him for four years.
But decades before, in 1953, he worked with Lizzie in Late Love, an experience he recalled in 2011 if only for the appreciation she had for their co-star Arlene Francis:
Arlene was a big TV star at the time, and she had been in the theatre in her earlier days. She brought a humanistic element to the play. She was also a very down-to-earth person, who was bright, quick, and witty. And Elizabeth admired and respected that. Liz was very young and, therefore, not too experienced. But she was quite ambitious and very professional. She had that respect for her craft that she garnered from her father, I’m sure. He was from Brooklyn, but as he got older he went into theatre and then on to Hollywood, where he became quite a successful film star. From there, he went into television.
Cliff’s relationship with Lizzie never waxed romantic, but as he said, they became those “good pals.” Meanwhile, her sophisticated family, particularly on her mother’s side, took a shine to him, partially due to his Southern roots and possibly due to his cosmopolitan upbringing.
“Her family was very nice to me,” Robertson said. “They used to invite me up to their place in New York. She had an elderly aunt, a wonderful lady who lived in Beverly Hills. And I used to see (Becca) for a number of years, and then she passed away.”
But her maternal relatives were not particularly fond of her father or his profession. “I don’t think the Southern tier of her family was completely impressed by Robert Montgomery, or any actor.” As Robertson acknowledged, Lizzie still became enamored with acting, but with provisions.
She was determined not to be thought of as just a social actress, and she was also determined to be recognized as a professional. She knew she had to work hard to earn that respect. She was well aware that her father was a fine and respected actor, and a well-known producer. And she knew and respected that difference as well. She in no way ever wanted to be treated special because she was his daughter. She was very democratic that way, and I don’t mean (just) politically.
The “political” relationship between the liberal Lizzie and her Republican father may have at times proved a challenge, but Robertson described the association as “very good,” with reservations:
“I would say Elizabeth was always politically aware, not oriented. And I suspect her marriage to Bill Asher had something to do with that, at least later on. I don’t know that for certain, but I suspect that.” When reminded that it was Asher who directed President Kennedy’s birthday celebration at which Marilyn Monroe sang a breathy “Happy Birthday, Mr. President,” the near-ninety-year-old Robertson exclaimed, “Yes, of course. Because he knew JFK. That fits!”
Equally surprised to learn that Bewitched began rehearsals on November 22, 1963, the day President Kennedy was assassinated, Cliff went on to explain how much Lizzie’s particularly bright appeal contributed to the success of that series during what became a very tumultuous and dark time in American history. “She was most certainly the main ingredient that was brought to that show. What you saw on the screen was pretty much who she was … that was her personality. She was delightfully up. She was smart. But she wasn’t smart-ass.”
In the TV Guide article, “Like Dad, Like Daughter,” published July 24, 1953, Lizzie expressed hopes of one day finding fame by way of her famous father. Although she refused to ride that road on his name only, he sought to simplify her path as much as possible. That summer she became a member of his select acting company and, despite the nepotistic boost, they both insisted that she, then only twenty, would ultimately have to make it on her own.
“I have a standing offer with Liz,” Robert Montgomery said. “Any time she wants to discuss her career with me, I’m available. But the decisions are hers.”
“I grew up with Dad’s acting, which probably raised my hopes of becoming an actress,” she added. “But I think I’d have wanted that even if Dad had never acted.”
She had looked forward to winning a role in Eye Witness, a 1950 film her father was making in England. She asked for a screen test and Robert consented. “The only trouble with that,” she said dolefully, “was that another actress (Ann Stephens) got the part.”
The following year, she finally won her father’s approval for that now famous Montgomery Presents episode, “Top Secret,” the last line of which Robert called “the best one in the script. It was originally to have been mine,” he said. “But Liz wanted it, so I had to give in. What else could I do?” Fall prey to her charms, it would seem; just as her mother did on many an occasion. As Lizzie explained in 1965:
They were both sweet enough to point out some of the difficulties of a show business life, especially for a girl. The difficulty is actually the matter of exposing yourself to a series of rejections. It isn’t like any other business. You’re selling yourself, offering yourself, and if you don’t get a part, it’s you who are being rejected. It’s something you have to learn to live with if you’re really serious about acting.
She was clearly very serious about her theatrical pursuits and her parents, specifically her father, were willing to support the task at hand. He promised her when she was fourteen years old that she could make her professional debut with him, and with the “Secret” episode on Presents, he kept that promise. “He knew me well enough to know that being an actress would never interfere with me,” she said in 1953. “Actually working with him gave me an enormous respect for the business.”
But in July 1954, she told Cosmopolitan writer Joe McCarthy a different story. According to the article, “The Montgomery Girl,” she wasn’t at all happy with working in her father’s summer stock TV theatre:
What will people think? People will say I’m working on this show because I’m Daddy’s daughter. That bothers me. I don’t want anyone to think I’m not standing on my own two feet. Golly, at times like this I wish Daddy were a laundry truck driver or a certified public accountant.
Then for TV Guide, August 7, 1954, she added:
The trouble is that if Daddy were driving a laundry truck, I’d probably be washing shirts in his laundry instead of acting on Summer Theatre.
Meanwhile, her father, interviewed for the Cosmopolitan piece, had a less intense view of the scenario:
I’m sure the only person who is sensitive about our father-daughter relationship is Elizabeth herself. Actually, I’ve gone out of my way not to push her along. Partly because nobody helped me when I was young and I think it’s better that way, and partly because Elizabeth is a strong-willed girl with a mind of her own and she doesn’t need help.
Robert claimed Lizzie didn’t ask him to make even a phone call on her behalf when she was trying to land the ingénue role in Late Love, the live stage production in which she made her Broadway debut in the fall of 1953. “She never discussed the play with me before she took the role,” he relayed to TV Guide, “and she never talked with me about how she should handle her part while she was in rehearsal. As a matter of fact, she didn’t show me the script of Late Love until
a few days before the played opened.”
She may have simply wanted to wing it alone this time. As she told TeleVision Life Magazine the following January, 1954:
You have two strikes against you when you’re a movie star’s child. There are some people who are waiting for you to do something wrong. If a director tells you to do something you really don’t agree with, you’re not in a position to object. The extras would just love it if Montgomery’s daughter argued with the director.
But no one showed her any animosity. “Everybody’s been just so wonderful and kind,” she said. Her father’s company excluded.
According to TV Radio Mirror in January 1965, when a preparatory edition of Late Love was performed in Hartford, Connecticut, a proud if judgmental papa was in the audience. He went backstage after the curtain fell and said, as she hung on his every word, “Well, my girl, naturally, I hope you’ll improve before you get to Broadway.”
To which she dutifully responded, “You’re right, Daddy. I’ll try harder.” And she did. Late Love hit Broadway on October 13, 1953, and before its season (of 95 performances) was up on January 2, 1954, Lizzie had won the coveted Daniel Blum Theatre World Award. A note of congratulation arrived from her dad. It said simply, “Good.”
Upon receiving it, she sighed and said, “That one word from my father was equal to a volume of praise from anyone else.”
Later on Bewitched, an affirmative “Good!”—with an exclamation point—became one of the popular one-word catch phrases that Lizzie incorporated into Samantha’s speech pattern whenever she approved of some random magic or mortal occurrence on Bewitched.
As opposed to when Sam would squeal “Well?!” whenever she was unable to answer one of Darrin’s spastic queries of “What’s going on?!”
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