Twitch Upon a Star (16 page)

Beerbohm, who lived between 1872 and 1956, and whom George Bernard Shaw once dubbed “the incomparable Max,” was an essayist, caricaturist, critic, and short story writer who endures today as one of Edwardian England's leading satirists.
Zuleika Dobson
was Beerbohm's only novel, but a particular favorite of Robert Montgomery's.

Upon subsequently reading the adventures of
Dobson
, Lizzie so loved the character's first name that she gave it to what would become one of her many household pets. As she explained in 1989, the
Zuleika
character in Beerbohm's book was “so beautiful that the statues that she drove by in her carriage broke into cold sweats when she went by. So I thought, ‘Well, if I ever get a real pretty dog, I'm going to give her that name.'”

Approximately five years before Zuleika came into Lizzie's life, there was “Emma,” a Labrador retriever and her co-worker, as it were, on the TV-movie,
Second Sight: A Love Story
, which originally aired on CBS, March 13, 1984. Here, Lizzie portrayed
Alaxandra McKay
, a stoic, reclusive blind woman who must come to terms with her disability and the subsequent need to utilize the services of a seeing-eye dog. Lizzie in 1989:

Lizzie and Emma shared nearly every scene together in
Sight
and, at the film's wrap party, found it difficult to detach from one another, so much so, Mitchell at one point turned to Lizzie and asked, “Would you like to have Emma?”

Lizzie was shocked. “It never occurred to me that they would want me to keep her.”

She tried to talk herself out of it, if only because she thought the gifted canine would be better placed with someone who was visually impaired. “Emma was totally trained as a seeing-eye dog and I thought she could at least be used as a companion for someone who really needed her,” Lizzie said.

But Mitchell was persistent. Emma was too strong for any disabled candidate. His remaining list of specially trained dogs had already been paired with clients and continuing sessions with Emma would not have been a practical business decision. “Aside from that,” he said to Lizzie, “she's attached to you.”

“Oh, no—she's not!” Lizzie protested, hoping to convince herself of what she knew in her heart was simply not true. She also found it especially hard to dissuade Mitchell, because during their conversation, Emma remained right by her side, panting, with an eager joyful gleam in her eyes.

Lizzie melted. “Oh, shit!” she thought. “I don't believe this!”

Although she still needed time to decide, Mitchell would not take
no
for answer, and pressed her further. “You know you want that dog!”

In the end, Elizabeth finally consented to keep Emma, but unfortunately this story does not have a happy ending. The dog later developed tumors and died.

“It was just the most heartbreaking thing,” Lizzie said. “I was just a wreck. It took forever for me to get over losing her.”

Long after Emma was gone, the pang of her loss certainly haunted Lizzie with each viewing of
Second Sight
, once even while working on another of her movies,
Face to Face
, which aired on CBS in 1990, but which she filmed with Bob Foxworth in Africa in 1989. For some reason,
Sight
was being screened on the closed circuit monitors on the
Face
set. For those who have not seen the film, be warned, here is a spoiler alert:

At the end of
Sight
, Elizabeth's character,
Alaxandra
, no longer requires Emma's assistance and the two are forced to part ways. Consequently,
Alaxandra's
heartbreak became Lizzie's heartbreak in reality, and she was reminded of it every time
Sight
was seen, particularly on the set of
Face to Face
. It didn't much help matters that
Alaxandra
cried in those last aired moments in the movie.

When reminded of that scene in 1989, Lizzie explained how that moment between
Alaxandra
and Emma became intolerable for her to watch and experience, even in rehearsals:

It was the kind of emotional effect Lizzie's performances would have on fans and friends alike. Her talent and persuasive personality was evident from a very early age. According to what her former schoolmate Billie Banks revealed on MSNBC's
Headliners & Legends
, even as a child Elizabeth commanded a star-like charisma and respect, and that she at times would wriggle her nose for “good luck” during school exams.

Another childhood friend, Deborah Jowitt, appeared on
Legends
and said Lizzie had a “mischievous … happy-go-lucky nature” and was known for her humorous comments and “funny faces.”

Sally Kemp today recalls the particular facial expression—an animal imitation—that would later prove quite fortuitous. “We called it her ‘bunny nose,'” she explains in reference to Elizabeth's inevitably famous proboscis wriggle. “And we all tried to do it, but nobody could.”

By
we
, Sally means herself and cousin Panda, who were both Elizabeth's inseparable sidekicks in their youth. A good portion of that friendship was spent riding horses and roaming the endless acres of the Montgomery homestead in Towners, New York—a sprawling landscape located within Patterson, New York, and near Brewster, a place Sally remembers as a “Kennedy-like compound.”

At the turn of the twentieth century, Towners was one of Patterson's major population centers, particularly while it was a junction of the New York Central's Harlem Division and the New Haven's Maybrook Line. The commercial vicinity included a blacksmith shop, a meat market, hotel, grocery store, and hardware store. There were rumors of a reservoir project and cessation of passenger rail stops that contributed to the decline of the community as a vital commercial spot.

In short, and at least geographically speaking, Towners was to Patterson what Beverly Hills is to Los Angeles County. Elizabeth talked about the area to
Modern Screen
in May 1965.

Every summer she and her entire family, including her various aunts, uncles, and cousins, would travel back East to stay. There were three lakes in the area and, as she said, “We swam like crazy.” With rowboats and horses, “It really was the most wonderful life a child could have. We had such freedom, and such good discipline. We were taught never to go off on our own. We were taught to have respect for horses and guns (her family enjoyed shot-putting and hunting, the latter of which she later deplored). The older kids looked after the smaller kids and it was just a great big happy sort of world with no such thing as competition or any feeling of being left out. My whole life we went there, every summer. I loved the place so.”

The “left out” line was an omen of sorts. At the time of that interview, Lizzie had received her first Emmy nomination for her 1960 performance in
The Untouchables
, and would later garner a total of eight more nominations, collectively, for
Bewitched, A Case of Rape, The Legend of Lizzie Borden
, and
The Awakening Land
. But she never won.

Also, too, as will later be delineated, she loved to play games, whether it was with friends at home or behind the scenes, or on camera for game shows like
Password
or
The Hollywood Squares
. And although she later claimed indifference to her lack of Emmy victories, it was clear that, in some venues, she retained a competitive spirit throughout her life, sometimes less productively than others.

By the time Lizzie and Sally Kemp were playing with horses in Patterson, New York, Robert Montgomery and Elizabeth Allen had divorced, and he was living with his second wife, Buffy, in what Sally describes as “a beautiful home,” which was located near an equally attractive home owned by Lizzie's Aunt Martha-Bryan, sister to Elizabeth Allen, and mother to Panda.

A little more background on Martha-Bryan Allen proves bewitching:

She was born on April 30, 1903. In 1925, she met her future husband Arthur Cushman. The couple had two children: Arthur, Jr., born in 1927, and Amanda, born in 1932.

Rebecca raised her two daughters, Elizabeth Allen and Martha-Bryan, with the help of her brother William, as father John Allen was not a consistent presence in their lives.

In the meantime, the affluent Cushman family also lived in Patterson, close to the Montgomery brood in Duchess County, where their ancestors had dwelled over several generations. Arthur Cushman owned a large farmhouse in which their daughter, Elizabeth's cousin Panda, resides to this day. The Cushmans were so affluent, they lived on Cushman Road, which was named for Lizzie's Uncle Arthur—a moniker that she would later bestow upon the beloved
Bewitched
character played by Paul Lynde.

In fact, the crossroads between Patterson and
Bewitched
were manifold. Lizzie exhibited a special love for the area that was later reflected in the characters and places mentioned on the show. But most probably only viewers from the Patterson area would understand the various references to Towners and Patterson that would appear in the show's scripts. For a 1968 interview with the New York
TV Time
magazine, Lizzie revealed, “Our life in Patterson was a paradise for us. That's why I placed
Darrin
and
Samantha
in the town. If I can't be there year-round, than at least
Samantha
can.”

In the intervening time,
Samantha
and
Darrin's
last name of
Stephens
may have served as a nod to the members of the Stephens family who have represented Patterson in the New York State Assembly for several decades. The TV couple's daughter,
Tabitha
, attended the
Towners Elementary School
. Flowers within the premise of the series were delivered by
Patterson Florist
and
Mrs. Phyllis Stephens
(
Darrin's
mother played by Mabel Albertson, sister to Jack
Chico and the Man
Albertson) shopped at the
Patterson Department Store
.

Further still, real-life Towners/Patterson street names were often utilized on
Bewitched
. In the
Bewitched
episode “Sam in the Moon,”
Samantha
's pharmacist was named
Max Grand
(played by Joseph Mell), after a long time Patterson resident.

The Grands and the Montgomerys were close friends and neighbors. The Montgomery home was the second house on the left on Cushman Road off NYS Route 311. The Grands lived on the first house on the right on NYS Route 164, off Route 311. For many years, the only house in between was the Ludkin residence, which was at the start of Cushman Road at Route 311. The Ludkins operated a turkey farm and factory for many years, while most of the property in the area was owned by members of the Montgomery and Cushman families.

As the years passed, and as both of her daughters grew into adulthood, Lizzie's grandmother Becca would later divide her time every year between the homes of Elizabeth Allen and Martha-Bryan, and her own abode three thousand miles away in Malibu, California.

Six