Twitch Upon a Star

by Herbie J. Pilato

  As to the film itself, it’s the kind of violent project to which Lizzie would later cling, post-Bewitched, with TV-movies like A Case of Rape and Act of Violence, both in which her characters were severely beaten—as was Dare shortly after meeting Johnny.

  In fact, when Cool was released, an item in the press singled Elizabeth out as possibly the “most bruised actress in pictures as a result of her co-starring role opposite Henry Silva in the electric dramatic thriller.”

  The item went on to explain how in one day’s filming Lizzie’s Dare was beaten in a “frighteningly realistic violent scene,” which was followed by another scene in which a car door slammed on her hand upon entering the vehicle (after fleeing a pool bombing). In the next day’s filming, she was then called upon to leap from a pier to a small dinghy in Los Angeles Newport Harbor, and that’s when things really turned ugly. Poor Lizzie failed to clear the pier and fell forward with a shuddering thud. Consequently, she received contusions on her arms and legs, and that last scene was cut from the final print of the film.

  But as the press release stated further, “true to the acting heritage of her family name, Miss Montgomery, famed Bob’s daughter, showed up bright and early for the next day’s filming, and the shooting of Johnny Cool proceeded on schedule.”

  Into this mix, however, Lizzie’s daring portrayal of Guiness continued to fit her choice of roles that somewhat resonated with her reality. For example, upon first meeting Silva’s Cool, Dare offers this telling introduction:

  I’m twenty-seven. I grew up in Scarsdale with all the advantages … braces, dancing school, riding lessons … the whole bit. I’ve been divorced for about a year from a boy who grew up the same way.

  Beyond the inconsistent age reference in 1963 (when the film was released that year, Elizabeth was thirty years old) and the braces (she always prided herself on her uniquely chipped front tooth), it was Lizzie all over, at least until she met, married, and then divorced Fred Cammann.

  The same year Cool was released, Asher directed his first Beach Party movie, which spawned Muscle Beach Party and Bikini Beach, both in 1964, and Beach Blanket Bingo and How to Stuff a Wild Bikini, both in 1965, the latter in which Lizzie made a cameo doing her then newly famed twitch.

  Through it all, there was additional Cool/Rat Pack intermingling involving Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter Lawford, and Frank Sinatra, who was then entertainment counsel to President Kennedy’s Inaugural. Not only did Lizzie meet Bill on the set of Cool, she was introduced to the Pack via Bill’s friend Lawford, who was Kennedy’s brother-in-law. From there, she went with Bill to Washington for JFK’s Inaugural on January 20, 1961. Approximately eighteen months later, on May 19, 1962, Asher produced, directed, and supervised the President’s birthday bash at which Marilyn Monroe performed her sultry ditty “Happy Birthday Mr. President.” Asher recalled in Palm Springs Life, December 1999:

  Lawford was a good guy. Marilyn was a wonderful woman. She really cared about people. She also cared about the work. All she really wanted to do was be the best actress she could be … Jackie Kennedy didn’t like many in the Hollywood crowd but she liked me. Actually she barely tolerated anybody else.

  Suffice it to say, Elizabeth and Bill’s friendship with the Kennedys was solidified at the President’s Inaugural—and nearly three years before the tragic political incident that would send shockwaves around the world—just as a particular magical mayhem would step in to help ease the fray.

  The pilot for Bewitched began rehearsals on November 22, 1963—the fateful day on which President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

  The night before, Elizabeth and Bill Asher were at home, wrestling with what in perspective was a minor frustration, but one that later became a major magic snag: they had yet to conceive of a unique and identifiable gesture with which Samantha could manifest her magic.

  Fortunately, a creative spark provided a proverbial light when, Bill, from the living room, shouted to Lizzie, “That’s it!” Upon hearing her husband scream, she rushed to his side to offer comfort during what sounded like a pressing tragedy. But that was yet to come. For now, upon her arrival at his side, Bill simply asked, “What’s that thing you do with your nose?”

  Clueless as to what he meant, she queried in return, “What thing?!”

  “When you become nervous, you move your nose in a certain way,” Bill prodded.

  “He thought I just didn’t want to do it or something,” she remembered in 1989, and she was still confused, and downright aggravated. “The next time I do this (thing),” she told him, “let me know.”

  At that moment, Lizzie became so flustered she instinctively performed what has today transmuted into one of the world’s most recognizable facial tics. Bill then went on to explain what he had seen, and what she had done and, in those joyful moments, Samantha’s nose twitch was born, igniting the eventual birth of Bewitched—if on the night before a catastrophic incident that would change the world.

  Elizabeth remembered that fateful November day in 1963, which began like any other, if at first unique only because she was preparing to leave for her first Bewitched rehearsal. As the early hours passed, the events of this new atypical day expanded. As she recalled in 1989, she was brushing her hair in the bedroom and heard Bill scream from the living room. But this time, it wasn’t a good thing.

  “No! It can’t be true!” he said.

  “For some reason,” she said in 1989, “I felt it had nothing to do with family. But it’s as if I inherently knew what had happened. The whole thing was very strange, but to keep on working did seem to be the right thing to do.”

  So, that’s exactly what they did. Lizzie and Bill pushed forward, and went on to the set of Bewitched, which filmed at the Sunset Gower Studios in Hollywood. She remembered:

  We went ahead and had the first reading of the script. It was very interesting. There wasn’t one person that didn’t show up. There weren’t any phone calls made. It was like everyone on the set just needed to talk with each other. We needed to be there, working. It was like a little memorial service that hadn’t turned that yet. Everyone was there supporting each other (during) this horrendous thing.

  Essentially, Lizzie, Bill, and the rest of the Bewitched cast and crew did what should always be done in the midst of tragedy: realize that, for the living, life must go on.

  On July 24, 1964, the summer before Bewitched debuted, Elizabeth and Bill welcomed a 7 lb. 6 oz. baby boy they named William Allen Asher, Jr. On October 5, 1965, Elizabeth gave birth to their second child, a 7 lb. 2 oz. boy named Robert Deverell Asher. On June 17, 1969, the Asher’s youngest was born: a beautiful 7 lb. 13 oz. girl they named Rebecca Elizabeth Asher.

  Through it all, on the other side of the screen, Samantha and Darrin’s little Tabatha (later changed to Tabitha with an “i”) was born on January 13, 1966 in the episode “And Then There Were Three.” Tabitha’s brother Adam later materialized on October 16, 1969 in the episode, “And Something Makes Four.”

  In reality, Billy Asher, Jr. arrived during Bewitched’s first season which began production in the summer of 1964—some eight months after Lizzie filmed the show’s pilot in November 1963. For that initial episode, she was showing slightly, and strategic camera angles and wardrobe choices were utilized to conceal her condition.

  In June, July, and August of 1964, she was in a fully expectant/recovery/rest period that forced her to miss most of the shooting schedule for the show’s first full season. She then returned to the set the first week of September 1964, just in time to complete filming of the episode, “Be It Ever So Mortgaged.”

  Elizabeth became pregnant with her second child Robert (named for her father), around New Year’s Day, 1965 (the second part of the first season of Bewitched), and worked through the following summer, taking maternity leave from September 10 to December 10, 1965.

  She became pregnant with her third child Rebecca (named for her maternal grandmother) in mid-October 1968 during production of Bewitched’s fifth season—
and beginning with the non-Darrin episode, “Marriage Witches, Style,” which began filming on January 20, 1969. To allow Lizzie some headway on this her third pregnancy, Bewitched filmed four episodes early in March and April 1969: “Samantha’s Better Halves,” “Samantha’s Yoo-Hoo Maid,” “Samantha and the Beanstalk,” and “Samantha’s Curious Cravings.” Following Rebecca’s birth, Lizzie returned to the Bewitched set on August 22, 1969 to film “Samantha’s Caesar Salad.”

  Ultimately, Lizzie’s first pregnancy (Billy, Jr.) was hidden from the TV viewers, while her second (Robert) and third (Rebecca) pregnancies were written into the show when Samantha became pregnant with Tabitha (Robert) and Adam (Rebecca). Although most people associate twins Erin and Diane Murphy with the role of Samantha and Darrin’s daughter, there have actually been ten little witches on the show since 1966. Cynthia Black, who was two-and-a-half weeks old when she appeared on the series, played Tabatha in episode 54, “And Then There Were Three.” Then, twins Heidi and Laura Gentry took over the part the following week. The Gentry girls were born on August 16, 1965.

  A few weeks later the role of Tabatha was given to slightly older twins Tamar and Julie Young, and they stayed for the remainder of the second season. The Young girls were born on June 24, 1965. The last set of twins, Erin and Diane Murphy, became cast members at the start of the third season. The Murphy girls (fraternal twins) were born on June 17, 1964, so the now-spelled Tabitha had physically aged more than a year between seasons two and three. This was necessary as the part would expand once it was announced that she was indeed a witch.

  However, before all that transpired, the birth of Bewitched itself became just as intricate.

  Resulting from an extended affair between several pertinent parties, the seeds of Bewitched were planted by Columbia/Screen Gems studio executives William Dozier and Harry Ackerman, the latter who had long-envisioned a supernatural sitcom that he titled The Witch of Westport.

  In early 1963, Dozier and Ackerman, both of whom died in 1991, hired writer Sol Saks to write the pilot script, “I, Darrin, Take This Witch, Samantha,” and Bewitched was born.

  Dozier, then Vice President of Screen Gems West Coast operations, detailed Samantha’s genesis for TV Guide, January 27, 1968, in the article, “The Man Who Helped Deliver a $9,000,000 Baby Tells How it All Happened.”

  With periodic meetings in 1963 Dozier and Ackerman discussed potential new TV projects, one of which was about a mortal wedded to a supernatural who did not reveal her persuasion until their honeymoon.

  Shortly after these meetings with Ackerman, Dozier lunched with George Axelrod, the author of the 1952 play The Seven Year Itch, starring Vanessa Brown and Tom Ewell (who later reprised his role in the 1955 feature film adaptation starring Marilyn Monroe). It was then Dozier suggested the concept for a sorceress sitcom, the notion of which delighted Axelrod who very much wanted to write the pilot, which was not yet titled Bewitched.

  An agreement was bartered with Axelrod’s agent Irving Lazar and work was to commence immediately. But there was an issue. Lazar had also managed to cut a significant deal for his client to write, produce, and potentially direct several feature films for United Artists, which also wanted Axelrod to start work at once.

  To alleviate the conflict a generous Dozier released Axelrod from his Screen Gems commitment and then met with writer Charles Lederer who, like Axelrod, immediately recognized the potential of a weekly witch series. But Lederer was also too involved with another job in this case, writing the screenplay for MGM’s 1962 feature, Mutiny on the Bounty (starring Marlon Brando).

  In stepped Sol Saks, with whom Dozier and Ackerman had both worked at CBS where he had penned My Favorite Husband for Ackerman and Peck’s Bad Girl for Dozier. Now Saks was commissioned to write the pilot script he tentatively titled Bewitched.

  Around the time Saks was hired, New York actress Tammy Grimes was under contract to Screen Gems. Then the star of Broadway’s hit, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, Grimes had signed not only to do a series for Screen Gems, but one or more films for its feature film unit Columbia Pictures. Upon reading his witch script, Grimes requested changes from Saks, who sent along revisions after she returned to New York.

  While that transpired, Dozier had separate business in that same city, where he was approached by an enthusiastic agent named Tom Tannenbaum who wanted very much to team his clients with a show for Screen Gems. Those clients were Lizzie and Bill Asher.

  As fate would have it, Dozier was a friend to Elizabeth with whom he had long wanted to do a series and Ackerman, Dozier’s Columbia colleague, was a CBS executive during the reign of I Love Lucy, countless episodes of which Bill had guided. Now with Screen Gems, Ackerman was executive producer for a host of the studio’s very popular TV programs, not the least of which was Father Knows Best, co-starring Elinor Donahue, who would become his wife in real life.

  Who would Darrin wed on Bewitched? That die was yet to be cast. For the moment, Dozier and Ackerman were working on finding Samantha.

  By this time, the Columbia-contracted Grimes was considering the lead in playwright Noel Coward’s new Broadway musical, High Spirits, which he had also signed to direct. Based on his previous hit play, Blithe Spirit, High Spirits centered around a female ghost, and like Bewitched, embraced a fantasy-comedy premise.

  Grimes’ choices were similar but different: Would she portray a sorceress or a spectre? She ultimately chose the latter and, like writer George Axelrod, was released from her contract with Columbia.

  In 2007, she told writer Peter Filichia and Theatre Mania’s online magazine, “I vetoed the script they gave me.” In 1963, she told the studio, “This Samantha has all these powers? Well, then why isn’t she stopping wars? Why isn’t she fixing traffic in Los Angeles, saying to all of those drivers, ‘Just a second—I’ll soon get you all home.’”

  However, she said, Columbia didn’t agree with her, so they “went to Elizabeth Montgomery.”

  When asked if she regretted the decision, Grimes replied: “No, but I used to wonder what would have happened if I’d done it. I probably would have done far more television and less theatre. So it’s all right.”

  Yet as Harry Ackerman recalled in The Bewitched Book (Dell, 1992), Grimes did indeed regret not starring on Bewitched as Samantha, who when she read the script was named Cassandra. “I run into her every two or three years, and she’s still kicking herself for not having done (the show).”

  In 1989, Lizzie said she “met Tammy in New York when I was about fourteen.” Although she years later decided to end Bewitched, and made every creative attempt to distance herself from the series after it ended, Elizabeth threw herself into the role of Samantha and felt “eternally gratefully” to Grimes for rejecting it. “I didn’t get the part because I beat out hundreds of women in some huge casting call which was painstakingly narrowed down to me,” she explained. “Tammy said no, I said yes, and I was simply at the right place at the right time.”

  That “right time” occurred shortly after she and Bill Asher completed production on Johnny Cool, in which she starred and he directed, and during which they fell in love. Enamored with him, she at that point became disinterested in acting, mostly because of the grueling schedules and distant film locations that meant extended periods of time away from the new love of her life. Bill, however, did not want her to disengage from her craft. “I felt that would have been a great loss,” he said in 1988. “She had a lot to offer the industry, and she should be working, for herself, as well as for her contributions to the business.”

  Consequently, he suggested the possibility of working on a series with her during which there would be no periods of separation. “And Liz was all for that,” he added.

  Although Lizzie and Bill met for the first time on the set of Johnny Cool, she was well-aware of his work. As she recalled in Modern Screen magazine in 1965, she had rejected a number of series and always said if she did decide to do a show, “it would be wonderful to get William Asher.”
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  Got him, she did. But initially Bill wasn’t all that excited about “getting” Lizzie, as a thespian, that is. He always said the last thing he’d ever do was fall in love with an actress. Yet, as he too told Modern Screen, he soon realized that Lizzie was “special, very definitely special. She has none of the personality which usually goes with a personality. She doesn’t possess the slightest affectation. She isn’t affected by adulation. She’s first of all what she is. Second, she’s an actress.”

  “What he means,” Lizzie chimed in at the time, “is that the only drive I have is to get home.” Still, she often wondered if it was possible to be both a good actress and a happy woman. When she met actress Julie Andrews, whom she deemed “enormously talented,” she knew it was possible. In her view, Andrews appeared “extremely happy.”

  Like Lizzie, Andrews would for years be associated with an iconic magical female role, this time, on the big screen as Mary Poppins, co-starring Dick Van Dyke, released in 1964, the same year Bewitched debuted on the small screen. It was produced by Walt Disney, for whom Lizzie as a youth had long desired to be hired as an artist.

  “The Fun Couple” … that’s what Lizzie and Bill were considered in and around Hollywood, and that’s the title of the TV show on which they intended to work together when they first approached Screen Gems. Couple was based on the novel by John Haase, who later teamed with writer Neil Jansen to adapt the book for a Broadway play (that opened and closed within three days at the Lyceum Theatre in October 1962).

  Bill’s TV edition of Couple featured a character named Ellen, the world’s wealthiest woman who falls for “an average Joe” actually named Bob, who was an auto mechanic. Fiercely independent, Bob was intimidated by Ellen’s elite status. As Bill explained it in 1988, Couple was “a real Getty’s daughter– type thing,” which was set at the beach where “nobody really knows each other’s last names.” In this way, Couple was a kin to his Beach Party movies of the era and the Gidget series he directed for ABC, Columbia, and Ackerman. It also sounded an awful lot like Lizzie and Bill’s reality, minus the auto-mechanic aspect.