Twitch Upon a Star (40 page)

That said, Johnson never watched
Bewitched
, so he “can't accurately compare Elizabeth's acting style, but certainly both Lindsay and Elizabeth became America's darlings and deservedly so,” he says.

As fate would have it, Johnson later served as the producer/director of
The Incredible Hulk
TV series starring Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno. As Lizzie expressed to
TV Guide
in 1979,
Hulk
was one of her favorite shows and she had at one time played opposite Bixby in a pre-
Incredible
segment of
Password
(April 5–9, 1971). Johnson's response:

It's very nice to hear that Elizabeth was a fan of
The Incredible Hulk
. High praise, indeed. We certainly labored to make each episode as meaningful and substantive as possible. Our largest audience was actually adults—with women as the largest single group. Working with Bill and Lou was always a treat. We all cared a lot. I'm glad it impacted on her so favorably.

As to the general adventures in working on
The Mike Douglas Show
, and the irony of those guests who appeared with Lizzie on her particular segment, Johnson concludes: “There is a wealth of stories from those years that range from the sublime to the ridiculous.”

Lizzie's appearance on
The Merv Griffin Show
in December of 1970 was much less involved than
The Mike Douglas Show
, because her reason for doing the show outweighed her actual appearance. It was here she discussed her favorite
Bewitched
episode, “Sisters at Heart,” a Christmas story that originally aired on December 24, 1970. Written by a multiracial tenth grade English class at Thomas Jefferson High School in Los Angeles, the episode condemned prejudice and rallied against injustice.

The idea for “Sisters at Heart” was generated after Lizzie and Bill Asher responded to a phone call from a twenty-three-year-old California teacher named Marcella Saunders. As documented for
TV Picture Life Magazine
in December 1971 (when ABC aired its second and final screening of the episode), Saunders had alarming news: only six students in each classroom were reading at the proper level. At Jefferson High School, less than 1 percent were reading at the ninth grade level; 44 percent read on the third grade level and the other approximately 65 percent were either down or slightly up from that figure. The problems didn't end there. Many of the students were not writing nor comprehending at the high school level. If able to read their textbooks, they often were unable to understand what they read.

Saunders had a solution, and her twenty-four African-American children went on to reap the benefits from what ultimately was Lizzie and Bill's compassion and concern. Upon first speaking with Saunders, the Ashers learned that
Bewitched
was her students' favorite show. Consequently, the class, all of whom did not have cars, and many of whom did not even have the money for bus fare to Hollywood, were invited to the show's set, with Bill and Lizzie making certain the students arrived safely by chartered bus. “They were so shy at first, withdrawn,” she said at the time, “but so well behaved; so courteous and polite.”

After a relaxing lunch with the Ashers at the studio commissary, the youngsters returned to the set, relaxed, and full of meaningful, intelligent questions. They had discovered something that held their interest. The apathy had vanished, as if by magic. They had been invigorated, and wanted to know as much about television production as possible. Suddenly, children who could never write before, were writing three pages. During rehearsals, kids who could not read were now doubling up on scripts and fighting over who would portray
Samantha
and
Darrin.

Saunders asked the students to write compositions detailing the studio experience. The papers, the way she described them, “were fantastic,” and the class returned to the
Bewitched
set on three different occasions; each time they were welcomed by Bill and Lizzie who said, “They seemed more interested, more eager to know about the technicalities of the production. What kids! Just marvelous. Outstanding!”

As to the actual script for “Sisters at Heart,” the students knew it had to be unique. Beyond solid writing and good grammar, it had to say and mean something. So they worked together and eventually created this story:

Tabitha
(Erin Murphy),
Darrin
and
Samantha's
little sorceress, befriends
Lisa
(Venetta Rogers), the African-American daughter of one of
Darrin's
clients (Don Marshall) who stays with the
Stephens
while they're away on a business trip with
Larry.
After she and
Lisa
are bullied in the park for being of different colors but still wanting to be sisters,
Tabitha
employs
wishcraft
, and
wishes
they could become siblings. Consequently, white polka dots appear on
Lisa
; and brown polka dots appear on
Tabitha
, literally painting them as equals. In the most poignant scenes in the episode,
Samantha
tells
Tabitha
and her friend, “All men are brothers; even if they're girls.”

When the script was completed, the students made a trek back to the studio to present their gift-wrapped present to the Ashers. “We were overwhelmed,” Lizzie said at the time. Not only because of the magnitude of the gesture, but because the script was so impressive. “Really,” she added. “We've had bad scripts submitted by professional writers that weren't as well written or creative.”

“Sisters at Heart” became an official
Bewitched
episode, a secret the Ashers shared only upon being certain the script could be utilized. To move things along, Bill hired professional scribe Barbara Avedon, who had written for
Bewitched
(and other family shows like
The Donna Reed Show
). She helped to expand the story into the required length of a 30-minute teleplay.

In 1989, some eighteen years after “Sisters at Heart” debuted, Lizzie reflected on filming the episode and its core theme of prejudice, which she also view as the central theme of the entire series:

Yeah … this is what
Bewitched
is all about … how people can sometimes get off track, and [get on] the outside trying to belong. It was also one of the few things that
Samantha
and
Endora
agreed on…. There were times when I certainly would have liked to have gotten a little bit more political (on
Bewitched
). But there were just certain parameters that we could not pass. Also, the underlined theme was the exaggerated promises-that-you-make-and-can't-quite-keep-sometimes. And the feeling that
Maybe if I do help, maybe getting caught doing something you promised you wouldn't do won't be so bad if the end result is oka
y. I mean, people have that in everyday life.
Bewitched
was not about cleaning up the house, zapping up the toast … and flying around the room. It was about a very difficult relationship. (
Samantha
and
Darrin's
marriage) was a very tough match. I mean, who the hell would want to go through that kind of stuff? It wasn't the easiest of relationships. It had to be very difficult for
Darrin Stephens
to be married to this woman who could have anything that she wanted … and chose not [to] … except sometimes. It was a love story. But that's not all of what it was. That was a part of what it was.

In other words, the romantic notions of
Bewitched
were only part of its charm—and Elizabeth's. Despite her shy demeanor, she went on the
Griffin
and
Douglas
shows and her appearances were and remain riveting, if only for the fact that she was not one to grant such personal, non-scripted TV spots.

Conversely,
Bewitched
co-star Agnes Moorehead once served as co-host for an entire week on the
Douglas
show. Charles Tranberg, Moorehead's biographer, explains:

For a private woman, Agnes was quite public. She did like appearing on talk shows, but she gave instructions about what she would and what she wouldn't discuss. She wouldn't discuss her marriages or her private life— except for social things she did. She loved, however, to discuss her career, she loved to discuss what she thought was the declining morals of the theatre and of younger people in general. She was very opinionated on the social issues of the day—usually from a more conservative point of view. Elizabeth was equally private. She had been married several times and didn't want to discuss those marriages. She really didn't even want to discuss, openly, her upbringing and her father, Robert Montgomery—all that much. When she wasn't working she wanted to be there for her kids—and she was, by and large. By most accounts, Elizabeth was a wonderful mother. So being on talk shows or game shows (although she did enjoy guest-spots on
Password
and
Hollywood Squares
), wasn't a priority.

PART III

“I'm likely to have my share of flops as well as successes … as long as I don't have to wriggle my nose for eight years again.”

—Elizabeth Montgomery, to journalist Steve Jacques, during an interview to promote
A Case of Rape
(1974)

Fifteen

“She hated it when people asked her to twitch her nose.”

—Liz Sheridan, chatting about Elizabeth's post-
Samantha
disdain on
Bewitched: The E! True Hollywood Story
, 1999

By the mid-1960s, TV shows had switched from black and white to color, and
Bewitched
was not any different. In later seasons, Elizabeth would preface each episode with voice-over and visual promos, each of which she instilled with a vivacious energy that encouraged the viewer to watch with eager anticipation. “This is Elizabeth Montgomery,” she'd say. “Stay tuned for
Bewitched….
In color.”

The show's first color episode was “Nobody's Perfect,” which opened the third season, airing September 15, 1966. This episode also introduced
Samantha
and
Darrin's
daughter
Tabitha
as a full-fledged young supernatural. Consequently,
Samantha
was forced not only to curtail her own powers, but her daughter's as well, mostly instructing her with the phrase, “Mustn't twitch!”

Upon first hearing that,
Endora
pops in and says, “Oh, how charming. When every other mother in the world is telling her child, mustn't touch, you'll be saying, ‘Mustn't twitch!'” Simultaneously, off-camera at home in Beverly Hills, Lizzie was parenting her real-life children.

In an interview with
Photoplay Magazine
in 1968, she acknowledged the challenges facing a working mother. At the time, she and Bill Asher only had the two young boys, Billy, Jr. and Robert, but because of
Bewitched's
heavy workload, it was not always possible to give her sons a so-called
normal childhood
.

Still, she was determined to maintain as regular an environment as possible under the circumstances. She wanted her sons to feel the same way about her work. One day, she invited Billy, Jr. to visit her at the studio, but he wasn't all that impressed by the Hollywood glitter. It was just a place where his parents went to work. He liked to come to the studio, but only to play with Erin and Diane Murphy, the twins who played
Tabitha
. They were the same age, and Lizzie said they had “a perfectly fine time.”

She tried to avoid the pitfalls that accompany being a working mother. At the time, the major concern was finding a nurse who could be firm-but-friendly to her sons. As she told
Photoplay
, “We have one now who is a gem. She knows just when to crack down on the boys and when to let them alone. That's important.”

Lizzie had experienced nurse troubles before. They expected her to supply the discipline when she arrived home from
Bewitched
. “
That
would have been great!” she mused. “Here the mean old Mommy came home and whacked them for something they did at 10:00 o'clock that morning and had already forgotten about.”

Then there was the day she came home and found Billy, Jr. pouring a glass of water on the living room carpet.

“Don't do that!” she told him.

“Nanny let me,” Billy replied.

Lizzie turned to the nurse and asked, “Is that true?”

“Poor little thing, what harm can he do?” the nurse wondered.

Lizzie exploded: “What harm can he do? In the first place, he's playing with a glass and could cut himself if it broke. In the second place, he's ruining the rug.” Needless to say, the nurse's services were no longer required.

She tried to “remain firm with the boys,” she said, but it wasn't always easy. When she came home at night she had a tendency to indulge them, to compensate for her absence. “That's a mistake,” she admitted.