I remember waking up as a little kid, practically invisible to a discussion with a fellow who had just returned from Africa studying pigmies. I still remember where I was standing in the house when I said to myself, “This is what I want to be a part of when I grow up.”
He was afforded the luxury of visiting the sets of Columbia’s most classic shows, namely, the adventures of Samantha and Darrin, where he would meet and chat with Lizzie, Dick Sargent (the second Darrin), Agnes Moore-head (“She clearly liked kids”), and Paul Lynde (“… did not like kids”).
One day, Peter visited the Bewitched set when Lizzie was in her Serena guise. “I was probably the most gullible kid in those days,” he recalls. “And it didn’t help that outside my Dad’s office were two autographed photos, one of and signed by Liz, and one of and signed by Liz as Serena.”
When he finally did meet Lizzie as Serena, “she couldn’t have been nicer,” he says. But then someone, probably Bill Asher, yelled from the set, “Hey—where is Liz?!” At that point, Lizzie/Serena turned to Peter and said, “I think she went to tinkle,” politely excused herself and then left to see if they needed her on the set. “For years,” Peter concludes, “I told my school friends that Liz and Serena were two different people, and I was convinced!”
Upon its debut, Bewitched had immediately established itself as a hit for ABC. So much so, rival network NBC and Samantha proprietor Columbia Studios sought to regurgitate the magic formula, at first requesting the assistance of Sam-scribe Sol Saks, who declined. “I had already created one show about a witch,” he said in 1988. “I didn’t want to do another.”
Consequently, NBC approached producer Sidney Sheldon, who had befriended Bill Asher on The Patty Duke Show, which they had co-created. Sheldon agreed to do a new supernatural sitcom, and suggested to Columbia and NBC a concept that ultimately became I Dream of Jeannie, starring Barbara Eden as a female genie in love with her male master played by Larry Hagman. But Sheldon was concerned that Asher might object to Jeannie’s similarities to Bewitched. “Sidney was very polite about the whole situation,” Bill explained. “He came to me and said, ‘How do you feel if I do a show about a genie?’ And I told him I didn’t care.”
Lizzie, however, was irate. When she first got wind that Sheldon was developing Jeannie, she gave it little thought—until, that is, she and Bill met for a social chat with Sheldon in Beverly Hills.
As she recalled in 1989:
Sidney was a friend of Bill’s, and he invited us to lunch. The more Sidney talked about what he was going to do with his show, the more I sat back in my chair in awe. I thought to myself, “Elizabeth—are you hearing this right? Are you really listening to this conversation?” I was in such a funk. And when I heard Sidney say, “I must think of some way for her (Jeannie blinked her eyes) to motivate the magic just like Samantha does (with her nose twitch),” I just couldn’t believe it. I had to prop my hand under my chin to keep my mouth from falling open. I was annoyed. That doesn’t mean I was annoyed with Barbara Eden and Larry Hagman. I was annoyed with Sidney. I was struck dumb. And I usually have something to say. But as I recall, it was a silent drive home.
Despite such a detour, Sheldon’s show enjoyed a smooth ride with home viewers. Like Bewitched on ABC, Jeannie proved to be a ratings dream for NBC—from the moment it debuted in the fall of 1965. What’s more, Samantha’s training reels were not derailed, as Bewitched continued to inspire Jeannie. Lizzie offered her double-play of Samantha and her mischievous raven-haired look-alike cousin Serena. Eden later delivered a twin take as Jeannie and her brunette doppelganger sister, all of which further infuriated Lizzie. “People were even laughing about that one,” she said in 1989, particularly because Bewitched and Jeannie were filmed at the same studio. “Had I been Barbara, I would have said, ‘No, sorry. How can I do this? How can I play the dark-haired double to this character?’”
By this point, Lizzie was “flabbergasted,” and thought, “Sidney Sheldon should have said, Wait a minute. I’ve known Bill Asher for years, and I’m his friend. (“At least I think they were,” she added.) I can’t go in there and steal from this other show, which is in essence what it was.”
Although Lizzie was always cordial to Barbara during the Bewitched-Jeannie cross-over years, she was periodically annoyed with her, particularly in the Screen Gems makeup room that both women shared while working on their respective shows. For a time, actress Sally Field was there right beside them, during her time on Gidget and The Flying Nun, both of which, like Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie, were produced by Screen Gems, and aired on ABC in the 1960s.
When Field appeared on The Rosie O’Donnell Show (May 10, 2001), she talked about having her makeup applied in that room, while she sat between Lizzie and Barbara. Apparently, Barbara liked to sing, which she happened to be doing a lot of this one particular morning, and it got on Lizzie’s nerves. According to what Field told O’Donnell, when Barbara left the makeup room one day, Lizzie turned to her in frustration and said, “Does she have to sing all the time?!”
In her memoir, Jeannie Out of the Bottle (Crown/Archetype, 2011), which she wrote with Wendy Leigh, Eden apologized to just Sally and not Elizabeth for the musical annoyance. Apparently, Eden used her Jeannie time in the makeup room to rehearse for a nightclub act she was performing in Las Vegas. “Sorry, Sally! If only I’d known, I’d have practiced in the shower instead.”
On September 21, 2005, a few years later, Eden appeared in the second episode of TV Land’s TV Land Confidential series. She mentioned the morning makeup sessions, some baby talk, and ignored the singing sensationalism. In the Confidential segment “When Real Life and Screen Life Collide,” Eden explained how she’d frequently see Lizzie in the makeup department. “In fact,” she said, “we were pregnant together. She had many babies on that show [Bewitched].”
Still, those in the Bewitched circle tried to calm Lizzie’s nerves regarding the general intermingling of their show and I Dream of Jeannie. David White thought Lizzie riled herself up for nothing. In 1989, he said:
There was little noteworthy comparison between Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie. Samantha and Darrin were trying to lead a normal life with their children. There was a great deal of love within the Stephens’ household, and there wasn’t that kind of love on Jeannie. And the humor on Bewitched was less impacted. It didn’t hit you over the head with one-liners as much as it allowed the humor to develop from the situation.
Years after Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie completed their original network runs, Lizzie still felt a measure of contempt for the witch-inspired genie series, particularly when in 1985, Bill Asher, from who she had long been divorced, signed on to direct the NBC TV reunion movie, I Dream of Jeannie: 15 Years Later. Produced by Sidney Sheldon, the film became one of the highest rated small screen flicks in history, surpassing Lizzie’s 1974 NBC film, A Case of Rape. “You should have heard Liz,” he recalled in 1988 when discussing his work on the film. “She said, ‘You idiot!’”
She wasn’t upset that the movie was a hit, or that it surpassed A Case of Rape in ratings, or any of that. Bill says she was just upset that he was involved with the movie at all.
However, in 1989, when she was reminded of his association with the film, Elizabeth remained loyal to her ex-husband (the father of her three children), saying, “I didn’t care about that. That was his business. And they could not have picked a better person to do it.”
After the Jeannie reunion aired, she was frequently approached about doing a TV reunion movie of Bewitched. Various networks offered her a substantial salary to reprise the role of Samantha. But as she explained in 1989, she never considered it even a slight possibility, despite the potential cash flow:
Absolutely not; it’s not about the money. That has nothing to do with it; for the networks and studios that might not be the case, but screw that. I’m approached about this all the time. And I know there are people out there who really want to do this … but there’s not a shot in hell �
�� forget it. I think once you’ve done something, you’ve done it … and that’s fine. And I’m proud of it. But now, let’s just, as my grandmother used to say, “Leave it lay where Jesus flung it!”
Or as she later and less passionately relayed to writer Ed Bark of The Dallas Morning News on March 26, 1994:
I wouldn’t want to do it again. It’s still playing all over the place in reruns. It was a wonderful experience, and I had a blast doing it. But when you’ve done something like that, let it have its life and let it go where it’s going.
Media steward Rob Ray offers his take on the Sam-Jeannie doubles debacle:
The conceit of one actor portraying multiple roles is probably as old as the acting profession itself. Classic playwrights in their work as varied as William Shakespeare’s King Lear to James M. Barrie’s Peter Pan have created multiple parts designed to be played by the same actor. The idea that one actor could play two roles simultaneously was born near the dawn of film-making and achieved early renown in the films of Mary Pickford. Pickford, known as America’s Sweetheart with her long curls and petite five-foot frame, could play children as easily as adults and often performed in movies requiring her to age from childhood into adulthood. In several films, such as Stella Maris and Little Lord Fauntleroy, surprisingly sophisticated split-screen effects were used to enable her to appear onscreen in two roles at the same time. In Little Lord Fauntleroy, the petite Miss Pickford portrays the title male role and his own mother and in one scene we actually see Miss Pickford as a boy kiss the cheek of Miss Pickford as the mother using a split-screen technique as sophisticated as any used today. Later, in 1921, Buster Keaton played nearly every role in his two-reel short entitled The Playhouse. In the fifties, Alec Guinness played eight roles in Kind Hearts and Coronets and Peter Sellers played almost as many in 1964’s Dr. Strangelove. Examples of one actor portraying twins are too numerous to mention, but The Parent Trap is one of the more famous examples. However, the idea of one actor playing identical cousins may go back to the first silent version of Anthony Hope’s The Prisoner of Zenda in 1913, which has been remade countless times. In that story, the heir to the throne of a mythical European kingdom is abducted just before his coronation and his identical British cousin, a commoner, is drafted by the palace to pose as his royal relative until the kidnappers can be thwarted. To the baby boomer generation, the most famous identical cousins may be Patty and Cathy Lane, both portrayed by Patty Duke in The Patty Duke Show from 1963 to 1966, a series that Bill Asher and Sidney Sheldon co-produced. Imitation is the sincerest form of praise, one might say!
Maybe so; but it simply bothered Lizzie that I Dream of Jeannie, an already blatant replica of Bewitched, would go the next step and showcase the brunette and slightly-more lascivious relative look-alike scenario. It got to the point where Bewitched writers were ordered to stay away from I Dream of Jeannie. Unfortunately, one of Samantha’s main scribes didn’t adhere that ruling—and was subsequently fired as a result of writing a Jeannie segment behind Lizzie’s back.
The Bewitched/I Dream of Jeannie scenario was never more evident as when, on July 16, 1994, TV Guide ignited The Great Jeannie vs. Samantha Debate. The magazine essentially invited its readers and Nick at Nite watchers to respond to this poll:
Which magical blonde is more powerful: Samantha the witch on Bewitched or Jeannie the genie from I Dream of Jeannie? Exactly 810,938 out of approximately one million Nick at Nite viewers voted Samantha the stronger supernaturalist. But editors of the Guide’s popular “Cheers & Jeers” column were astounded by the results:
Are you crazy? Sam didn’t even have enough wattage to keep the same Darrin for the run of her show. She also received frequent paranormal assists from Endora and her TV coven. Meanwhile, bottled Jeannie not only kept Major Nelson (Larry Hagman) in a trance for five seasons, she wed him, kept her evil sister in check, and did it all with nothing but her crossed arms. We think Tabitha was stuffing the ballot box.
Two weeks later, Lizzie fans were livid and fearless and continued with their strong opinions, which TV Guide had no choice but to publish. In the issue dated, July 27, 1994, the editors wrote:
What a fuss! When Nick at Nite sponsored a ’60s sitcom showdown pitting Samantha against Jeannie, we weighed in with our opinion. We chided the 810,938 viewers who picked Sam, and boy, did we hear it. Since we couldn’t make the letters go away by blinking, we decided to devote this page to your most(ly) bitter rebuttals.
Some of which were as follows:
Don’t you realize that Bewitched all but put the ABC network on the map? Get a grip, TV Guide.—Mason Cargone, North Chili, New York
Put them in a sealed vault, which one do you think would get out?—Yancy Mitchell, Ardmore, Tennessee
Bewitched appeared a year before Jeannie, so there wouldn’t have been a Jeannie if not for Bewitched, nor a blink if there hadn’t first been a twitch.— Randolph Sloan, Greece, New York
Whoever wrote that Jeer, was male and prefers a pleasing-you-pleases-me-syndrome slave to a loving, equal partner in relationships.—Wendy Martin, Owosso, Michigan
Any woman who calls her husband “Master” is already a loser.—Jimmie Welt, Gunter, Texas
Of course Samantha had more power than Jeannie. She didn’t have to rely on a skimpy costume to keep ratings high!—Mary Campbell-Droze, San Mateo, California
How many women are powerful enough to replace their husbands— unnoticed—with someone who not only goes by the same name but is a foot and a half taller?—John Moreland, Pasadena, California
Fourteen
Public Broadcasting
“I grew up in Hollywood, so I’ve seen what kinds of damage loose talk can do.”
—Elizabeth Montgomery, The Advocate Magazine, July 30, 1992
Lizzie could just as easily chat with the “go-fer” on any studio set as mingle at the most elegant Hollywood affair. But book her on a talk show? No way. Such appearances were “too personal” for her shy nature. As she explained to Picture Life Magazine in December 1971, “They terrify me.”
It was an emotion she would mention time and again when addressing live TV performances, interviews, or personal appearances of any kind. On December 21, 1985, she went on Entertainment Tonight to promote her CBS TV-movie, Between the Darkness and the Dawn. Reporter Scott Osborne asked if she enjoyed doing interviews “… like this one.”
“Not really,” she replied. “In fact, you have no idea just how panic-stricken I am right now.”
On February 6, 2012, Time Magazine published a fascinating cover story, “The Power of Shyness: The Upside of Being an Introvert (and Why Extroverts are Overrated)” by self-admitted introvert Bryan Walsh who wrote:
Shyness is a form of anxiety characterized by inhibited behavior. It also implies a fear of social judgment that can be crippling. Shy people actively seek to avoid social situations, even ones that may be inhibited by fear. Introverts shun social situations because, Greta Garbo–style, they simply want to be alone … Caution, inhibition, and even fearfulness may be healthy—and smart—adaptations for the overstimulated person, but they’re still not characteristics many parents would want in their children, especially in a society that lionizes the bold. So it’s common for moms and dads of introverted offspring to press their kids to be more outgoing, lest they end up overlooked in class and later in life. That, however, can be a mistake— and not just because our temperaments are difficult to change fundamentally.
Still, Lizzie did somehow manage to show up that day in 1985 with Scott Osborne on Entertainment Tonight, and she made four other rare appearances on TV talk shows with live audiences. She was by no means a frequent talk show guest, like Totie Fields, Burt Reynolds, or Zsa Zsa Gabor, but there she was on: The Dennis Miller Show (in 1992 with Robert Foxworth), The Merv Griffin Show (in December 1970 to promote her favorite Bewitched episode, “Sisters at Heart”), The Joey Bishop Show (in 1967 with Michele Lee, who would later appear with Elizabeth in the 1976 TV-movie Dark Victory),
and The Mike Douglas Show, on November 4, 1966, an especially riveting segment in which she proved telling, honest, and protective, all at once.
Here are some highlights from the Douglas interview in particular, by far her most fascinating talk show appearance:
Douglas opened the show with his routine musical number, she emerged from behind the program’s sliding stage doors with a strange companion: a small statue of a fox’s head that Bill Asher had purchased for her at an antique shop. She brought it with her for good luck, and kept it on her lap when not in her hand.
The figurehead worked like a charm. She, Douglas, and his co-host Cesar Romero (then playing The Joker on ABC’s camp classic Batman) played darts, and she won.
Later, Douglas turned to the studio audience (and the home viewer) and said, “I’m not sure if any of you know this, but Elizabeth is the daughter of Robert Montgomery.” The studio audience applauded in recognition, while she smiled and said, “I like him, too.”
When Douglas wondered if she felt her father played a role in her career, she went on to address several key aspects of the core relationship with her father:
“Probably—because it was in the family my interests peaked. I don’t think you can be around something like that and either not love it or just give it up entirely. My brother (Skip) tried it for a while and just decided it really wasn’t for him. And I think probably he’s the only sane member of the family. But Dad helped. And people say it is a help or a hindrance to have a parent who is known. And it’s definitely a help. I think it’s silly to say it isn’t, because I know it certainly helps open doors that [would] not necessarily open that easily or maybe never. Afterwards, I guess, it depends on ability. But certainly it helps and I’ve always been very proud of him.”
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