Twitch Upon a Star

by Herbie J. Pilato

  Bewitched actor David White agreed. In 1989, while in Lizzie’s presence, White assessed the Montgomery-Asher marriage/business relationship in one sentence: “She was tremendously supportive of him almost to the point of sainthood.”

  Upon hearing that, Lizzie added: “Bill was such a good director and if it hadn’t been for him, [Bewitched] wouldn’t have happened anyway. But I tell you, there were times when I was frustrated, and I’m sure there were times when he was just as frustrated with me.”

  As if on cue, David then recalled when Bill directed a scene with him and Lizzie. He was proud of his performance that day, and assumed Bill was going to say “Print!” after the scene was completed. “But he didn’t,” David recalled.

  Lizzie chimed in with each account of his memory of that day:

  David: One time Liz and I did a scene and it was just marvelous. She was so spontaneous and she was so great. And we didn’t quite finish, and suddenly Bill says, “Cut! Now, quit horsing around, Liz!” Remember that?

  Lizzie: I sure do.

  David: And she looked at me like, Who’s crazy here?

  Lizzie: I was like, “What is going on?”

  David: Well, I thought I’m gonna get him a book on directing. You’re supposed to watch the actors.

  Lizzie: Boy, that was funny.

  David: It was so beautiful, you know.

  Lizzie: I remember that.

  David: You were in shock.

  Lizzie: I know. Asher always figured that I should know what he meant even when he didn’t say anything, which wasn’t true, necessarily.

  David: Not necessarily.

  Lizzie: He was wonderful with the guest actors and stuff. He could always think of nineteen different ways on how to tell them to open a door if that was absolutely necessary.

  David: And he did often.

  Lizzie: Yes, he did.

  To David’s surprise, Lizzie recalled a tense moment of her own with Bill on the Bewitched set, when they weren’t exactly on the same page … of the script. The incident transpired while filming the fifth season segment, “Samantha’s Power Failure,” during which Lizzie happened to be pregnant with their last child, daughter Rebecca, while Bill was about to have a baby all on his own:

  We had a short day for some reason, and there was some party being given on the next stage. And I had been running back and forth between stages to check the lighting for a lengthy scene that Bill planned to direct on the following day.

  However, he surprised her and said, “Well, as long as we’re set up for it, let’s do that speech where you appeal to the Witches Council.” It was an intricate special effects–ridden scene that would also include Agnes Moorehead, who would be stationed at a lower level of the set, glancing up at Lizzie as Samantha chatted with the Council. But Lizzie was unprepared to shoot the scene and shocked at Bill’s demands.

  “Holy shit!” she thought. “What does he mean? I haven’t even looked at that scene!”

  So she told him, straight out:

  “I don’t know it.”

  “Well, why not?”

  “Because I wasn’t supposed to know it until tomorrow.”

  “You mean you don’t look ahead?”

  “Bill!! What do you mean, ‘I don’t look ahead?’ Of course, I do. But this is a long scene.”

  “You can handle it. Just throw yourself into the witches’ robes [the black frock or ‘flying suit’ that Samantha was prone to wear when she meant serious witch business], and let’s get going. Let’s not waste any more time. We’ve got another forty-five minutes.”

  Lizzie was furious, but as usual, she deferred to Bill’s discretion, and did what he requested. She retreated to her dressing room to change and to give the script a quick study or, as she said, “To look at this damn thing, and try to memorize it, feverishly.”

  But there was more trouble ahead. Suddenly, there were visitors on the set and not just regular visitors, but crew members’ wives. “And wives of the crew are never trustful of their husbands, anyway,” Lizzie recalled. “They really aren’t.”

  By this time, she’s uncomfortable for several reasons. 1) She’s frustrated with Bill’s impatient demands for her to know lines she did not need to remember until the next day. 2) She’s feeling the various physical discomforts of being pregnant. 3) Potentially jealous crew members’ wives are now roaming the set. 4) The watchful eye of Agnes Moorehead is ever present.

  When Bill finally said, “Okay—let’s get through this once,” Lizzie was out of sorts to say the least, but trudged on to face the music—or at least the conductor.

  “Can we just go ahead and shoot it?” she asked.

  “No!” Bill insisted. “I just wanna go ahead and run it!”

  Lizzie caved, “Okay.”

  She then found her mark on the set, readied her lines, and with “Aggie standing right there in front” of her, she heard this woman say, “Jesus Christ! She’s fat. I had no idea she was that fat!” A jealous crew member’s wife had spoken—and Lizzie was her victim.

  Oh, how nice, Lizzie thought upon hearing that hurtful phase, just as Bill was about to scream one very important word: “Action!” But instead, he yelled “Cut!”

  Lizzie was trying to concentrate on her lines and they went through the scene twice. But after hearing that disturbing comment, as she recalled, “I just couldn’t remember what the hell I was doing, and Bill blew up”:

  You’re not concentrating! This is ridiculous. There is no reason under the sun why you shouldn’t be able to do this.

  “Under any other circumstances I would have agreed with him,” she mused in 1989.

  But at least there was a break in the clouds and no one was more surprised than Lizzie at what transpired next:

  Do you know that Aggie turned to me and said, “Don’t let him get you down. You can do it!” And that was the first time she ever said anything like that to me, because she knew it was beginning to get to me. So I took this big deep breath and said, “Okay—let’s go then!”

  The result? One of the most beloved scenes in the entire series:

  Samantha, in her elegant ebony and emerald robe, defending herself, Cousin Serena and Uncle Arthur before the high court of the Witches Council, which has stripped them of their powers. By this time, Sam had ignored the Council’s demand that she end her mortal marriage, and her cousin and uncle stood firm in support of their favorite relative. Mouthing words that represented the core message of Bewitched as well as Lizzie’s own philosophy, Sam said to her magical elders: “Remember the Witch burnings at Salem? Remember the innocent who were condemned simply for being different? Remember your rage at that injustice? Well, aren’t you guilty of the same injustice? Aren’t you condemning me simply because I choose to be different? You can take away my powers but I’ll always be a witch. It’s you—the highest of all courts—who are taking the risk—[risking] your integrity—your right to sit in judgment.”

  Three years later, in what became Bewitched’s swan season, 1971–1972, ABC had scheduled its once-supernatural powerhouse against CBS’s new reality-based sitcom ratings’ giant All in the Family, which though it began with a slow start in 1971, became the “eye” network’s staple of newly crowned contemporary comedies. By this time, the network had rid itself of country-geared hits like Mayberry R.F.D. (1968–1971; a spin-off and continuation of The Andy Griffith Show, which had debuted in 1960), The Beverly Hillbillies (1962–1971), Green Acres (1965–1971), and Petticoat Junction (1963–1970); each perhaps more realistic than the fantasy fare presented by Bewitched, but nowhere near the edgy modern truths that would mark the scripts of producer Norman Lear’s All in the Family, and his subsequent CBS spin-offs like Maude (1972–1978), The Jeffersons (1975–1985), and others of this ilk.

  The issue-laden adventures of Archie and Edith Bunker (played by the Emmy-winning Carroll O’Connor and Jean Stapleton) on CBS’ All in the Family were very different than the magic escapades of Samantha and Darrin on ABC’s Bewitched
. The television landscape had changed, right along with the times, and viewers were apparently ready for the alterations, although Bewitched executive producer Harry Ackerman once relayed how the networks were too quick to make such sweeping changes. “There was room for all kinds of programming,” he said. Most assuredly, he was referring to Bewitched, which in fact, was renewed for three more seasons in the spring of 1970, the end of its seventh year.

  But Lizzie had first resigned from the show in the spring of 1969, the close of its fifth season which just so happened to be Dick York’s final semester as Darrin. At that point, certain terms were renegotiated in a new four-year deal that was put in place for seasons six and seven with a mutual option for seasons eight and nine. An additional Bewitched TV-movie would then follow in the tenth year, but only if both sides—Columbia, and Lizzie and Bill Asher—agreed upon all terms. If not, one party could not then force the other to undertake the optional year.

  Before season seven commenced in the fall of 1970, that year would be designated as its final semester. Screen Gems and ABC then renegotiated another deal with Lizzie and Bill, granting them close to 80 percent of the show’s ownership, along with complete creative control, which in effect they had always had, except that now it was official. It was also a way of sticking it to Jackie Cooper for the way he had treated them in 1963, when the show was first developed.

  Consequently, in March of 1971, it was announced that Bewitched would be back for its eighth season, and that would become its last year in production. Somewhere in the midst of that final season (circa March 1972), Lizzie consented to a ninth year and then, after everyone else had agreed to move forward, she changed her mind. ABC once more met with their favorite star and offered her the farm, as it were. She politely listened, thanked all attending parties, but declined their generous offer, and that was that.

  In the interim, Bill Asher admittedly made some personal and professional missteps. He spent too much time on the sets of ABC’s Temperatures Rising and The Paul Lynde Show, both of which he and Lizzie bartered to produce in place of Bewitched through their Ashmont production company which was still in operation. At which point, Richard Michaels could have easily stepped in as Samantha’s core producer/director, if not Lizzie’s potential next husband.

  Peter Ackerman remembers hearing a conversation between his parents, Bewitched executive producer Harry Ackerman and Father Knows Best actress Elinor Donahue, who were unaware of his close proximity. It had to do with Lizzie and another crew member, possibly Michaels, approaching his father about continuing Bewitched, “obviously pushing Bill Asher out.”

  He explains:

  My dad, as loyal a man as you could ever meet, determined not to stab Bill in the back like that, and kindly but firmly told Liz and the other fellow “no.” I recall another part of that same conversation between my parents which, if true, is a bit salacious and would only be seen as gossip today. So I will keep that to myself. I do recall that on this very same day Bill Asher and his kids came over to the house, probably to commiserate with my dad. I was out playing with his and Liz’s kids and I told Willie, their oldest son about what I overheard; both what I shared here and what I did not. And I realize now that it probably got back innocently to one or both parents. Again, we were young and would not have had the filters to keep things to ourselves. I still believe to this day that I may be the reason that the Asher kids never came to play with us again. Years later Bill mentioned that right after that visit, Liz made it clear that their kids were no longer to go to our house. It could be that Willie shared what I said to him with his mom and dad and because of that, or perhaps only because Liz was disappointed that my dad did not continue the show with her and the other fellow, [that] made her decide to separate herself from the Ackerman family as much as possible, including not having her kids play [with us].

  As time went on, Peter never sensed any hard feelings between the two families. “My parents would see Lizzie at events,” he says, and in 1975, his father took to him visit her on the set of The Legend of Lizzie Borden, “and she could not have been nicer to me or my dad.”

  Harry Ackerman passed away in 1991 and Lizzie entertained the idea of attending the service, for which Bill Asher hosted the post-funeral gathering with his then-wife, actress Joyce Bulifant, Marie Slaughter on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and mother of John Asher (former husband to Jenny McCarthy). “But ultimately,” Peter says, “Liz decided not to attend.”

  In 1997, the Asher family organized a surprise seventy-fifth birthday party for Bill, who was by then divorced from Bulifant, and now married to Meredith Asher. Peter was invited to the bash, along with many of the Bewitched crew. Also in attendance were two of the Ashers’ adult children, Billy, Jr. and Rebecca, both with whom, Peter says, he “happily, and most importantly, was able to reestablish contact.” Unfortunately, he says, the Ashers’ middle child, Robert, did not attend the gathering.

  There was likely a large list of directors/producers who could have easily taken the Bewitched reigns in Bill Asher’s absence, even with another actor besides Dick York or Dick Sargent potentially playing a third Darrin. But there was only one Samantha, and she was portrayed by the irreplaceable Elizabeth Montgomery—who was simply not interested in moving forward with the series.

  Consequently, ABC developed and aired The Paul Lynde Show and what ultimately became The New Temperatures Rising Show with Lynde replacing James Whitmore from the old Temperatures Rising sitcom, all of which aired in place of Bewitched’s nonexistent ninth season and subsequent TV-movie sequel (intended for the 1972–1974 seasons).

  But when Bewitched switched to Saturday nights in the fall of 1971 to do battle against All in the Family, Lizzie had chosen not to continue with the series, even though ABC had opted to renew it. She was tired and viewing episodes from that eighth year, that became abundantly evident to the audience. Beyond the “liberated woman” braless look that she was sporting by that time (as was Marlo Thomas as Ann Marie in the final season of ABC’s That Girl, 1966–1971), Lizzie looked as though she was dragging her feet in every scene. By this time, too, Dick Sargent was into his third season playing Darrin, and the show started reworking previous Dick York episodes. It remains puzzling as to why Bill Asher and company simply did not hire an entirely new batch of writers to create all new scripts. Instead, many of the show’s episodes in that final year were mere retreads of previous segments.

  Essentially, the rewriting of such scripts paved the way for the writing on the wall, and the end was near for Bewitched. Peter Ackerman remembers those final hours:

  Although I was young I had a sense then that it had run its course. I remember watching a “new” episode with my grandmother, in which Darrin was squawking through his living room dressed as a chicken or something and I recall thinking, “This show is starting to get too silly,” although I never told my dad that.

  In the eyes of Ackerman, the Bewitched cancellation “cancelled something else. With it or, more to the point, because of it, Bill and Liz ended their marriage.”

  By then, Screen Gems/Columbia was co-producing the series with Ashmont Productions, Lizzie and Bill’s company that took its cue from Desilu Productions, presided over by Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball. A pattern was beginning to take shape, for better and for worse, with female TV stars and their business partner/husbands, one that Jackie Cooper had first recognized with Donna Reed and her business partner/husband Tony Owen and their power struggle over The Donna Reed Show.

  Yet, whereas Reed and Owen stayed together until after the Donna show’s demise, the end of Ball’s half-hour weekly series I Love Lucy in 1957 was followed by her real-life marriage dissolution from husband and show producer Arnaz. Twenty years later when The Mary Tyler Moore Show ended its CBS run in 1977, Moore called it quits with her show producer/husband Grant Tinker. After CBS gave the pink slip to The Carol Burnett Show in 1978, Carol gave walking papers to her husband and Burnett show producer Joe Hamilton. When Sonny & Cher ended t
heir famous CBS Comedy Hour in 1974, so did they end their real-life once wedded bliss. Now Bewitched was closing its doors, and so soon would be the Montgomery/Asher love affair.

  As writer K.V. Burroughs expressed in Movieland and TV Time magazine, September 1972:

  If I were to repeat rumors of reasons the Ashers may have decided to call it a day, it would be talking about something I simply know nothing about and refuse to pass along. It really isn’t important and is between Liz and Bill. It is sad and obviously must be painful to both of them. Divorces are very painful and create a sense of failure in both parties. There are always the questions, Where did we go wrong? We were so much in love. How could it be gone? Was it my fault? Sometimes there just are not good answers to any of these questions, but they still torture the two who are going through the death of their love. It is even worse if love is still strong in one of the parties and not in the other. At any rate, no divorce comes about overnight. It takes years of marriage erosion to cause two wonderful people like the Ashers to decide to call it a day. It takes a lot of intolerable living to be convinced that the children would be better off with two separate parents than one unhappy pair trying to hide their marital trouble from the eyes of their little children. If it is true that they have decided to divorce, it is a great tragedy for them and we are sorry to hear it. Liz would not be the first wife to deny trouble in her marriage right up to the last minute. There have been cases in Hollywood where stars denied splitting even on the day they filed for divorce. So far as we know, Elizabeth is resting after a long run in a very popular TV series. The Ashers should have no money problems because the series has made them wealthy. It is a time for resting and thinking and reviewing their lives. Perhaps in the more relaxed atmosphere they will decide to go on together. We’ll all know soon enough. Meantime keep your fingers crossed. I am.