Twitch Upon a Star (49 page)
Read Twitch Upon a Star Online
Authors: Herbie J. Pilato
All of sudden, it seemed, critics heralded Burnett's acting, as if she had never excelled in any worthy capacity for eleven years on
The Carol Burnett Show
(CBS, 1967â1978), on
The Garry Moore Show
(CBS, 1958â1966) before that, or in any of her countless prior stage, TV, or film appearances (including
Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed?
with Lizzie in 1963). This time, because she was performing drama as opposed to her trademark comedy, her talents were praised as if she were royalty. Her crowning as a
Queen of Comedy
was apparently not enough for the critics.
Lizzie received a similar response when she left
Bewitched
behind and ventured into
Rape
and other extremely shocking roles in ground-breaking TV-movies like
The Legend of Lizzie Borden
(ABC, 1975), and
The Black Widow Murders: The Blanche Taylor Moore Story
(1993), among others. Only rarely would she return to the comedic tones and timing that she honed on
Bewitched
, as she did with
When the Circus Came to Town
(CBS, 1981) and in
Face to Face
(CBS, 1990), the latter in which she starred with Robert Foxworth.
In fact, according to her friend Sally Kemp, it was Foxworth who urged Lizzie to delve deeper into these “meatier” roles. She discussed such performances for an interview in 1980 with writer Lewis George of
The Globe
, while promoting her part as yet another female bandit of the Old West in the CBS TV-movie
Belle Star
, which she was initially apprehensive about doing:
I would rather be known as a serious ⦠and good ⦠actress now. I've always enjoyed playing real lady creatures like
The Legend of Lizzie Borden
, who was supposed to have axed her family. I also portrayed a lady who was raped in
A Case of Rape
, and a lady beaten up by toughs in my most recent film
Act of Violence
. What concerned me was that the script was stark with dramatic violence. It was such an unusual script. I was afraid executive producer Joe Barbara might have to alter it because of ears of network censorship. My fears were needless. Joe Barbara is just as much opposed to network and creative censorship as I am and agreed completely on the script. An actress can't be anything less than honest when she's working. And I am aware the
Belle Starr
story may be not for the entire family. But this woman had to survive by her own code of ethics in a very difficult environment. She's a fascinating person and very real. She made many drastic mistakes in her life, including murder. There's a certain ugliness about her, but there's also an inner beauty and strength.
In an interview with
The Minneapolis Star Tribune
, on March 30, 1980, she added:
The real Belle Starr is so clouded by legend and fiction that you can come up with several versions of her life, depending on which history of the old west you study. One thing we do know for sure is that she was an exceptional and amazing woman, if not a good one, and an important figure in the history of the West.
Of all the legends of the west, Starr's was one of the most romanticized by the dime novelists of the day. To them, she was a daring and noble woman who fulfilled the role of a female
Robin Hood
. Her real name was Myra Belle Shirley; she was born in 1848 in a log cabin near Carthage, Missouri. Her family moved to Texas and Belle had not yet grown out of her teens when she began hobnobbing with Jesse James and his gang, and bore one of its members, Cole Younger, a daughter. She then married a horse thief named Jim Reed and bore him a son. After Reed was killed, Starr took up with another gang and moved into Indian Territory (now Oklahoma), where she met and married a handsome Cherokee bandit named Sam Starr. From their hideout on the Canadian River, Belle acted as organizer, planner, and fence for cattle rustlers, horse thieves, and traffickers in illegal whiskey to the Indians. When the law captured her friends, she spent her money generously to buy their freedom. When bribery failed, she would employ her powers of seduction.
After Sam Starr was killed in a shootout, Belle continued her amorous pursuits. To the sorrow of romantic readers from coast to coast, she was shot in ambush in 1889. Her daughter had a monument erected on her grave with a bell, a star, and a horse inscribed on it.
In an early scene in the
Belle Star
film, the lead character is seen encouraging her young daughter to practice the piano. Lizzie explained in
The Minneapolis Star Tribune
:
She apparently loved music of all types, and had learned to play the piano at the age of eight. She actually was quite a genteel young lady until the Civil War caused her to strap on a gun and change her life, with a little help from her outlaw lover, Cole Younger. But she never gave up her love of music. She displayed her talent at every opportunity, even at church for weddings and funerals. After the war Belle played the piano in Dallas gambling halls and mastered the guitar. Even after she had become a much-hunted woman, she managed to have a piano in her hideout.
As it was during the
Bewitched
years, Lizzie worked hard on
Belle Starr
, and she maintained a strong sense of priorities and family life for her children. By now, her sons Bill and Robert were in their mid-teens, while daughter Rebecca was only ten years old. She was five years divorced from Bill Asher, and Lizzie and the kids now shared their country-style Beverly Hills home in Laurel Canyon with a beagle named “Who,” a cat named “Feather,” and Bob Foxworth, who was then starring in
The Black Marble
feature film.
At the time, she and Foxworth were not married. But a decade or so later, and after a twenty-year courtship, that status changed. On January 28, 1993, the two wed at the home of Lizzie's manager Barry Krost, and they remained devoted to each other until the end.
Eighteen
“I've just reached another plateau in the type of work I want to do. It's like a man working all of his life as a gardener and suddenly waking up to the fact that he wants to be a landscape architect.”
âElizabeth Montgomery, as quoted by Ronald L. Smith in his book,
Sweethearts of '60s TV
(SPI Books, 1993)
In 2005, Sony Pictures released the
Bewitched
feature film, starring Nicole Kidman and Will Ferrell, produced by Doug Wick and Lucy Fisher, and directed by Nora Ephron, who also served as co-writer with her sister Delia. Penny Marshall (better known in classic TV sectors as the co-star of
Laverne & Shirley
) co-produced the movie for which she had originally hired good friend Ted Bessell (
Don Hollinger
from TV's
That Girl
) to direct. When Bessell unexpectedly died of an aneurysm in 1996, Marshall was overcome with grief and the production shut down. By 2003, she had moved on to other projects, but remained in force with the talented Wick/Fisher/Ephron team, which ultimately brought
Bewitched
to the big-screen.
Back in 1990, some fifteen years before she dabbled with the possibility of bringing
Samantha
and
Darrin
to theatres, Marshall directed a motion picture called
Awakenings
.
Based on the best-selling book by Oliver Sacks, and starring Robert De Niro, Robin Williams, and Julie Kavner, this film was about a new physician (Williams) who seeks to help a group of patients (including De Niro and Kavner) who have been comatose for decades, without any sign of a recovery. When he discovers a potential cure, he gains permission to experiment with a new chemical drug that may help his cause. The inspirational film then goes on to showcase the new perspectives that are awakened by each member of this extraordinary group of doctors and patients.
In 1985, Lizzie played a character named
Abigail Foster
in the similarly-themed TV-movie
Between the Darkness and the Dawn
.
Abigail Foster
âa young woman who awakens from a 20-year coma only to discover a world that has moved on without her, especially the world she had so lovingly created with her high school boyfriend (David Goodwin) who's now married to her younger sister (Karen Grassle of
Little House on the Prairie
fame). In this new reality,
Abigail
must foster the pieces of her broken life, while coping with a devoted mother (Dorothy McGuire), who knows no other identity than to be her daughter's caregiver before and after she awakens.
In 1978, Lizzie appeared in the acclaimed three-part, seven-hour NBC mini-series,
The Awakening Land
, adapted from Conrad Richter's trilogy of a pioneer family in the Ohio Valley. It aired February 19, 20, and 21, and co-starred the esteemed Hal Holbrook as
Portius
(Holbrook, meanwhile had already chiseled new ground a few years before with the controversial 1972 TV-movie,
That Certain Summer
, in which his and Martin Sheen's characters introduced gay love to the American television mainstream).
Like
Mrs. Sundance
(1974) and
Belle Starr
(1980),
The Awakening Land
was also classified as a western, but far removed from the brightly-brushed Technicolor movie westerns of old. Whereas Lizzie's
Etta Place
from
Sun-dance
and
Belle
from
Starr
featured slightly more shady traits, her
Awakenin
g role of
Sayward Luckett Wheeler
was more clearly defined as a pioneer woman.
In 1978, Lizzie wasn't sure if
Sayward
sincerely loved Holbrook's
Portius
. According to Montgomery archivist Tom McCartney, Lizzie believed that
Sayward
needed
Portius
, because he was educated, and a provider for her children. In
Sayward's
day, such a bond was “typical,” Lizzie said. It was considered more respectable to first be married, then have children.
Meanwhile, atypical filming for this movie began in September of 1977, and it was grueling. Lizzie, the cast and crew spent the two and a half months on location in the reconstructed post-colonial Village of New Salem, Illinois. Producers were convinced the movie should be made there once the State of Illinois film office persuaded them to peruse the village, and once the Springfield city fathers agreed to fill up a nearby lake so it would resemble the Ohio River.
A vacant Springfield gymnasium was then utilized to house an indoor log cabin for inside shots, as well as extensive prop and wardrobe departments. Other parts of the state got into the act when American Indians from Chicago's uptown were transported to the location to play their forefathers, while hounds, cougars, wolves, and one skunk from the Plainsman Zoo in Elgin were shipped to the location to help legitimize the setting.
As reporter Blecha explained, even the weather in New Salem complied with the production as warm, summer breezes and lush flora and fauna surfaced for the filming of Part 1:
The Trees
, while brisk autumn air and changing colors were there for Part 2:
The Fields
, and dark, dismal winter cold, even with a day of snow, showed up for Part 3:
The Town
(all of which were consecutively broadcast on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday nights).
According to what Lizzie remembered in 1978, the country was “absolutely beautiful there, but whatever the territory offered, we got ⦠viruses, poison oak, bees, mosquitoes, varmints, nettles. It gave us a vague idea of what it must have been like.”
She herself contracted a bad case of poison ivy and the shoot overall was physically exhausting (especially on the days in the fields behind oxen and plow). But for Lizzie the most challenging part of portraying
Sayward
was the aging process, learning how to slow down, physically and psychologically.
Despite those challenges, Lizzie gave her usual 100 percent and had great respect for the character:
Sayward
wasn't stupid, just uneducated. Her instincts were extraordinary. She didn't say much, but when she did she made a lot of sense. She had a tremendous amount of fortitude. If it wasn't for people like her, you and I wouldn't be here today.
However, Lizzie admitted that the 1880s in the Ohio River held no personal appeal for her. And even though she was a pioneer woman in television, off screen, she had no desire claim the western frontier edition of that title. “No, I definitely would not have liked to have lived then. No one in their right mind would make that choice.”
For a live online chat on December 12, 2002, Montgomery archivist Tom McCartney asked
Awakening
costar Jane Seymour, what it was like to work with Lizzie. She replied:
Elizabeth Montgomery was a wonderful woman and very supportive to me. She was the first, indeed only, star to invite me into her trailer. I remember this as being a very special treat and vowed that if I ever had a trailer, I would share it with younger actresses. It set a precedent for me, one I follow to this day.