Twitch Upon a Star

by Herbie J. Pilato

  “Oh, no—she’s not!” Lizzie protested, hoping to convince herself of what she knew in her heart was simply not true. She also found it especially hard to dissuade Mitchell, because during their conversation, Emma remained right by her side, panting, with an eager joyful gleam in her eyes.

  Lizzie melted. “Oh, shit!” she thought. “I don’t believe this!”

  Although she still needed time to decide, Mitchell would not take no for answer, and pressed her further. “You know you want that dog!”

  In the end, Elizabeth finally consented to keep Emma, but unfortunately this story does not have a happy ending. The dog later developed tumors and died.

  “It was just the most heartbreaking thing,” Lizzie said. “I was just a wreck. It took forever for me to get over losing her.”

  Long after Emma was gone, the pang of her loss certainly haunted Lizzie with each viewing of Second Sight, once even while working on another of her movies, Face to Face, which aired on CBS in 1990, but which she filmed with Bob Foxworth in Africa in 1989. For some reason, Sight was being screened on the closed circuit monitors on the Face set. For those who have not seen the film, be warned, here is a spoiler alert:

  At the end of Sight, Elizabeth’s character, Alaxandra, no longer requires Emma’s assistance and the two are forced to part ways. Consequently, Alaxandra’s heartbreak became Lizzie’s heartbreak in reality, and she was reminded of it every time Sight was seen, particularly on the set of Face to Face. It didn’t much help matters that Alaxandra cried in those last aired moments in the movie.

  When reminded of that scene in 1989, Lizzie explained how that moment between Alaxandra and Emma became intolerable for her to watch and experience, even in rehearsals:

  I don’t like to cry. In fact, I hate it. I mean, I really hate it. So for me, having to cry when I’m working in a scene, well … I really have to do a number on myself. It’s just not a pleasant thing to go through. It’s a lot of hard work for me to get to that point. Yet, when an actor performs in certain scenes, you have to do it, and it’s yucky. After going over it the first time, I turned around to say something to the director, and noticed that half the crew had disappeared. They each went off to their own little corners and cried, including the cinematographer, Frances Hayes, my wardrobe assistant, and Adele Taylor, the hairdresser. No one stuck around. They were all sobbing and they just left. They couldn’t handle it.

  It was the kind of emotional effect Lizzie’s performances would have on fans and friends alike. Her talent and persuasive personality was evident from a very early age. According to what her former schoolmate Billie Banks revealed on MSNBC’s Headliners & Legends, even as a child Elizabeth commanded a star-like charisma and respect, and that she at times would wriggle her nose for “good luck” during school exams.

  Another childhood friend, Deborah Jowitt, appeared on Legends and said Lizzie had a “mischievous … happy-go-lucky nature” and was known for her humorous comments and “funny faces.”

  Sally Kemp today recalls the particular facial expression—an animal imitation—that would later prove quite fortuitous. “We called it her ‘bunny nose,’” she explains in reference to Elizabeth’s inevitably famous proboscis wriggle. “And we all tried to do it, but nobody could.”

  By we, Sally means herself and cousin Panda, who were both Elizabeth’s inseparable sidekicks in their youth. A good portion of that friendship was spent riding horses and roaming the endless acres of the Montgomery homestead in Towners, New York—a sprawling landscape located within Patterson, New York, and near Brewster, a place Sally remembers as a “Kennedy-like compound.”

  At the turn of the twentieth century, Towners was one of Patterson’s major population centers, particularly while it was a junction of the New York Central’s Harlem Division and the New Haven’s Maybrook Line. The commercial vicinity included a blacksmith shop, a meat market, hotel, grocery store, and hardware store. There were rumors of a reservoir project and cessation of passenger rail stops that contributed to the decline of the community as a vital commercial spot.

  In short, and at least geographically speaking, Towners was to Patterson what Beverly Hills is to Los Angeles County. Elizabeth talked about the area to Modern Screen in May 1965.

  Every summer she and her entire family, including her various aunts, uncles, and cousins, would travel back East to stay. There were three lakes in the area and, as she said, “We swam like crazy.” With rowboats and horses, “It really was the most wonderful life a child could have. We had such freedom, and such good discipline. We were taught never to go off on our own. We were taught to have respect for horses and guns (her family enjoyed shot-putting and hunting, the latter of which she later deplored). The older kids looked after the smaller kids and it was just a great big happy sort of world with no such thing as competition or any feeling of being left out. My whole life we went there, every summer. I loved the place so.”

  The “left out” line was an omen of sorts. At the time of that interview, Lizzie had received her first Emmy nomination for her 1960 performance in The Untouchables, and would later garner a total of eight more nominations, collectively, for Bewitched, A Case of Rape, The Legend of Lizzie Borden, and The Awakening Land. But she never won.

  Also, too, as will later be delineated, she loved to play games, whether it was with friends at home or behind the scenes, or on camera for game shows like Password or The Hollywood Squares. And although she later claimed indifference to her lack of Emmy victories, it was clear that, in some venues, she retained a competitive spirit throughout her life, sometimes less productively than others.

  By the time Lizzie and Sally Kemp were playing with horses in Patterson, New York, Robert Montgomery and Elizabeth Allen had divorced, and he was living with his second wife, Buffy, in what Sally describes as “a beautiful home,” which was located near an equally attractive home owned by Lizzie’s Aunt Martha-Bryan, sister to Elizabeth Allen, and mother to Panda.

  A little more background on Martha-Bryan Allen proves bewitching:

  She was born on April 30, 1903. In 1925, she met her future husband Arthur Cushman. The couple had two children: Arthur, Jr., born in 1927, and Amanda, born in 1932.

  Rebecca raised her two daughters, Elizabeth Allen and Martha-Bryan, with the help of her brother William, as father John Allen was not a consistent presence in their lives.

  In the meantime, the affluent Cushman family also lived in Patterson, close to the Montgomery brood in Duchess County, where their ancestors had dwelled over several generations. Arthur Cushman owned a large farmhouse in which their daughter, Elizabeth’s cousin Panda, resides to this day. The Cushmans were so affluent, they lived on Cushman Road, which was named for Lizzie’s Uncle Arthur—a moniker that she would later bestow upon the beloved Bewitched character played by Paul Lynde.

  In fact, the crossroads between Patterson and Bewitched were manifold. Lizzie exhibited a special love for the area that was later reflected in the characters and places mentioned on the show. But most probably only viewers from the Patterson area would understand the various references to Towners and Patterson that would appear in the show’s scripts. For a 1968 interview with the New York TV Time magazine, Lizzie revealed, “Our life in Patterson was a paradise for us. That’s why I placed Darrin and Samantha in the town. If I can’t be there year-round, than at least Samantha can.”

  In the intervening time, Samantha and Darrin’s last name of Stephens may have served as a nod to the members of the Stephens family who have represented Patterson in the New York State Assembly for several decades. The TV couple’s daughter, Tabitha, attended the Towners Elementary School. Flowers within the premise of the series were delivered by Patterson Florist and Mrs. Phyllis Stephens (Darrin’s mother played by Mabel Albertson, sister to Jack Chico and the Man Albertson) shopped at the Patterson Department Store.

  Further still, real-life Towners/Patterson street names were often utilized on Bewitched. In the Bewitched episode “Sam in the M
oon,” Samantha’s pharmacist was named Max Grand (played by Joseph Mell), after a long time Patterson resident.

  The Grands and the Montgomerys were close friends and neighbors. The Montgomery home was the second house on the left on Cushman Road off NYS Route 311. The Grands lived on the first house on the right on NYS Route 164, off Route 311. For many years, the only house in between was the Ludkin residence, which was at the start of Cushman Road at Route 311. The Ludkins operated a turkey farm and factory for many years, while most of the property in the area was owned by members of the Montgomery and Cushman families.

  As the years passed, and as both of her daughters grew into adulthood, Lizzie’s grandmother Becca would later divide her time every year between the homes of Elizabeth Allen and Martha-Bryan, and her own abode three thousand miles away in Malibu, California.

  Six

  Training Days

  “School bored me and I always knew I wanted to be an actress.”

  —Elizabeth in TV Guide, August 19, 1961

  In the core of her Bewitched years, Lizzie shared a home in Malibu with her husband Bill Asher and their three children. Years before that business and family foundation was developed and secured, she paved the groundwork for her career. After graduating from finishing school, otherwise known as high school, she attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York.

  According to the October 1953 edition of People and Pictures magazine, Robert Montgomery had instructed Lizzie to attend the Academy, and to play summer stock in preparation for a professional career:

  Last summer she was an apprentice in summer stock. She graduates from the academy this summer. This doesn’t make her a finished actress, of course, but it does give her preparation. Actually, there’s no school that can imbue anyone with talent, but a school can give technique and knowledge of the job to be done. My advice to all young people [who are interested in acting] is not to quit school. Finish college if possible and major in dramatics.

  Either way, Lizzie attended the Academy, where she befriended Sally Kemp. Like Lizzie, Sally did not attend college, but was a good student. So her mother gave her a choice. She could rise to her debutante ovation, receive an education in Paris, attend Sarah Lawrence College in the States, or enroll at any other upper-crust educational facility that would accept her. She also had the option of attending the Academy in New York. “And as soon as that became a possibility,” Kemp says, “that’s where I was going.”

  As fate would have it, Sally had already bonded with Panda Cushman, Lizzie’s first cousin by way of her Aunt Martha-Bryan. The two had been acquainted in boarding school, and to this day, Sally says Panda remains one of her “closest friends.”

  But years before today, near the end of their shared educational tenure, there was Sally’s enrollment at the Academy, and Panda was delighted. Lizzie would attend the same school, and Panda encouraged Sally to make the new connection. Shortly thereafter, Sally says she and Elizabeth became instant friends, and sat next to each other in every class.

  Once in the fold, certain traditional and universal school laws did not escape the halls of the strict Academy. “We weren’t allowed to chew gum or anything like that,” Sally recalls. However, such classic constraints did not prevent her new best friend from playfully breaking the rules. Ever of the avant-garde mindset, Lizzie soon discovered what Sally recalls as “little violet candy, which you can still buy today. They’re similar to little lifesavers, but they smelled like perfume.”

  While in class at the Academy, the then teen girls would keep that smelly candy moist in their mouths, and not in their hands. “We figured nobody would know it was candy,” Sally intones.

  At the time, the Academy was still located at Carnegie Hall. Classes were held in different studios, and large portraits of great actors and opera singers, who were either alumni or present teachers, donned the walls of each studio, which they rented to teach classes.

  “Elizabeth was always a bit more rebellious,” Sally admits. When it came to rambunctious scheming to while away the hours, Lizzie would take the lead. “This is what we have to do,” she’d tell Sally, and they would commence one exciting endeavor after another.

  One especially adventurous day, Lizzie had a particular plan in mind. “As soon as we break for lunch,” she told Sally, “I have found a way to get into the balcony of Carnegie Hall through a special door.”

  Sure enough, when the clock struck twelve, the two brave young souls journeyed through that secret passageway and, once on the other side, they came across none other than the one and only musical maestro, Arturo Toscanini, rehearsing with his famous orchestra.

  In time, the two young women would sit mesmerized before the music master on a near-daily basis. “And of course, we would also be late for class,” muses Sally, the daughter of the famous bandleader Hal Kemp who, in 1940, was voted along with Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey as one of the top three dance bands in America (although, tragically, Hal was killed that year by a drunk driver on his way to play an engagement at the Coconut Grove).

  So, whenever the opportunity arose, the daring duo of Lizzie and Sally would sneak away through that secret door to that hall of Toscanini, whom Sally says they perceived as “a very little man.”

  One afternoon, however, a sour note was heard in the massive musical camp of the tiny Toscanini who became displeased with an orchestra member’s performance. As Lizzie and Sally stared from the dark trenches, Toscanini halted his ensemble, pointed to the unfortunate musician in question, shouted in Italian something they assumed was quite derogatory, took his baton, broke it in two, tossed it across the room, and marched off the stage. As Sally remembers it, the mischievous Lizzie then whispered to her asking, “Ok, what’s gonna happen now?”

  Finally, one of the violinists in the orchestra deadpanned, “I think we’re breaking for lunch.”

  “It was all such fun to watch,” Sally chortles. “And Elizabeth and I would do things like that all the time.”

  A kinder, gentler Thelma and Louise of their day, the dynamic twosome of Lizzie and Sally would later become a daring trio, when they befriended yet another young classmate at the Academy named Jarmila Daubek. Jarmila was the daughter of Czech baron George Daubek and Jarmila Novotna, the celebrated Czech soprano and actress who, from 1945 to 1956, was a star of the Metropolitan Opera. According to Sally, both Jarmilas were extremely attractive, but the younger Jarmila, the close chum to both girls, “was even more beautiful.”

  “She arrived at the Academy a few days after Elizabeth and I did,” Sally explains. “But as soon as we caught sight of her, well, we both shrank. She was taller than we were. She had stunning chestnut hair, and the most beautiful skin we had ever seen, along with these huge brown eyes. She was just exquisite.”

  “We have to make friends with her,” Sally remembers Lizzie saying.

  When Sally wondered why, Lizzie mused, “Because she’s prettier than we are, and we have to keep her on our side.”

  But according to Sally, Jarmila had a gentle disposition, and was embarrassed when people found out that she was a baroness.

  Just as when a shy Lizzie during these Academy days never touted herself as the daughter of a famous movie star, or as when years later on the Bewitched set, she remained accessible to the cast and production team. As the show’s star, she could have easily adopted a condescending approach, but instead took the high road, discouraging brass and presumption. She may have lacked confidence at times, but she was replete with courage and conviction. She was equally cool and self-reliant. She embraced every opportunity to shock with subtlety those who may have felt even the slightest intimidation by her heritage or very presence.

  Case in point: a certain fellow classmate at the Academy named Florence Henderson who would also later become a classic TV icon by way of an ABC sitcom. Henderson played mom Carol Brady on The Brady Bunch, which debuted in the Fall of 1969, Bewitched’s sixth season (the year Dick Sargent replaced Dick York as Darrin). />
  When I first met Elizabeth at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, I thought she was so beautiful and elegant. But she was also always sweet and friendly. And Sally Kemp was also so nice and friendly with a great smile. I thought they were the best dressed and most sophisticated girls in the school.

  “She had a beautiful singing voice,” Sally says of the multitalented and ever-youthful Henderson who, when Lizzie and Sally knew her, was set to audition for the 1952 Broadway musical, Wish You Were Here, which was an adaptation of Having Wonderful Time (both of which were directed by Josh Logan). “But the show’s producers needed to see how she would look in a bathing suit.”

  So, their fellow classmate Candi Parsons lent Florence swimwear from her wardrobe. Now outfitted with the perfect look, the future Mrs. Brady went on to win the part. Billed as “the new girl” in Wish You Were Here (which also featured Jack Cassidy, Tom Tryon, Phyllis Newman, Reid Shelton, and Frank Aletter, Lizzie’s co-star from Mr. Lucifer), Florence enjoyed a healthy run of 598 performances in the show.

  Years after they graduated from the Academy Florence, as opposed to Lizzie, seemed more at peace with the sitcom character that brought her fame. While Florence would continue the role of Carol Brady in countless Bunch sequels, Lizzie literally began to fight her way out of her most recognizable TV persona with very non-Samantha roles, post-Bewitched, in TV-movies like A Case of Rape, (NBC, 1974), A Killing Affair (CBS, 1977; with O. J. Simpson), or Act of Violence (CBS, 1979). She’d come to terms with playing Samantha only decades after she first played the role. “But she was a terrific actress and a fascinating person,” Henderson intones.

  The Brady TV parent also thought the Bewitched star must have been “a wonderful mom” in real life, which she decided after meeting Rebecca Asher, Lizzie’s daughter. Though Florence never appeared on Bewitched, she did a guest spot on another high-concept ABC comedy titled Samantha Who? on which Rebecca was hired as script supervisor. “She was lovely, and we had some wonderful talks,” she concludes.