Twitch Upon a Star

by Herbie J. Pilato

  Notwithstanding, somewhere between the first Beach movie and Gidget, Bill brought Couple to Dozier, who later gave the green light to high concept Twentieth Century Fox shows for ABC like Batman (1966–1968) and The Green Hornet (1966–1967). He liked the Couple premise, but suggested that Bill meet with Ackerman. “He’s got something in mind that’s very similar,” Bill recalled Dozier saying, “and you might like it better.”

  Dozier, of course, was referring to Bewitched, which was an opposites-attract comedy that featured an attractive young woman who just so happened to be a witch. Couple was an opposites-attract comedy that featured an attractive young woman who just so happened to be rich. Consequently, Dozier’s instincts proved to be “on the nose.” Bill not only favored Bewitched, he said he and Lizzie “flipped over it.”

  In retrospect, it appears Columbia merely stored the Bewitched pilot until Lizzie and Bill arrived on the scene. Due to Ackerman’s Lucy affiliation with Bill, the studio was aware of his strength in directing TV female leads. The studio also respected Lizzie’s artistic body of work, and as she perceived it, those in power merely saw the writing on the wall. “Columbia purely felt that Bill and I would work well together,” she intoned in 1989 with a wink and a smile. “An extraordinarily good producer/director teamed with someone who at least looks like she could do the job.”

  While a few key players viewed the near “breech birth” of Bewitched with ease, creative conflicts continued to arise which almost thwarted the game. Beyond the basic script and casting decisions, the series was having issues with budget and the Writers Guild, the latter of which claimed the show’s premise was lifted from the 1942 feature film I Married a Witch.

  A revered fantasy comedy classic, Married is considered to be one of the best English-language motion pictures of its time. As directed by French film maestro Rene Clair, the ingenious story (based on a novel by Topper author Thorne Smith) cast the enchanting Veronica Lake as Jennifer, a sexy seventeenth century sorceress, who appears in modern day New England to haunt a gubernatorial candidate played by Fredric March, a descendent of the Puritan who condemned her. But she falls for him instead. Adding to the fun, March portrays various incarnations of his character through the years, which only adds to the film’s style, wit, and inventiveness.

  After the pilot for Bewitched was filmed, Bill Asher was asked if he had seen Clair’s masterpiece. He had not. “And besides,” Bill clarified in 1988, “there wasn’t any valid comparison between the two concepts, certainly none which would have invited any legal ramifications. Bewitched began where the movie ended. Our story was about a married couple and the movie was about a courtship.”

  One bullet was dodged, at least until former child star turned studio executive Jackie Cooper came into the fold. According to what Bewitched director Richard Michaels said in 1988, “Bill was the unnamed producer of the show from the beginning.” But when Jackie Cooper replaced William Dozier as a top executive for Columbia, the studio sought to avoid bestowing series control to husband and wife business teams due to a not-so-positive experience with The Donna Reed Show, which was produced by its star and her spouse Tony Owen.

  “Jackie came in and saw me controlling things from a distance,” Bill explained in 1988. “He tried to institute a policy which would prohibit Liz and me from working on Bewitched, and we damn near didn’t do the show.”

  Cooper alluded to the derision in his autobiography, Please Don’t Shoot My Dog (Morrrow/Avon, 1981), and learned rather quickly the “art of dealing with people, and specifically, how to be an executive.” He also never doubted Bewitched’s potential and was eager to work with Lizzie, whom he had met when she was just a teenager years before Robert Montgomery Presents. She was “already beautiful and already very strong and positive,” he said; and she would remain so when they met on two future occasions: first, when she was married to Gig Young, and later when she was with Bill Asher whom Cooper, like Harry Ackerman and many other industry insiders, had known as the director of I Love Lucy.

  In January of 1964, two months after filming was completed on the Bewitched pilot, Jackie and Lizzie reconnected, at her invitation. She wanted to discuss a business matter. He suggested they have lunch at the Beverly Hills Hotel. After the meal, her tone apparently became formal and she requested that Cooper honor the promises allegedly made by William Dozier, his Columbia predecessor:

  She wanted Bill to be secured as Bewitched’s core producer and show runner, with Harry Ackerman serving as executive producer. She had her own ideas of which direction Bewitched should go and she wanted those concepts incorporated into future scripts. She was to retain casting and director approval, and wanted Bill to direct the first eight or nine episodes.

  Cooper thought such “promises” sounded quite unlike Dozier. In response, Lizzie apparently just glared at him with what he described as her “big blue eyes,” which were actually green and could become “very steely when she wanted them to.”

  Lizzie’s animated pupils merely added to her arsenal of unique facial expressions which, according to Cooper in this instance, emphasized a very straightforward decision not to do Bewitched. “It’s too bad,” she told him upon leaving their lunch/meeting. “It would have been a nice little show.”

  Back at his office, Cooper contacted her agent, Tom Tannenbaum, and said he’d have to inform Columbia’s New York office head Jerry Hymans of the recent developments. Hymans would then be obligated to notify ABC which undoubtedly would cancel Bewitched before it hit the air— unless a mutually satisfactory lead replacement actress could be found, which Cooper assumed would be highly unlikely. Needless to say, Tannenbaum was concerned. “Please, hold the fort,” he told Cooper. “Don’t do anything until I talk to her.”

  A short time later, Tannebaum called back with what Cooper expected to be a mere confirmation: Lizzie was indeed quitting. But Cooper stood his ground. As he wrote in Please Don’t Shoot My Dog:

  There were good reasons not to go along with her demands. Ackerman was a tried-and-true TV producer. He should be in charge. No way was Billy (Asher) going to direct the first eight or nine shows—nobody in his right mind did that. Casting and director approval? Not in my studio. And if she had ideas as to the direction in which the show was going, fine, but let her funnel them through the producer.

  Cooper made further calls, next to Tom Moore, then head of ABC. “Tom was a good, level-headed person, not given to hysterics,” he said. Cooper explained what had transpired, and despite the odds, Moore thought there was a possibility of finding another actress to play Samantha. Consequently, Cooper instructed his casting office to start looking for another actress who would fit Lizzie’s age and type. He didn’t tell the press of the recent developments, and neither did Lizzie, which he was pleased to learn. But still somehow there was a leak.

  In those days, Hollywood gossip columnists had “moles” in every studio on the payroll. Consequently, the story seeped into the trades, stating that “Elizabeth Montgomery was unhappy at Screen Gems,” and no one denied it.

  During the casting search, the studio found three actresses who proved they could play Samantha. Screen tests were arranged, a director was hired, and Dick York, already signed to co-star, was brought in to work with the potential new replacements, all of which was funded by Screen Gems, at a not inconsiderable sum.

  But the day before the screen tests were to commence, Cooper claimed a messenger appeared at his office door, bearing Lizzie’s handwritten note of apology. Apparently, she realized that her demands were incongruent with her contract, and that she should have respected and trusted Cooper’s discretion. She promised not to insist that Bill produce or direct, and she would work well with Harry Ackerman. She hoped Cooper would keep Bill in mind for the future.

  In Cooper’s eyes—and hands—Lizzie’s note was a victory, but he wanted to officially secure her words. So he brought the note to the studio’s legal department and integrated it as a new contract addendum, which she agreed to and
signed.

  From that day forward, and for the first five seasons that Bewitched was on the air, Lizzie never spoke to him again. “On the other hand,” he explained in his book, “she was never late, she always knew her lines, she never caused anybody any trouble, she was a perfect lady, and she made the show a huge success.” Also, too, Cooper ultimately agreed to Lizzie’s previous creative “suggestions”: Bill ended up directing the first fourteen episodes of the first season and, by the fourth year, was promoted to producer, ultimately supplanting producer Danny Arnold, who switched over to ABC’s other popular female-driven sitcom, That Girl, starring Marlo Thomas. Arnold later created and produced Barney Miller for ABC in 1975.

  On the other hand, Harry Ackerman was executive producer from day one.

  During those early tense contract negotiations with Jackie Cooper and Screen Gems/Columbia, Lizzie and Bill Asher required at the very least a strong Hollywood player in their corner. Consequently, in stepped none other than Lizzie’s father, Robert Montgomery. “I asked him if he’d back me up,” Bill acknowledged in 1988. “I told him that Columbia didn’t want me to do the show and that Liz wouldn’t do it without me.”

  Without hesitation Robert consented to support his daughter and son-in-law in any way possible, which meant helping to schedule a meeting between Bill and Jerry Harmon. In that meeting, Bill promised Harmon that he would be financially responsible for all of Bewitched’s production costs and that Columbia would own distribution rights and overhead. “I was accountable from a creative and financial standpoint,” Bill said. “But from a logistical standpoint, the studio owned the copyright, which is something I really shouldn’t have let happen” (though Bill later controlled even that).

  That provision proved an attractive choice for Screen Gems, and it was not dismissed. With a final agreement signed and sealed, all parties were in accord, and as Bill acknowledged in 1988, “The studio backed off, I proved them wrong and, on a very precarious note, Elizabeth and I began to shoot the show.”

  Eleven

  Remember the Mane

  “It’s a gossamer thing; and there are so many factors involved. They just mesh … and I certainly appreciate his talent. He’s incredible.”

  —Elizabeth, describing then-husband Bill Asher, Modern Screen Magazine, 1970

  In the second half of its first season on May 20, 1965, Bewitched aired an episode called “Remember the Main,” directed by William D. Russell and written by Mort R. Lewis. It featured an actor named Edward Mallory who in 1967 married actress Joyce Bulifant (who later married Bill Asher after his divorce from Lizzie in 1974).

  In the “Main” segment, the Stephens family gets involved with the political campaign of a local candidate running for office:

  At Darrin’s suggestion, hopeful Ed Wright (Mallory), challenges his opponent John C. Cavenaugh (Byron Morrow) to a public debate for a seat on the city council. The issue at hand: illegal fund allocations for a new drainage system. When a water main bursts, subsequently securing an easy win for Wright, Darrin suspects Samantha’s handy witchcraft. Not so, she says. It’s Endora who’s to blame.

  While the episode represents Elizabeth’s political ideals off-camera, and certainly Bewitched’s general message of democracy and equality on-camera, “Remember the Main” invites a play on words with insight into Lizzie’s emotional metamorphosis with each new marriage, signified by something as simple as the change in style and color of her hair.

  For example, by the time she and Bill Asher became involved with Bewitched, their relationship was sealed. She appeared more at peace than ever, a contentment that seemed to coincide with her decision to go blonde. When she and Asher first met on the set of Johnny Cool in 1963, her hair was brunette. After Cool and before Bewitched, she had a very Samantha-like blonde hairstyle in a few episodes of Burke’s Law (one in which, in fact, she subconsciously does her famous twitch—even before she brings it to Bewitched!).

  In general, Lizzie’s real hair color was best described as “ash blonde, dirty blonde, or on the blonde side of brunette.”

  As a young girl, she had very blonde hair—what they used to call tow-head blonde—but as she grew older, her hair grew darker, as is usually the case with tow-heads (although knowing Lizzie, her sense of humor, and her love for animals, she probably called herself a “toad-head”).

  At various intervals in her adult life, she experimented with different shades that seemed to somehow match not only her mood, but her professional objectives, and indeed sometimes her husbands.

  During her first marriage to Fred Cammann, she was wet behind the ears and inspired, but restless and inattentive. Her hair was merely streaked with blonde, possibly signifying her ambivalence to this union to the wealthy sophisticate, which she ended after only a year.

  For a good portion of the time she spent with second husband Gig Young—in what could certainly be described as a dark marriage—Lizzie dyed her hair a dark brunette in hopes of being cast for darker, more textured characters. The strategy worked as she went on to play the war-torn Woman from “Two” on The Twilight Zone, the prostitute Rusty Heller from The Untouchables, and the devil’s assistant in Mr. Lucifer. Ironically, of course, for her role in The Spiral Staircase, in which she co-starred with Young, she was a lighter brunette. But her off-screen troubles with Young outweighed whatever professional strides she made, and this marriage ended after six years.

  A decade or so later, when she appeared in 1975’s post-Bewitched TV-movie, The Legend of Lizzie Borden, her hair was a shade of red, which distinguished her from playing an all-blonde Samantha while still adding a unique tone to help ease the transition from comedy to drama. She wanted to distance herself from Bewitched, but not from her audience.

  By this time, too, she was living with a brown-haired Robert Foxworth. They weren’t yet married and would not be for years to come, but he was then the love of her life, and her darker blonde hair was a better match for his brown locks.

  But in that first season of Bewitched, back in 1964, shortly after losing her heart—and dark hair—to director Bill Asher on the set of Johnny Cool, it was if the all-blonde Lizzie had the best of all worlds. For her, at the time, blondes did have more fun.

  Before that, non-actor Cammann wanted Lizzie to give up her beloved acting craft (like Darrin would ask Samantha to give up witchcraft). And although she viewed the thespian Young as a father figure—and he certainly respected their combined theatrical craft—it was director Asher who would guide her most succinctly, on and off camera. In short, she was bored with Freddie, exhausted by Gig, and the happiest with Bill.

  As writer Joe Hyams pointed out in The Saturday Evening Post, March 13, 1965, with Bill, Elizabeth was leading a rich, full life without the stigma of being “a poor little rich girl.” She still did all her favorite things—like ride horses, paint, and play tennis—which as previously mentioned Asher also enjoyed. But she found in Samantha a role that fit her like a glove—and a husband in Asher who, although slighter in physical stature, stood just as tall as her father in commanding a room.

  As her old friend Bud Baker told TV Radio Mirror in September of 1967, at the onset of Bewitched’s fourth season—and the fourth year of her marriage to Bill—Lizzie was “so alive now; so completely honest.” There was no “above-it-all” attitude like when she was as “a kid at those parties. No faking the phony social stuff the way she had to with Freddie. No trying to adapt to Gig’s very nice quiet reserve. She’s Billy’s girl, and absolutely honest; nothing to fear. Every actress has to have a pretty strong ego, but you can’t overpower a guy like Bill.”

  Baker further explained:

  She’s changed. She’s really radiant, fulfilled. And it isn’t just a matter of having found herself professionally. That’s great, but she takes it in stride; she has what most show business people I’ve met never have—perspective. She knows glamour for what it’s worth, knows how many women scramble for careers because they aren’t happy enough in other are
as of their life. Acting is normal and natural to Liz—both her father and mother had the talent—and it is something fun to do, not something to sacrifice your life for. No, what changed Liz is this guy Bill Asher. He’s the right kind of man for her; a gutty guy, a real man-type guy who is strong. They are ideally suited to each other, totally in love. He doesn’t try to lock her up, he doesn’t have to. They are both whole people with everything in the world in common, and it’s great they got together.

  “Together” is putting it mildly. They were joined at the hip, at home and at the office.

  According to what Bewitched’s publicist Harry Flynn told TV Guide writer Arnold Hano in 1967, Bill Asher was tough and tender for all the right reasons: “If you make a mistake, he can give you a rough time. He’s especially hard on phonies”—as was Lizzie. “If an interviewer is not her cup of tea, she can’t sit down and be pleasant. She loathes pretensions.”

  In effect, the Ashers were refreshing, direct, and honest. If they reminded you less of the crowned heads of Europe, Hano said, they reminded you more of the Kennedys. Like the Kennedys, they were brisk, businesslike, tireless, hard-nosed, competent, personable, pragmatic, and intelligent; and they liked to play touch football.

  They were also in tune. When Lizzie performed as Samantha, she kept her eyes glued on Asher, who would feed her the cues. If he beamed, she beamed; he nodded, she nodded; he smiled, she smiled. Asher judged actors within a strict margin, and Lizzie was on his scale. “As an actress,” he said, “there is nothing she can’t do.” Lizzie added, “Bill is the best director I’ve ever worked with.”