Twenty-three
Graduation
“I remember telling everybody that I was her best friend. But then I realized that everybody in the theatre, and there were hundreds of people there, could probably say the same thing. She made you feel important.”
—Liz Sheridan, reflecting on Elizabeth’s memorial service, MSNBC’s Headliners & Legends (2001)
From the moment she graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, at only twenty-one, Lizzie was working, non-stop, so much so she lost her diploma at an NBC rehearsal hall the day after she received it. Such a loss, however, did not diminish her ambition or her career. As detailed elsewhere within these pages, Elizabeth went on to make over 200 guest-appearances on various TV shows of the era, and then came Samantha.
Beyond Bewitched, Lizzie never again played a regular character in a weekly series. She had been there, done that with the twitch-witch for eight years, which she viewed as a college extension course in entertainment and adult education. She was tired of the grind, plain and simple. She wanted to have a life, to live the scripts of life, rather than star in one every week.
After she stayed the course as Sam, she wanted to spend more time with her children, and still be able work periodically, which she did with her various TV-movies. Today, actors can star on weekly shows, make TV-movies, feature films, even appear in live stage plays. In Lizzie’s day, there were contract confinements and it wasn’t as easy to cross over and/or in between different media. Today, with the blur of television, features, DVD, movies on demand, streaming videos, YouTube, new online networks, it’s a different world.
Upon completing Bewitched, Lizzie was many times approached about starring in a new weekly series. But she kept rejecting them, along with a few TV-movies she felt were not the right fit.
In 1976, George Schaefer directed the television film, Amelia Earhart, about the famed female pilot. Lizzie was offered the lead, but turned it down, and the part went to Susan Clark.
In 1979, CBS wanted to transform Lizzie’s hit TV-movie, Jennifer: A Woman’s Story, about a wealthy widow who takes over her husband’s company, into a series. But she declined the offer.
In 1981, ABC approached her about playing Krystle Carrington on Dynasty. She said no, and the role went to Linda Evans, whose career was rejuvenated because she said yes. Evans had not been seen on TV in any regular capacity since her Big Valley days (1965–1969) on ABC. Before that, she appeared in Beach Blanket Bingo, directed by William Asher. Two decades later, she ended up playing Krystle until 1989. That could have been Lizzie, but for her, a nighttime soap was unappealing.
And as previously mentioned, in 1986, Elizabeth even deflected a chance to work alongside Bob Foxworth in CBS’ Falcon Crest. Instead, the part went to Kim Novak (who years before had also played a witch, in Bell, Book and Candle, the 1958 feature that was said to have inspired Bewitched).
In 1987, Lizzie was asked to portray Poker Alice in the CBS TV-movie of the same name. Alice had an incurable penchant for gambling, and Lizzie loved to gamble. But maybe that plot hit too close to home, or maybe she declined because this movie was a back-door pilot for a weekly series. Either way, it was no dice. The part went to another Elizabeth … Elizabeth Taylor, who at one point called Lizzie and asked, “Are you sure you don’t want to do this role?” For whatever reason, Lizzie was sure.
Then, in 1994, she agreed to star in the CBS TV-movie The Corpse Had a Familiar Face, based on the career of murder mystery investigative journalist Edna Buchanan. Lizzie loved doing the movie. According to what Liz Sheridan told MSNBC’s Headliners & Legends in 2001, she was fascinated with Edna’s courage, and subsequently wanted to appear in an entire series of Buchanan films. When the Familiar ratings proved substantial, CBS complied with Lizzie’s wishes.
The following year, she starred in a sequel: Deadline for Murder: From the Files of Edna Buchanan, for which Variety’s Adam Sandler gave a scathing review, May 8, 1995:
The explanation in the opening credits of the telefilm suggested by the life and career of Edna Buchanan should warn viewers that the two-hour spec is likely to have little resemblance to the Pulitzer Prize-winning Miami Herald crime reporter’s novels or life, both of which make for far more interesting fare than this dubious offering.
The first confirmation comes with show’s use of Santa Monica to double for Fort Lauderdale, and MacArthur Park as downtown Miami, serving as the backdrop for the travails of Buchanan (Elizabeth Montgomery).
Her days are spent responding to the call of the wild, writing about the town’s gruesome murders and shady characters, while solving crimes the cops seem incapable of closing.
In Buchanan’s Miami, drug lords rule and the town is populated by mafia kingpins, ponytailed bodyguards, and marble-floored estates.
When a local mobster is murdered along with his mistress and a tow truck driver who came to the couple’s aid on a dark, rainy night, ace reporter Buchanan and a local tabloid show reporter, Joe Flanigan (Scott Cameron), race to discover the identity of the killer and a motive.
In the process, story’s subtext has Buchanan solving a pair of crimes unrelated to the main murder, resulting in the clearing of one man and the conviction of another.
But writers Les Carter and Susan Sisko create a script that lacks the staccato tempo or vivid articulations of the real-life Buchanan’s novels, such as Suitable for Framing, which chronicles the exploits of her fictional alter-ego, police beat reporter Britt Montero.
Show’s dialogue frequently is lame, lacking any punch even in the most crucial of circumstances and delivered by cardboard characters who fail to connect with viewers or each other.
Montgomery’s Buchanan is a rumpled but efficient sort, who sleeps with a gun under her pillow and argues frequently with her mom (Audra Lind-ley), who is temporarily sharing Buchanan’s home while the exterminator is debugging mom’s pad.
A relationship with police detective Marty Talbot (Yaphet Kotto) is equally strained, as they frequently butt heads on investigations led by Talbot and written about, and ultimately solved, by Buchanan.
But Buchanan presumably can relate only to the town’s new coroner, Aaron Bliss (Dean Stockwell), and the pair strike up an instant friendship.
Though attempts to advance the relationship often are interrupted by the call to service—hers a ringing cellular phone; his a pager—the pair try in earnest nonetheless.
The movie suffers from a lack of credibility on other fronts: Viewers may have difficulty believing Montgomery as the hard-bitten scribe, toiling endlessly without regard for the clock. Her acting style makes its hard to tell whether a joke or a dramatic line meant for serious cogitation was just delivered.
The only bright spot in this laborious offering is the tow truck driver’s widow Rosinha, played convincingly by Saundra Santiago, who viewers may recall as Gina, a detective in the popular Miami Vice series.
Santiago delivers show’s best dramatic perf, rising above the din of her co-stars. But it comes too late.
Joyce Chopra’s direction is perfunctory at best, and takes no risks in telling this mostly vapid tale.
However dismissive that review may have been for Murder, like The Corpse Had a Familiar Face before it, was a ratings bonanza. In fact, it became the highest-rated TV-movie of 1995. Consequently, Elizabeth had intended to play Buchanan in two or three movies a year, as Peter Falk had reprised his Columbo character for new ABC-TV movies in the 1990s based on his popular NBC Mystery Movie series of the 1970s. (At one point, Lizzie had even been interested in playing Mrs. Columbo in a semi-sequel to Falk’s seminal show. But the lead for that series, which failed, went to Kate Mul-grew, who later starred as Captain Janeway on Star Trek: Voyager.)
Meanwhile, Deadline co-star Saundra Santiago’s memories of working with Lizzie are “nothing but pleasant”:
She was a gem of person to work with … very giving in her scenes with actors, particularly with my scenes. My character [Rosinha] had a lot of emotion
al moments and she was very attentive to those moments. She was one of the most gracious women I’ve ever worked with, and I really had a lot of fun with her. She was very open and forthcoming in our conversations. I remember clearly how she was so completely available to me as an actress at all times. She was not one of those actors who stayed in their trailers and only came out when they had their scenes. That was not her at all. She talked about her children. She loved them very much. It was clear that she had a loving relationship with them, and she was proud of the job she did with them as a mother.
Mirroring Cliff Robertson’s recollections of Lizzie in their youth, Santiago goes on to say how “grounded” Lizzie was as a person. “She knew how to keep herself real [in Hollywood]. She was the most unassuming actor I’ve ever worked with … very humble and very sweet. She was a real pro … a very lovely woman.”
A fan of Bewitched, Santiago was initially apprehensive about talking with Lizzie about her most famous role:
I didn’t want to mention Bewitched when we first started working together, because I figured everyone did that with her, and I wanted to keep things on a professional level. And I certainly didn’t want to ask her if she would wiggle her nose. But after a while, I felt safe enough to at least bring up the show. I expressed to her what an iconic role I thought Samantha was … how I loved all the characters on the show, and how I used to run home from school just so I could watch it [in reruns]. And she seemed proud of that. She looked at Samantha as a fond memory. She spoke of Bewitched very well … almost … wistfully.
But, you know, when you’re sick, you start to appreciate everything. I couldn’t imagine that she didn’t know she was sick. She might not have wanted to say anything because of the insurance. They [the studios, networks] make actors get physicals. I remember Kathy Bates [who battled cancer] once talking about how she hid her [chemotherapy] treatments because she was afraid of not getting any work. And Elizabeth very much wanted to work. She enjoyed [doing the Buchanan films], and Edna was a good role for her.
And since Murder, She Wrote was on its way out at CBS, the network was looking to fill that older-female-mystery demographic. But fate had other plans.
“No one ever knew she had cancer,” Santiago says of Lizzie. “And then when she died, it was shocking to me … to work so closely with someone like that … and then only to have them pass away such a short time afterward. It was just so sad.”
Upon working with Lizzie, Saundra was not aware that her father was Robert Montgomery, who in 1981 had succumbed to cancer, which, as it turns out, had also taken the life of Saundra’s father. “It’s not a discriminating disease,” she says. “It’ll grab onto whoever it can.”
And as much as she wants to remember the happy experience of working with Elizabeth, Saundra can’t help but recall a few other developments that transpired on the Deadline set that she calls “eerie and kind of weird.” She explains:
At one point during filming, Elizabeth’s appearance was very ashy, and someone on the set said, “Give her some color.” But she didn’t make a big deal of it. The makeup man just came over and touched her up a little bit. She took it all in stride. I also noticed that she was very thin, but everybody in L.A. is thin, and you just don’t think anything of it. She still looked beautiful, and she never complained about anything … or being tired or any of that.
And then after we completed the movie, I wanted to get a picture with her. But I didn’t have my camera. So I asked one of the crew to take our picture, and these were the days before digital cameras, and all he had was a Polaroid [instant camera with film that immediately develops]. So he took the picture, and we had to wait for it to dry. But it didn’t come out clear. It was all blurry. And I remember thinking to myself, “Geez … why didn’t that picture come out?”
Santiago had become apprehensive of taking pictures ever since a trip to Santorini Island in Greece, which she calls “a very superstitious place. It’s a volcanic island, with all kinds of ‘spirits.’ And I took a few pictures there, and they all came out like the Polaroid picture that crew member took of me and Elizabeth. There were a lot of ghost-like images all over the place. It came out very strange.”
Away from the set of Deadline for Murder, Lizzie was busy nursing Robert Foxworth, who had recently undergone hip-replacement surgery. As the actor told People magazine on June 5, 1995, Lizzie was strong and confident, whereas he was apprehensive. “She was there for me when I first tried getting up on crutches.”
Foxworth “was quite devoted to her,” says actress Bonnie Bartlett, who had known Lizzie from New York in the 1950s and when they both appeared in 1975’s The Legend of Lizzie Borden. Like Saundra Santiago had lost her father to cancer, Bartlett lost her father, mother, and brother to colon cancer, the same form of the disease that did not spare Lizzie’s life. “If my father would have had the proper exam, he would have pulled through,” Bartlett says. Just like Lizzie, “he didn’t have to die. And as I recall, she was never tested for colon cancer, and neither was my Dad.”
According to People magazine, Foxworth, Bill Asher, and Lizzie’s children each tried to get Lizzie to see a doctor. But she refused, even after her daughter Rebecca noticed how thin she had become on the set of Murder. Still, Lizzie disregarded the notion, and ultimately ignored what were in effect warning signs that something was wrong … deadly wrong.
But as Saundra Santiago has revealed, and as Liz Sheridan once explained on A&E’s Biography in 1999, that’s how Lizzie was; she kept things to herself. There was “no dwelling.” She was secretive and preferred that people didn’t know if she was upset or worried or in pain, in anguish of any kind; she toughed things out. As Sheridan later expressed to MSNBC’s Headliners & Legends in 2001, Lizzie never really wanted to face anything that was “bad or ugly.” She was in a “huge state of denial.”
Such denial, however, still did not betray her loyalty. Lizzie instructed the powers-that-be to cast Sheridan in Deadline for Murder so the two could visit. As Sheridan later revealed at Lizzie’s Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony, January 4, 2008, “She was getting ill and I didn’t know it. She didn’t let on.”
Then, in mid May 1995, the phone rang at Sheridan’s home. She picked up the receiver, and heard Lizzie’s voice with a simple, “Hi.”
In attempt to break through the tears with a smile, Sheridan asked, “So, what’s new?”
“Oh, a little of this and a little of that,” Lizzie replied, bravely. Then she giggled, Sheridan followed suit, and in between those little laughs were the last words they spoke.
By then, Lizzie had finally checked into Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. As People magazine reported, exploratory surgery had brought the tragic diagnosis: colon cancer. Bill Asher said Lizzie’s mood was upbeat but nervous. First she was shocked. Then she was angry.
By the time her doctors performed additional surgery to remove the cancer’s growth, she was too weak for radiation therapy, and the disease had progressed. At that point, and as Bob Foxworth explained in 2006 on Entertainment Tonight, she wanted “to go home.” He knew then, he said, that she knew she was going to die. And that she wanted to die at home.
As Billy Clift, Lizzie’s hairdresser and good friend, relayed in his compelling book Everything Is Going to Be Just Fine: Ramblings of a Mad Hairdresser (Everything Is Going to Be Just Fine Society, 1998), Bob Foxworth had explained to him the events of Lizzie’s last night of life. She had experienced a great deal of pain, made dire sounds, and her breathing was highly erratic. They were Foxworth’s most challenging hours at her side. He made every valiant effort to remain awake, but by 6 AM, he needed some sleep. Then, two hours later, Elizabeth’s nurse awakened him. There were new developments. Lizzie had become restful, tranquil, and then she passed away … at approximately 8:23 AM, May 18, 1995.
In the end, at least Lizzie was surrounded by the family she loved and held dear: Foxworth, Bill Asher and her three children with Asher, Billy Jr., Robert, and Rebecca in particula
r, who was most often at her mother’s bedside, soothing her throughout interrupted bouts of sleep.
Foxworth told People those last days with Lizzie were “loving and intense,” a fitting description for one who lived a life filled with many contradictions, some delightful, others confounding. One moment, she joked about wanting pina coladas poured into her IV. At another, she felt energetic enough to cheer on the New York Knicks during a televised basketball game—one of the simple pleasures which she embraced. But as Asher also told People, Lizzie knew she was “losing the battle.”
It was a fight for her life that ended in the early morning hours of May 18, 1995, when she was alone in her bedroom at home, taking her last breaths, with her loved ones waiting quietly in the living room, as she had requested. “She didn’t want anyone to see her that way,” Asher said. Then she slipped away.
According to what Billy Asher, Jr. relayed to MSNBC’s Headliners & Legends, his mother’s physicians were surprised that she was still hanging on in those final days. She wasn’t going to take-off during the dark of night, young Asher told them. When she’s ready to go, he thought, it’ll be in the morning with the light and the sun, “and that’s kind of what happened.”
As it had been for Lucille Ball—shortly before she died of a ruptured aorta on April 26, 1989 at Cedar-Sinai Hospital—countless cards, letters, gifts, and calls arrived at Lizzie’s room at the same hospital and at her home in Beverly Hills before she passed away in 1995.
Lizzie, like Lucy, felt an overwhelming outpouring of adoration. Most of the senders were viewers who considered themselves family members and friends, people whom she had only met through the magic of television, and then others with whom she actually worked in television, like her friends Cliff Robertson and Sally Kemp.
But unlike Liz Sheridan, who at least had a chance to speak with Lizzie on the phone before she died, Cliff and Sally would not be granted that opportunity. Shortly before his “Lizbel” passed away, Robertson shared a random in-studio TV interview with Robert Foxworth after which he said, “Bob invited me to drop by the house … for a visit.”
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