Read Twitch Upon a Star Online
Authors: Herbie J. Pilato
Twitch Upon a Star (46 page)
With regard to feature films in particular, she welcomed opportunities when they presented themselves, but she was never compelled to do one. In 1988, Columbia Pictures approached Sol Saks about doing a
Bewitched
feature film. The studio approached Elizabeth about the idea, and Saks said she was “intrigued.” But as it turned out, Saks owned the TV rights, but not the motion picture rights. Consequently, thirteen years later, a very different
Bewitched
feature film hit theatres, a movie that got a lukewarm reception by critics, but which nonetheless paid loving tribute to Lizzie's memory.
Back on the small screen, between 1972 and 1993, Elizabeth was satisfied with the work at hand. For her, the quality of television movies was closing in on theatrical motion pictures. Her success from
Bewitched
had allowed her to work as she pleased, even on a limited basis, doing two TV-movies a year. For her, money was never a concern and she never felt underpaid.
Instead, all that mattered was the quality of the script and production. An astute judge of material, and a severe critic of what she managed to have and not have produced, Lizzie thought television executives never gave enough credit to the home audiences, whom she believed craved sophisticated programming like PBS' once-popular and somewhat suggestive British series,
I, Claudius
. But airing such risqué programming on any mainstream American network in 1977âand for a few years to comeâ wasn't going to happen, and she knew it.
Truth be told, Lizzie constructed a solid career in television because she was talented, charismatic, and female, and because audiences had separate perceptions of the small and big screens. At the time, TV projects were not usually given the green light unless there was significant indication of a solid female interest. In fact, many TV-movies of today, specifically for networks like The Hallmark Channel or Lifetime, are still geared specifically toward a female audience.
In Elizabeth's core TV-movie era, the mainstream target audience for feature films was, with few exceptions, young adults with limited female appeal. At the same time, television proved to be an extraordinary challenge because of its boundaries, and although she never felt too confined by the small screen's size, she particularly embraced daring subject matters, which she viewed as strategic career moves.
In 1961, she may have once dubbed TV a “mediocre medium,” but by 1994, when she chatted with reporter Ed Bark and
The Dallas Morning News
, she had clearly changed her mind:
I love television. I like the pressure. I like the lack of wasting time. I would love to do a feature, but that's a whole other animal. I'm lucky to be able to kind of hang in there and wait a bit for really good scripts. I like to try to pick something a little unlike anything I've done before.
Certainly, her first post-
Samantha
screen performance in the 1972 ABC TV-movie,
The Victim
, a nerve-wracking thriller, reflected that decision:
A wealthy
Kate Wainwright
is trapped on a rainy night at the home of her sister,
Susan Chappel
(Jess Walton), whom she soon discovers has been murdered and stuffed in the basement. And
Kate
may the next victim.
The Victim
debuted in what would have been Lizzie's ninth year on
Bewitched
had she agreed to her extended contract with the series. Instead, twitch-fans were treated to her take on
Kate
, who looked like
Samantha Stephens
and dressed like
Samantha Stephens
, but who wasn't
Samantha Stephens
. Not by a long shot. Lizzie's hair as
Kate
was as it was styled in the final season of
Bewitched,
but the happy, chipper
Samantha
persona, although subdued in that last year, was nowhere to be seen when Lizzie played
The Victim
. Her break from
Bewitched
was loud and clear, and she wanted
Samantha
fans to hear her cry of freedom.
In 1977, Leonard Nimoy, star of the original
Star Trek
âone of Lizzie's favorite TV showsâauthored
I Am Not Spock
which he hoped would send a message of independence to “Trekkers” the world over. With
The Victim
Lizzie followed suit, as if to say, “I Am Not
Samantha
”; it's considered one of her best movie portrayals since her big screen debut in 1955's
The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell
.
But in playing
The Victim
, she may have frightened more than a few viewers in the Bible Belt, which certain studio and network executives thought she had already done with
Bewitched
.
Although the violent themes and scenes of
The Victim
are considered mild by today's standards, there are still some solid scares in the film, which offers a strong supporting cast. Besides Jess Walton as Lizzie's on-screen sister, George Maharis (
Route 66
) played her brother-in-law,
Ben Chappel
, and veteran actress Eileen Heckert was a slightly sinister housekeeper,
Mrs. Hawkes
.
Through it all, the entire cast and crew enjoyed near-perfect weather conditions, as the movie was shot on location on the Monterey Peninsula in California. But that didn't help the film's premise, which was centered around a treacherous rain storm. Lizzie explained to
The Florence Morning News
on March 2, 1974:
“The lack of rain meant that we had to create our own deluge. Over 100,000 gallons of water (was) used on the location and each time they set up the rain towers it was an expensive job. My major concern was the problems that would result if re-takes were necessary. My hair would have to be re-done, the wardrobe dried and the area re-dressed. I've always tried to be a one-take actress,” she said, “but with this film that objective proved especially challenging. I felt easy coming back to drama after so many years, but there were special problems that made this the toughest story I have ever done. The technical work was the best I have ever seen, but it was so complex that the crew and I had to have absolute perfect timing to make everything work properly.”
When it was all said and done, irony refused to take a holiday. Only seven days after
The Victim
completed production, near-monsoon-like rains flooded the area.
But rain or shine, working on the movie boosted Lizzie's performance stamina, while her career received a breath of fresh air. In 1964, she was playing
Samantha
; in 1974, she decided that television drama in particular was “as good or better than it was ten years ago. The advances in the technical areas are almost staggering. I saw some of them on
Bewitched
, but on this film I saw how new cameras and lenses can be a tool of both the director and the actor.”
Between
Bewitched, The Victim,
and her other 1970s TV-movies, she was still approached about resurrecting
Samantha
in some way, even as a supporting character on a short-lived ABC spin-off called
Tabitha
, the pilot for which debuted on May 7, 1977. The show was about
Samantha
and
Darrin's
now grown-up magical daughter, and it featured future
Knots Landing
star and aspiring singer Lisa Hartman (today married to country crooner Clint Black). William Asher had directed a previous
Tabatha
(with an “a”) pilot segment starring Liberty Williams, which aired on April 24, 1976. This edition was actually more mystical than
Bewitched
, but it didn't sell. However, a second pilot with Hartman caught ABC's fancy and it went to series. Asher set the stage, premise, and the theme of the spin-off, but was not hands-on involved following his work on the first pilot. He later directed a few episodes of the series (in which
Bewitched
originals Sandra Gould, George Tobias, and Bernard Fox reprised their
Gladys, Abner Kravitz
, and
Dr. Bombay
roles), but other than that, Asher only became an advisor on the show.
Lizzie's presence as
Samantha
was requested in both editions of the
Tabitha
series, but she declined, even in a guest-star capacity. The sequel faced many casting challenges.
On the later years of
Bewitched
, the child
Tabitha
was played by twins Erin and Diane Murphy until the show ended in 1972, when the character was only eight years old. By the time the
Tabitha
series debuted, she would have only been thirteen years old. A hallmark of the original series was that, despite its fantasy premise, whatever transpired within its fabricated world made sense. There was always “logic within the illogic.”
As Elizabeth explained in 1989:
Ease is facilitated only by construction. If it's not constructed well, you find yourself walking into blank walls, and tripping and falling down. And there's just no way to rescue anything unless something's been constructed [well]. And that's why with ease we could flip from one thing back to another [mortal to the witch world]. That was one of the great advantages of our kind of format. It opened itself up into many ideas, and we could really pretty much go in any direction, as long as we kept to the ground rules.
Needless to say, such ground rules were feet of clay on the
Tabitha
series, which didn't have a logical-within-the-illogical leg to stand on. Meanwhile, too, making the
Tabitha
character twenty-something in 1977 also went against the basic premise idea that witches are immortal and tend not to age swiftly.
As Elizabeth continued to explain in 1989, such confusing plot developments and other aspects of
Tabitha
were troubling for her as well as fans of the original series:
First of all, I didn't see the show, but I heard that she didn't twitch as well as I did. I kept getting mail from people were who outraged, saying, “Where is Erin Murphy? What in the world (is going on)?! This woman is 25 ⦠this doesn't make any sense.” I was getting mail from people like it was my fault, although also saying, “Thank God you didn't have anything to do with this.” I wrote every single person who sent me letters like that. They felt betrayed. I thought, “How can you be betrayed by a TV show?” But they were irate. I got almost as much mail about that as I get about anything else. It was very funny ⦠ranged from kids who hated it to grownups who said, “This is the stupidest thing I've ever seen.”
Like it was all my fault. I'm saying (to myself), “Why are they blaming me for this? I had absolutely zero to do with this.” People were getting pissed off at me. I remember walking into stores and having people say to me, “Did you know they were going to do this? How could you have allowed this?” All I said [was] “I didn't want anything to do with this.” People were getting downright nasty to me ⦠People were just annoyed.
Ten years after the
Tabitha
series failed, Bill Asher began to develop yet another
Bewitched
off-shoot, this one called
Bewitched Again
, about an entirely new witch and mortal love affair. Whereas
Darrin
on
Bewitched
prohibited
Samantha's
use of her special powers, the mortal on the new show would do nothing of the sort. Instead, he encouraged his supernatural love to practice her craft.
It was a fresh take on the original series and, to help jumpstart the program, Bill had convinced Elizabeth to make a cameo in the pilot. She was to reprise her role as
Samantha
, introduce the new witch/mortal couple, and then pop off forever. Her consent to become involved with
Bewitched Again
was monumental and enticing, and Asher placed a great deal of energy into the project. Unfortunately, the intended new series, which was to be produced in the U.K., lost its financing and the idea was shelved.
To help ease the stress that resulted from
Tabitha
, her divorce from Bill Asher, and the general anxiety that accompanies the life of a major television star, Lizzie made frequent appearances on game shows like
The Hollywood Squares
hosted by Peter Marshall and
Password
hosted by Allen Ludden. According to what
Bewitched
producer/director Richard Michaels said in 1988, “She loved that stuff!”
For many of the
Password
spots, which were videotaped live, she played opposite her good friend Carol Burnett whom she met on the set of 1963's
Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed
. In Burnett's wonderful book,
This Time Together
(Crown, 2010), the super-talented redhead recalled one particular
Password
game with Lizzie in the section “Viewer Discretion Advised.” It had to do with Burnett's team-partner on the show, whom she referred to in the book as Louis, and his somewhat improper, although innocent, use of the word “twat.”
Burnett delicately defined the word as an unflattering term that referenced a particular body part of the female anatomy. In either case, she, Lizzie, and
Password
host Allen Ludden (who was married to Betty White, then of
The Mary Tyler Moore Show,
later of
The Golden Girls,
and today of
Hot in Cleveland
) were in hysterics by the end of the segment.