Twitch Upon a Star (26 page)

Upon arrival in her relative's homeland,
Helen
loses a favorite necklace, explaining: “My grandmother gave it to me,” mirroring the relationship Lizzie had with her grandmother Becca who gifted her with many things (like a cherished broach that Lizzie wore throughout her life), but most importantly the gift of understanding priorities.

In later, more violent scenes, Lizzie's
Helen
is seen tied-up with her hands behind her back, spread across a bed on her stomach. It's a scene that would be repeated, down to camera angles, in her 1992 TV-movie,
With Murder in Mind
, in which she played real-life real estate agent Gayle Wolfer who was assaulted and traumatized by a client.

But
Helen
in “Stranger” was the first of many victimized characters Lizzie played before Wolfer in
Mind
. Eventually, she played
Kate Wainwright
in
The Victim
(1972),
Ellen Harrod
in
A Case of Rape
, and
Catherine McSweeney
in
Act of Violence
…. as well as
Helen Warren
in the
Theatre '62
segment, “The Spiral Staircase,” in which Lizzie delivered one of her more outstanding performances from this early, pre-
Bewitched
television era.

“Staircase” debuted as part of NBC's
Theatre '62
in on October 4, 1961. In this small screen remake of the 1945 film (starring Lizzie's friend Dorothy McGuire), she plays
Helen Capel
, who, because of a childhood trauma, has not spoken a word in decades. It's an old-fashioned mystery with dark hallways, flickering candlelight, rain storms and lightning, and with it, Lizzie delivers one of her most riveting, pre-
Samantha
dramatic performances. Although the characters are different, the cinematic mood is the same when she plays the murderess
Lizzie Borden
in the 1975 TV-movie
The Legend of Lizzie Borden
. But little wonder, as both productions were directed by the talented Paul Wendkos who on “Staircase” also guides the likes of Lizzie's co-stars Lillian Gish, Edie Adams, Eddie Albert and Gig Young.

Playing a mute character is always a challenge and tour de force for any actor and Lizzie had the chance to do it twice. First, for “Two” on
The Twilight Zone
and in “Spiral.” As with many of her other roles, the dialogue she heard in “Spiral” proved telling and insightful into Lizzie's life.

At one point,
Helen
is told: “Don't settle. Don't hide out.” Lizzie never did the former, and infrequently performed the latter.

Elizabeth enjoyed gardening in real life. As
Helen
, she heard Eddie Albert's character tell her: “You like to make things grow, don't you?”

Lizzie had boundless energy, and yet she was one to pick and choose not only her friends but her topics of conversation. And if she didn't like what she was hearing, for whatever reason (mostly because it may have been negative), she'd switch topics (how Freudian!). That's why it proves so intriguing when Lillian Gish's character tells
Helen
on screen: “You change the subject faster than anyone I know.”

Albert's character later tells
Helen
: “You're imperfect, and there's just no room in this world for imperfection.”

Yet, Lizzie embraced the imperfect populace of the world. She campaigned for the downtrodden and disadvantaged.

But it's Gish that has the best “Lizzie-life” dialogue, even though she doesn't speak it to Lizzie. Rather, she says it to Gig Young's character,
Steven
, whom Gish believes is a scoundrel. In the end, we find out otherwise. But before that she tells him:

“You're an insect, Steven … a carrier … a breeder of disease and disorder. You should have stayed away.”

Young, in real life, proved to have those similar traits. If only Elizabeth had never met and married him. Fortunately, she found the courage to divorce Young and ultimately stayed away from him.

Even in these pre-witched television days, Lizzie had her choice of material, many times receiving personal requests to work with top directors, including a young Sydney Pollack, who years later, went on to become a feature film legend with, among other movies, romantic classics like
The Way We Were
(1973),
Tootsie
(1982), and
Out of Africa
(1985).

As she expressed to
TV Guide
in August of 1961, she was uncertain about one particular role Pollack had in mind for her.

What it was was that she was “hot,” and not only in her physical appearance. In spite of her good looks, which were a given, she had talent, and everyone who was anyone in television wanted to work with her, including Pollack for his episode of
Frontier Circus
, which was created by future
Star Trek
writer Samuel A. Peeples. The series was about a one-ring circus that traveled through the American West in the 1880s. The segment Pollack had in mind for Lizzie, “Karina,” was written by Jean Holloway, and broadcast on November 9, 1961, and she may have decided to do this episode for several reasons, possibly on a subconscious level:

It's a stock and interesting entry in a series that held much potential, but it's more intriguing that Elizabeth would opt to perform in this episode about an abusive husband, while in the midst of an abusive marriage to Gig Young. In fact, Young was pictured and interviewed with her for the very same article in
TV Guide
in which she talks about this new
Frontier
. At one point during the interview, the doorbell rang; as Lizzie explained, albeit playfully, it was the “liquor store man. Mr. Young's been shopping.”

Lizzie would later play out the “abused” aspect of the
Karina Andrews
character in future TV-movies like
The Victim
(1972),
A Case of Rape
(1974) and
Act of Violence
(1979), while the fugitive aspect of the
Karina
role becomes a precursor to similar plights of Lizzie's future parts in the post-witched TV-movies,
Mrs. Sundance
(1974) and
Belle Starr
(1980).

The parallels may have easily been made: Lizzie was in the midst of what ultimately turned out to be a failed marriage to Bill Asher, which was in the process of ending right around the time she agreed to star in
The Victim
.
Etta Place
, a.k.a.
Mrs. Sundance
, as well as
Belle Starr
, were “on the run,” while Lizzie went into hiding with
Bewitched
director Richard Michaels upon learning of Asher's affair with actress Nancy Fox (during the eighth season of
Bewitched
).

A few years before she took the lead in
Karina
, Elizabeth had played
Millie
who was experiencing a “Marriage Crisis,” in that 1959 episode of
The Loretta Young Show
, a dramatic anthology series hosted by the actress (who also appeared in various episodes). By the time of “Crisis,” Lizzie had replaced one real-life marriage drama (with Fred Cammann) with another (Gig Young). What's more, also appearing with Lizzie in the “Crisis” episode of the
Loretta
show was future
Hawaii Five-O
actor Jack Lord playing her husband
Joe
, who was also her on-screen spouse in her first feature film,
The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell
(1955). In that movie, Lord's character dies. In real life, Cammann is alive, but Lizzie leaves him, and later walks out on Gig, who later dies in a tragic murder-suicide.

However, beyond all of that dire news, Lizzie's involvement with the “Karina” episode of
Frontier Circus
further solidified her spirited interest in circus stories. One of her favorite feature films was the 1953 classic
Lili
, starring Leslie Caron (whose lead character joins the circus), and she starred in the 1981 TV-movie,
When the Circus Came to Town
(in which her character,
Mary Flynn
, a bored housewife, joins the circus).

Lizzie's most prominent pre-
Bewitched
TV performance is that of her Emmy-nominated lead as a prostitute in
The Untouchables
episode, “The Rusty Heller Story,” which was directed by the aforementioned Wally Grauman, and which aired on ABC October 13, 1960. A little background on the series in general:

The Untouchables
ran from 1959 to 1963 and featured Robert Stack as
Elliot Ness
. Stack went on to become the popular host of the documentary series,
Unsolved Mysteries
, (NBC/CBS, 1988–1999), while
The Untouchables
was adapted into a feature film in 1987 and then returned to television as a new syndicated weekly edition in 1991. But in 1959, its original version was considered shocking programming.

Authors Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh explain as much in their
Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows: 1946 to Present
(Ninth Edition, Ballantine Books, 2007):

TV Guide
observed that, if anything,
The Untouchables
was consistent:

Either way, Lizzie relished in the opportunity to appear in the “Rusty Heller” segment, which also happened to feature a guest stint with future
Bewitched
regular David White. On
Bewitched
, White portrayed the conniving ad-man boss
Larry Tate
. In “Heller,” he was
Archie Grayson
, right hand man/attorney to gangster
Charles ‘Pops' Felcher
(played by Harold J. Stone). Ultimately,
Rusty
used
Archie
to get to
Pops
—who was the man with the real power. When Lizzie was reminded in 1989 that
Rusty
was responsible for
Archie
losing his tongue, she said, “Well, he got his tongue cut out, and I squealed on him so he could.” She also remembered one of her favorite lines as Rusty:

“I'd rather walk barefoot through a snakepit.”

With his tongue intact in 1989, White only praised Lizzie's performance in the episode, stating very simply and to the point: “She was very good in it.” A synopsis of the episode reads: