Twitch Upon a Star

by Herbie J. Pilato

  “I’m sure Elizabeth would love to see you,” Foxworth said.

  “I was looking forward to it,” Robertson recalled in 2011, “because I had not seen her in a long time.”

  So, that spring day, sometime in mid-May 1995, Robertson followed Foxworth to the home he shared with Lizzie in Beverly Hills. Upon arrival, they parked their separate cars and Foxworth went inside to tell Lizzie that her friend was waiting outside. Only a few moments later, he emerged to tell Robertson that she was too ill for visitors. “And she died shortly thereafter,” Robertson lamented. “I never got to see her. She just didn’t want to see anyone, and I didn’t blame her. But to this day, I miss her … because we had such a rollicking good-pal relationship.”

  “I loved her dearly,” says Sally Kemp. “You know … some people are a source of light in your life, and she was just a source of light in mine.” And Sally was “deeply saddened” when she heard of Lizzie’s passing because, like so many of her friends, Sally “hadn’t known that she had been sick.”

  On June 18, 1995, a memorial service for Lizzie was held at the Canon Theatre in Beverly Hills. Herbie Hancock provided the music, and Dominick Dunne spoke about their days together in New York when they were both starting out in the business. Other speakers including Robert Fox-worth, who read out loud sympathy cards from fans, her nurse, her brother, daughter, and stepson. Amanda McBroom sang, and the entire service ended with the lights going down. A beautiful shot of Lizzie on a video screen, flickered in the dark, and those in attendance rose and applauded. Lizzie had asked that any donations in her memory should be made to the William Holden Wildlife Association in Kenya or the Los Angeles Zoo.

  Kemp, in New York at the time, was unable to attend the service, but a mutual acquaintance who was there said most of those present were “not old friends. They were people who were kind of new friends.”

  At the service, Sally and Lizzie’s mutual acquaintance was approached by yet a third party, who asked, “Are you an old friend of Elizabeth’s?”

  To which the second party replied, “Yes—but I hadn’t seen her for years and years. Are you an old friend?”

  “Well,” the third party responded in return, “I had only known her for about five years. But I think I was on my way out.”

  Says Kemp:

  So, that was like Elizabeth and not like Elizabeth, because she wouldn’t make you feel like you were on your way out. You just were out. And I just wonder where that influence came from. I do know that her relationship with Bob Foxworth was a very challenging relationship. So, maybe it stemmed from that. She did seem to be attracted to troubled guys, and felt maybe that she could fix them, or that she felt comfortable with them.

  In 1999, Liz Sheridan told A&E’s Biography that Lizzie and Foxworth “became dear friends and lovers,” and after that, it was difficult to keep them apart. They were two strong-willed people who “argued,” but enjoyed reconciling, “making love and being happy and giggling.”

  Then, one day in 1993, Lizzie and Bob were sitting at their kitchen table, discussing some particularly important matter and he said, “You know—this situation would be so much easier if we were married.”

  Lizzie looked at him and asked, “Is that a proposal?”

  He thought about that a half-a-second and said, “Okay.”

  To which she then added, “Yes.”

  So on January 28, 1993, they got married in a private ceremony in her manager Barry Krost’s apartment in Los Angeles. About fifteen minutes later, Lizzie called her friend Sheridan to tell her the news. Sheridan said Lizzie was so “child-like and sweet.”

  According to Sally Kemp, Elizabeth was also “a multi-layered mystery, and I would love to one day know some of the answers, while I would also prefer to remember the young woman I knew.”

  Elizabeth had left an equally puzzling imprint on her friend, author and investigative journalist Dominick Dunne. As he observed in his book The Way We Lived Then, after Bewitched made her a star, he and his wife Lenny never saw her again “for reasons unknown.” She disconnected from her friends and those she knew between divorcing Gig Young and just before marrying Bill Asher and subsequently playing Samantha. In fact, as Dunne explained, he and Lenny once passed Elizabeth on a sidewalk in Beverly Hills, but she refused to acknowledge them, a slight that cut deep, particularly for Lenny. But it would hurt Lizzie even more later on.

  In 1991, she was interested in playing the lead role of Pauline Mendelson in the TV-movie, An Inconvenient Woman, based on Dunne’s novel of the same name. But as explained in The Way We Lived Then, in a wrath of anger, he blackballed her, and the part went to Jill Eikenberry (L.A. Law). However, Dunne made allowances for Elaine Stritch, who was once engaged to Gig Young, to have a small role in the film.

  Come 1995, however, things changed. Dunne had been covering the trial of O. J. Simpson, who had co-starred with Lizzie in the 1977 TV-movie, A Killing Affair. Upon learning of her cancerous death sentence, Dunne decided it was time for reconciliation. Whatever had divided their friendship now “faded into unimportance,” he said. He could now only recall the happier times they once shared.

  So, while she was still at Cedar-Sinai Hospital, and only two days before she passed away, Lizzie received a note from Dunne expressing just how wonderful it was to have been her friend. Bob Foxworth had read her the message, and she was happy to have heard it. Foxworth subsequently invited Dunne, who had known Lizzie from their early days of television—when he was a mere stage manager on Robert Montgomery Presents and on which she was a budding starlet—to deliver a eulogy at her funeral.

  “You’re the only one who knew her from that part of her life,” Fox-worth told him, which was not entirely true. Sally Kemp and Cliff Robertson both knew and worked with Lizzie on Robert Montgomery Presents and would have welcomed the chance to bid their dear friend a loving public farewell.

  But Robertson never saw much of Lizzie after her divorce from Fred Cammann. Kemp never saw much of Lizzie after her marriage to Gig Young. And Robertson, Kemp, and Dunne never saw much of Lizzie after she married Bill Asher and Bewitched made her a star. But Dunne’s ability to write paved the way, and cleared the air … for at least one final transmission that reconnected what turned out to be an unbroken if unspoken bond.

  But she had that kind of effect on everyone in her life, certainly Fox-worth who told Entertainment Tonight in 2006, “To some extent, a part of her lives in me. And it’s not so much about a thought. That’s just the way it is.”

  On MSNBC’s Headliners & Legends he added, she was “completely gracious and giving and kind, and easy-going and unaffected and unpretentious. And as we hung out together and played together and had dinner together I was more and more seduced and … bewitched … if you will, by this wonderful woman.”

  On that same show, Billy Asher, Jr. explained how his mom “lives in a lot of people’s homes and in their hearts,” and that her “greatest legacy is her ability to give young girls growing up the idea of how strong a woman could be.”

  One of those young women is assuredly Billy’s sister, Rebecca Asher, who in also appearing on Headliners & Legends, said she more than anything misses hearing her mother’s lyrical sounds. “She had a beautiful voice.”

  Today, Rebecca, who is just as private as her mother was, went on to describe Lizzie as “almost child-like … She loved surprises, and art, and being creative at Christmas … she loved all of that…. She just had this kind of magical persona.”

  Billy, Jr. delivered a near identical description of his mother on Legends:

  “She had this mystical child-like quality about her.”

  Throughout Lizzie’s life, however, her child-like ways played both in her favor and at times against her better judgment. It was productive when she transferred that real-life charming aspect of herself onto the screen as Samantha Stephens, which became one of the most popular and likable characters in TV history. It played against her in the immature way she established and then
disavowed friendships.

  As Sally Kemp and Dominick Dunne discovered, if Elizabeth felt affronted by or uncomfortable with something a friend said or did, intentional or not, even in the slightest way, that was it: the friendship was over. There were no second chances. However, like so much of her true-to-life character development, this character flaw can be traced back to her childhood relationship with Robert Montgomery. As she explained to Ronald Haver in 1991:

  It took me awhile to understand maybe why people either at school or other friends kids that I knew didn’t pay any attention to me and then all of a sudden they did … It’s like I’d get all tickled about, “Oh, somebody wants to come to my birthday.” And then they’d come to my birthday, and I’d be hoping to see them again, and then I’d never see them again until like my next birthday … It didn’t occur to me right away that there were some people who really only wanted to come to see (my father) … That was kind of hard sometimes … to think that you’d found a new friend and then realize that that wasn’t it at all.

  On New Year’s Eve, 1967, in the prime of Lizzie’s magical turn as Samantha on Bewitched, she had a friend in famed sportscaster Vin Scully, with whom she co-hosted ABC’s Tournament of Roses Parade. In 2011, Yahoo! Sports reporter Dave Brown interviewed Scully for a segment he called Answer Man. Brown mentioned having screened Lizzie’s promo for that classic Tournament broadcast and asked Scully what it was like to work with her during what was the peak of Bewitched’s success. Scully replied:

  All I can tell you is that she was a sweet, unaffected superstar. In those days, forty years ago, she was queen of television. I was in awe of her presence. After being with her for a little while, I realized she was so down-to-earth. She was a mother, she was a wife; she was not theatrically inclined at all. I didn’t realize until the day of the parade, but we had to go up a tower. It wasn’t literally a tower, it was a platform of six or seven steps. And she couldn’t go up it. She was scared to death. She had a phobia about heights. She put her face in my back and put her arms around me and I took her up the six steps and got her seated and she was fine. The most important thing for me about that is to tell anyone, including you, that she was the nicest girl. It was really an honor.

  A witch’s honor … as when on Bewitched, with either her left or right hand, but preferably her left, Lizzie’s Samantha occasionally made a particular gesture to (either) Darrin that signified that she was revealing the absolute truth about a given situation, much like the Boy Scout’s Honor, but not. Here’s how it worked: she’d place the index and middle fingers of her hand on either side of her nose with her fingertips pointing toward her eyes. While giving the sign, she’d intone, “Witches’ honor,” which in many ways was an omen of things to come.

  At the close of 2011, actress Donna Douglas, who played Elly May Clampett on The Beverly Hillbillies in the 1960s, settled a lawsuit over a Barbie doll that used her character’s name and likeness. According to The Associated Press, Douglas had originally sought $75,000, but the details of her actual settlement were confidential.

  On September 22, 1994, The Toronto Star reported a similar suit, although on a much larger scale in which Lizzie claimed Sony (by way of Screen Gems/Columbia) owed her $5 million in Bewitched licensing dues. A short time before she passed away in May of 1995, the suit was settled and, as with the Douglas case, the amount was confidential. But Lizzie was clearly looking out for her fortune, and ultimately did not want to have her children go through that legal battle without her.

  On September 10, 1995, less than four months after she died, television’s top executives, producers, agents and actors turned out to honor her at the Women in Film’s Second Annual Lucy Awards. The award, named for Lucille Ball, had also been bestowed upon Bewitched guest star Imogene Coca (Your Show of Shows), Brianne Murphy, Fred Silverman and Tracey Ullman, and it is given for innovation in television. During the three-hour ceremony, which was held at the Beverly Hills Hotel, Robert Foxworth delivered a touching tribute to Lizzie, while afterward her daughter Rebecca Asher accepted the award.

  On April 19, 1998, the Duet Nightclub in Los Angeles hosted a birthday celebration/wardrobe sale/auction in Lizzie’s name. Donations of her belongings collected by her children and Robert Foxworth were auctioned to benefit the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (which was established in 1987). According to www.bewitched.net, the benefit raised approximately $15,000 to $20,000.

  On June 12 and 13, 1999, Lizzie’s family—led by daughter Rebecca— held an estate sale of her belongings at her Benedict Canyon Drive home in Beverly Hills. As documented by www.bewitched.net, some of the items sold included her 1977 Bentley (with the license plate, BENTLIZ), which fetched $15,000; a 1970 Oldsmobile Cutless in sound condition (which sold for $4000.00); and some African jewelry that Lizzie and Bob Foxworth had brought back from their on-location-in-Kenya shoot for their 1990 Hallmark Hall of Fame TV-movie, Face to Face.

  Approximately six years later, on June 15, 2005, the network executives at TV Land announced plans to erect a nine-foot bronze statue of her likeness as Samantha in Salem, Massachusetts, which TV Guide had years before labeled “America’s Number 1 witch city.”

  While Bewitched was still in production and at the onset of its seventh season (1970–1971), Lizzie and the cast and crew traveled to Salem for what became the show’s only main on-location shooting for an arc-storyline involving Samantha’s trip to a witches’ convention. As Lizzie said in 1989, “The crowds were crazy in Salem. It was really spooky. I mean it was terrific because it meant they felt (we) were terrific.” Lizzie’s co-star Dick Sargent also said in 1989, “It was the first time I felt like one of The Beatles.”

  Decades later, the scene was not all that different in Salem at the induction of Lizzie’s Samantha statue. According to The Boston Globe, the Bewitched minions were still present in droves, as nearly 2,000 people gravitated toward the city’s Lappin Park at the corner of Washington and Essex Streets to unveil Lizzie’s larger-than-life likeness:

  She sits on a broom. In the background, a crescent moon rests atop a cloud on a pedestal. She’s dressed as she mostly appeared on Bewitched: as an average housewife of the 1960s in a typical housedress. She’s smiling, with her left arm turned up at the elbow, and legs crossed at the ankles; the perfect lady; the perfect woman … at least of the era.

  On stage partaking in the commemoration: Bill Asher, Bewitched performers Bernard Fox (Dr. Bombay), Erin Murphy (Tabitha), and Kasey Rogers (Louise Tate, 1966–1972), Salem’s Mayor Stanley J. Usovicz, Jr., and Larry W. Jones, President of TV Land and Nick at Nite, who explained:

  Bewitched was and still remains a magical and beloved series. The series has been enchanting audiences for over forty years, and it is filled with heart and humor. Because several episodes were filmed in Salem, it is truly fitting that we would celebrate it with a statue here.

  Added Mayor Usovicz:

  We are pleased to welcome the statue of Elizabeth Montgomery as Samantha Stephens, to Salem. Our connection to this beautiful piece of contemporary art goes beyond the episodes filmed here. Samantha saw the magic in everyday life, and so do we.

  The sculpture represented the network’s fifth effort to honor people, places, and moments from America’s small screen heritage by recognizing the Sam site as a “TV Land Landmark.” The network’s first salute—a bronze statue of Ralph Kramden of The Honeymooners—was unveiled in 2000 and now adorns the entrance to New York City’s Port Authority Bus Terminal. In May 2002, a bronze statue of Mary Tyler Moore from The Mary Tyler Moore Show was uncovered and now stands on Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis, MN. An Andy Griffith Show statue, which depicts Griffith and a young Ron Howard as Sheriff Andy Taylor and his son Opie walking, hand-in-hand (as in the opening credit sequence of that classic series), is located in Raleigh’s Pullen Park and was unveiled in October, 2003. In July of 2004, TV Land honored yet another of television’s most enduring icons, Bob Newhart, with a life-sized bronze sculpture commemorating his ro
le as Dr. Robert Hartley on The Bob Newhart Show in Chicago.

  Thomas Hill, Vice President and Creative Director for TV Land, explains how Lizzie’s Samantha likeness joined their statuesque legacy:

  One of the very first statues we did was Mary Tyler Moore—and the original concept was to find some way to have her tossed-hat be floating forever above her outstretched hand (as in the opening credits sequence of The Mary Tyler Moore Show). But the laws of physics and the limitations of forced air/magnets/tricks with mirrors forced us to capture the moment just before her hat actually left her hand. In those same conversations, we quickly generated other ideas for dozens of beloved TV characters—and we wanted Samantha to fly! Since The Flying Nun didn’t have quite the pop culture staying power of Bewitched.

  Creating a TV Land Landmark required extensive preparation and conversation between the various stakeholders. “Finding just the right location was never easy,” Hill acknowledges. He once even suggested placing Dick Van Dyke’s Rob Petrie on an endless commute between his Alan Brady Show’s writer office in New York City and the New Rochelle home he shared with Moore’s Laura Petrie and Larry Mathew’s little Richie, “but train seats are hard to book permanently.”

  As to Lizzie’s potential Samantha statue landing, Connecticut was once considered as an option, but as Hill recalls, “the civic leaders in Salem seemed more open to embracing the connection.”

  Into this mix, Studio EIS, a three-dimensional design and sculpture studio in New York founded by brothers Ivan and Elliot Schwartz, created Lizzie’s life-sized bronze sculpture, as well as the Griffith and Newhart sculptures. The Schwartz brothers also created statutes of the Founding Fathers—which are located in the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, and commemorative objects for museums, including the Smithsonian. The week Lizzie’s statue was erected, Studio EIS was filled with more than a dozen life-like military figures, part of a project for the Marines.