Twitch Upon a Star (3 page)

We met in Santa Monica for lunch at The Crest, then a new, but very regular eatery, along the lines of Perkins or Denny's, if maybe just slightly upscale. Michaels was cordial, informative, intelligent, and his memories of
Bewitched
and all that it entailed were astounding. But as we finished our interview, he started to tear up. “When you talk with Elizabeth,” he instructed me, “you be sure to tell her that I said there will never be anyone else like her in the world. Never!”

Originally taken aback by the statement, especially when he made me vow to relay it, I ultimately agreed, and upon meeting Elizabeth, kept my promise.

After hearing Michaels' message, she looked at me and said, “That's very sweet.” And that was that. With hindsight being 20/20, it appeared that Michaels was still in love with Elizabeth, and most likely remains so. (Who wouldn't be?)

Another unexpected event occurred when, upon my second interview with Elizabeth, she surprised me by having invited
Bewitched
actor David White to join us. He and Elizabeth had not seen one another since the series ended in 1972. At the time, that was approximately eighteen years. Portions of their individual and interlocking commentary from that day, all never before published, now appear in this book.

Who would have thought that Elizabeth and David, along with so many other
Bewitched
luminaries, Dick York, Dick Sargent, Harry Ackerman, Alice Ghostley (who portrayed
Samantha's
bubbling witch maid
Esmeralda
), et al. would be gone only a few years later? White died in 1990; York in 1992; Sargent in 1994; and Elizabeth in 1995; the latter three of which while only in their sixties.

Unfortunately, I was unable to attend Elizabeth's memorial service at the Canon Theatre in Beverly Hills on June 18, 1995. I was also unable to attend a ceremony in her name, when finally, if posthumously, she received her designated star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, January 4, 2008.

Fortunately, my good friend and radio journalist Jone Devlin managed to at least attend the
star
ceremony, and shared with me what transpired at the event. In addition to what was reported in the press, and from further research, I learned that it was an illustrious event.

Unfortunately, Sally Kemp, Lizzie's best friend from their youth, was also unable to be present at the
star
ceremony, at which the name
Elizabeth Montgomery
was so elegantly chiseled in glittering stone on that famous walkway. While pleased that her friend was immortalized in exactly that manner, Sally was puzzled as to why her friend would later answer to anything but her formal birth name.

“It's strange for me to hear Elizabeth referred to as
Lizzie
,” Kemp told me in 2012. “Never while I knew her was she called that. She didn't like
Liz
either … only
Elizabeth
.
Lizzie
must have been born after she and Gig (Young) decamped to L.A. I just wonder where it came from.”

At the Walk of Fame ceremony the answer was provided by Liz Sheridan, best known as
Helen Seinfeld
, Jerry's mother on NBC's iconic 1990s non-sitcom
Seinfeld
. Sheridan is also known as
Mrs. Ochmonek
, a
Mrs. Kravitz
-type neighbor on NBC's 1980s alien-com
Alf
which like
Bewitched
was an otherworldly, fish-out-of-water sitcom (
Samantha
was a witch in a mortal world;
Alf
was an alien in a human world).

Best friends in their later years Sheridan was introduced to Elizabeth through writer William Blast, who in 1974 penned
The Legend of Lizzie Borden
. From what I learned Sheridan explained at the ceremony, Elizabeth wanted to be called
Lizzie
from the moment she played
Borden
. It was a nice play on a name, especially when Sheridan was around, because Sheridan's younger sister could never quite pronounce the name
Elizabeth
, the formal first name she and Lizzie shared. According to what Sheridan explained, it always came out
Dizabeth
.

In the event, Sheridan became Dizzie and Montgomery became Lizzie, and there they were …
Lizzie
and
Dizzie
.

So, however serious Elizabeth was about her life and career she knew when not to take herself seriously. She imbued a playful spirit towards
Borden
that stemmed from her childhood. “I used to get teased all the time about the childhood rhyme,
Lizzie Borden took an ax
, etc,” she said in 1989.

Robert Foxworth and I were apparently then slated to reap the brunt of that teasing, so to speak, as when Elizabeth revealed to me a memory she had of the two vacationing at her summer home shortly after the
Lizzie Borden
movie aired. At one point during the getaway, it was raining, and he was kneeling in front of the fireplace, attempting to ignite a flame. “And I had an ax in my hand,” she remembered, “because we had just chopped some wood.”

Foxworth had then turned toward her, pointed to the ax, and made a request: “Would you please put that thing down?”

The ax was making him nervous and she knew it, but with a devilish smile belying what she recognized as the truth, Elizabeth asked, ever so innocently, “What?”

He reiterated: “Would you please put that thing down?!”

She finally complied, and once they cozied up to the fire, he made an admission: “I have to tell you. That ax really gives me the creeps.”

She told me this story in 1989 at her Beverly Hills home, while holding the prop ax from the
Borden
film, and standing next to another fireplace. So I knew exactly how he felt. “You see,” she said with utter delight, as I sat squirming. “This is the actual ax. It used to have hairs on it, and I keep telling people not to dust it, but they do. And they've taken some of the blood off it. It's not very sharp. But it would do the job.”

She had a wicked sense of humor, a measure of which I had already experienced.

In the early part of 1989, and upon her permission, Bill Asher had given me her phone number. I called her, and did not hear back from her until four months later. Or at least that's how long it seemed.

This occurred about ten years before cell and smart phones hit the mainstream market. At best I stayed close to my old-fangled answering machine, but I still missed her call—on several occasions; although she later confessed to hanging up many times without leaving a message.

Why? She didn't know how to respond to the
Bewitched
theme and “twitching” sound effects from the show's opening credits that I had taken great pains to strategically record on my machine (again, in a pre-high-tech-phone-apps-ring-tone era).

We finally did connect while I was living in Santa Monica and had one day temporarily stepped away from the phone to place a load of towels in the wash. I later noticed the flashing message light on my machine; pressed
play
, and heard: “Hi! It's Lizzie Montgomery. I keep missing you, you keep missing me. This is crazy!”

Like Sally Kemp, not only was I surprised to hear the nickname
Lizzie
being voiced by the actress herself, but I was somewhat frazzled in general that
Elizabeth Montgomery
had just telephoned my house and left a message on my machine. In any event, I collected my thoughts, waited a few moments and then called her back. She picked up the phone, we exchanged
hellos
, and I apologized for missing her call.

“I was doing my laundry,” I said, as if talking with an old friend, which in a way I was. I had been watching
Bewitched
nearly my entire life and easily recognized Elizabeth's voice and mannerisms.

Upon hearing of such a humble task, she responded with her trademark giggle and said, “And so you should.”

It was so typically Elizabeth to put me or anyone else at ease. Our conversations continued and she was nothing less than charming and disarming with each subsequent visit, either by phone or in person.

At our first meeting, we were both nervous. I tripped over her coffee table, and she carefully weighed her words. During our second meeting, we considered the signatory roles she played in my life, and she was slightly more relaxed and free with her phrasing. At one point, we took our conversation from her living room to the kitchen so she could feed her dog Zuelika. A small countertop TV was blaring in the background, set on a PBS cooking show.

I picked up our conversation: “You know … whatever critic has reviewed you in the past …”

“I know,” she interrupted, “because forget it …
you're worse than my father
, right?”

I smiled, but at the time, did not fully grasp the assumption. Only later did I comprehend what she meant. In researching this book, I realized just how muddled her relationship was with her father. As individuals, they were each complicated. In combination, they were confounding.

But whenever she spoke of him, in our conversations or with others, there was an underlined air of respect. He and her mother, actress Elizabeth Allen, had raised her well, in tandem with Allen's mother, Elizabeth's beloved grandmother, Rebecca “Becca” Allen.

Becca also had a positive influence on Elizabeth's brother, Robert “Skip” Montgomery, Jr., whom I had the privilege of speaking with shortly after she passed away in 1995.

A few years later, I was saddened to learn of Skip's own passing in 2000. When Bill Asher told me, I wanted to call Skip's wife Melanie, but never did. I regret that, and not speaking with Skip more often. But I'll never forget our first conversation. He was so cordial and down to earth, just like Elizabeth. As much as they were blessed in life, neither possessed an ounce of arrogance.

He called to inquire what I wanted to do with the crystal unicorn I had given to Elizabeth upon our first meeting.
Samantha
liked unicorns; and so did Elizabeth; and she loved presents and appreciated gifts, even in the most token form.

Yet the crystal unicorn was no small token. At the time, I had little extra cash to spend on so extravagant a gift. Elizabeth, of course, was worth it, but she was stunned when she saw it. She turned toward me, gave me a big hug, and said in that lyrical voice of hers, “Oh my … you know, don't you? You know!”

Skip had the same kind of upbeat, chipper, affable voice.

“Hey, Herbie!” he said that day when I picked up the phone. “How ya' doin'? This is Skip Montgomery…. Listen, I have the unicorn that you gave Elizabeth. Do you want it back?”

“No, no, no,” I replied. “You keep it. I wanted her to have it—and I want you to keep it in her memory.”

We talked a little more, exchanged addresses, and the following December, I received a Christmas card from him and Melanie, a special memento I cherish to this day more than I could have ever treasured the return of that unicorn.

The entire Montgomery family has always been kind to me, including Elizabeth's children, as well as Robert Foxworth, who I had profiled for
Sci-Fi Entertainment
magazine in 1996. And certainly, too, Bill Asher.

One day, in between interviews with Elizabeth, she telephoned me out of the blue, just to see how I was. That morning, I was upset. The strings were broken on the guitar my father had purchased for me when I was a young boy. I was desperate to fix them, not because I played the guitar so well—which I never properly learned to do—but because the instrument held sentimental value. (Like that Christmas card from Skip would years later.)

For some reason, I explained all of this to Elizabeth and to my surprise she in turn told me that Billy Asher, Jr. would fix my weeping guitar.

“Why don't you bring it to my son?”

“Uh? What do you mean?”

“That's what he does. He owns a music shop in Santa Monica.”

“You're kidding? I live in Santa Monica.”

“Where?”

“On 17th and Santa Monica Blvd.”

“I'm going to make this real simple for you. His shop is at 17th and Wilshire Blvd.”

“That's just up the street.”

“Then you better get going.”

We said goodbye, I hung up, packed my guitar and was out the door.

By the time I reached Wilshire, Elizabeth had already called Billy to tell him I was on my way. When I arrived at his shop, he was standing at the counter. I shook his hand, explained about the guitar, and a few days later, it was like new again.

We chatted about his Mom, and I immediately noticed he had inherited her down-to-earth demeanor. When I told him so, he shared a few stories of what it was like growing up as not only her son, but the son of the legendary director Bill Asher.

He recalled a time in 1968, when he was just four years old, and a certain bewitching “screen transfer” proved somewhat confusing for him.

One Thursday night at around eight o'clock, he was at home watching his Mom on TV. It just so happened that Thursday night was the one day a week when the
Bewitched
cast and crew worked later than usual. Elizabeth did not usually arrive home until about 8:15 or 8:30 PM, but this one night she walked in the Asher's front door, just as
Samantha
popped out on
Bewitched
. Eight-year-old Billy was startled. “Geez, Mommy,” he said, “… you really
are
a witch.”

Elizabeth offered a careful explanation: “No, Honey … I just play one on TV.”

Another time, when Billy was a teenager, circa 1977, he was again in the Asher living room but this time with a friend who was unaware of his heritage. At one point, Elizabeth walked in the room to get a magazine off the coffee table.

His friend screamed, “Oh, my gosh! It's Elizabeth Montgomery!”

“Naw,” Billy said, ever carefree. “That's just my mom.”

Not one to boast about position or social status, Billy, along with his brother Robert (named for Elizabeth's father) and sister Rebecca (named for her grandmother Becca) always chose to walk with dignity and integrity, as they do to this day.