Twitch Upon a Star (67 page)

Kemp, in New York at the time, was unable to attend the service, but a mutual acquaintance who was there said most of those present were “not old friends. They were people who were kind of new friends.”

At the service, Sally and Lizzie's mutual acquaintance was approached by yet a third party, who asked, “Are you an old friend of Elizabeth's?”

To which the second party replied, “Yes—but I hadn't seen her for years and years. Are
you
an old friend?”

“Well,” the third party responded in return, “I had only known her for about five years. But I think I was on my way out.”

Says Kemp:

In 1999, Liz Sheridan told A&E's
Biography
that Lizzie and Foxworth “became dear friends and lovers,” and after that, it was difficult to keep them apart. They were two strong-willed people who “argued,” but enjoyed reconciling, “making love and being happy and giggling.”

Then, one day in 1993, Lizzie and Bob were sitting at their kitchen table, discussing some particularly important matter and he said, “You know—this situation would be so much easier if we were married.”

Lizzie looked at him and asked, “Is that a proposal?”

He thought about that a half-a-second and said, “Okay.”

To which she then added, “Yes.”

So on January 28, 1993, they got married in a private ceremony in her manager Barry Krost's apartment in Los Angeles. About fifteen minutes later, Lizzie called her friend Sheridan to tell her the news. Sheridan said Lizzie was so “child-like and sweet.”

According to Sally Kemp, Elizabeth was also “a multi-layered mystery, and I would love to one day know some of the answers, while I would also prefer to remember the young woman I knew.”

Elizabeth had left an equally puzzling imprint on her friend, author and investigative journalist Dominick Dunne. As he observed in his book
The Way We Lived Then
, after
Bewitched
made her a star, he and his wife Lenny never saw her again “for reasons unknown.” She disconnected from her friends and those she knew between divorcing Gig Young and just before marrying Bill Asher and subsequently playing
Samantha
. In fact, as Dunne explained, he and Lenny once passed Elizabeth on a sidewalk in Beverly Hills, but she refused to acknowledge them, a slight that cut deep, particularly for Lenny. But it would hurt Lizzie even more later on.

In 1991, she was interested in playing the lead role of
Pauline Mendelson
in the TV-movie,
An Inconvenient Woman
, based on Dunne's novel of the same name. But as explained in
The Way We Lived Then
, in a wrath of anger, he blackballed her, and the part went to Jill Eikenberry (
L.A. Law
). However, Dunne made allowances for Elaine Stritch, who was once engaged to Gig Young, to have a small role in the film.

Come 1995, however, things changed. Dunne had been covering the trial of O. J. Simpson, who had co-starred with Lizzie in the 1977 TV-movie,
A Killing Affair
. Upon learning of her cancerous death sentence, Dunne decided it was time for reconciliation. Whatever had divided their friendship now “faded into unimportance,” he said. He could now only recall the happier times they once shared.

So, while she was still at Cedar-Sinai Hospital, and only two days before she passed away, Lizzie received a note from Dunne expressing just how wonderful it was to have been her friend. Bob Foxworth had read her the message, and she was happy to have heard it. Foxworth subsequently invited Dunne, who had known Lizzie from their early days of television—when he was a mere stage manager on
Robert Montgomery Presents
and on which she was a budding starlet—to deliver a eulogy at her funeral.

“You're the only one who knew her from that part of her life,” Fox-worth told him, which was not entirely true. Sally Kemp and Cliff Robertson both knew and worked with Lizzie on
Robert Montgomery Presents
and would have welcomed the chance to bid their dear friend a loving public farewell.

But Robertson never saw much of Lizzie after her divorce from Fred Cammann. Kemp never saw much of Lizzie after her marriage to Gig Young. And Robertson, Kemp, and Dunne never saw much of Lizzie after she married Bill Asher and
Bewitched
made her a star. But Dunne's ability to write paved the way, and cleared the air … for at least one final transmission that reconnected what turned out to be an unbroken if unspoken bond.

But she had that kind of effect on everyone in her life, certainly Fox-worth who told
Entertainment Tonight
in 2006, “To some extent, a part of her lives in me. And it's not so much about a thought. That's just the way it is.”

On MSNBC's
Headliners & Legends
he added, she was “completely gracious and giving and kind, and easy-going and unaffected and unpretentious. And as we hung out together and played together and had dinner together I was more and more seduced and … bewitched … if you will, by this wonderful woman.”

On that same show, Billy Asher, Jr. explained how his mom “lives in a lot of people's homes and in their hearts,” and that her “greatest legacy is her ability to give young girls growing up the idea of how strong a woman could be.”

One of those young women is assuredly Billy's sister, Rebecca Asher, who in also appearing on
Headliners & Legends
, said she more than anything misses hearing her mother's lyrical sounds. “She had a beautiful voice.”

Today, Rebecca, who is just as private as her mother was, went on to describe Lizzie as “almost child-like … She loved surprises, and art, and being creative at Christmas … she loved all of that…. She just had this kind of magical persona.”

Billy, Jr. delivered a near identical description of his mother on
Legends
:

“She had this mystical child-like quality about her.”

Throughout Lizzie's life, however, her child-like ways played both in her favor and at times against her better judgment. It was productive when she transferred that real-life charming aspect of herself onto the screen as
Samantha Stephens
, which became one of the most popular and likable characters in TV history. It played against her in the immature way she established and then disavowed friendships.

As Sally Kemp and Dominick Dunne discovered, if Elizabeth felt affronted by or uncomfortable with something a friend said or did, intentional or not, even in the slightest way, that was it: the friendship was over. There were no second chances. However, like so much of her true-to-life character development, this character flaw can be traced back to her childhood relationship with Robert Montgomery. As she explained to Ronald Haver in 1991:

On New Year's Eve, 1967, in the prime of Lizzie's magical turn as
Samantha
on
Bewitched
, she had a friend in famed sportscaster Vin Scully, with whom she co-hosted ABC's
Tournament of Roses Parade
. In 2011, Yahoo! Sports reporter Dave Brown interviewed Scully for a segment he called
Answer Man
. Brown mentioned having screened Lizzie's promo for that classic
Tournament
broadcast and asked Scully what it was like to work with her during what was the peak of
Bewitched's
success. Scully replied:

A
witch's honor
… as when on
Bewitched
, with either her left or right hand, but preferably her left, Lizzie's
Samantha
occasionally made a particular gesture to (either)
Darrin
that signified that she was revealing the absolute truth about a given situation, much like the Boy Scout's Honor, but not. Here's how it worked: she'd place the index and middle fingers of her hand on either side of her nose with her fingertips pointing toward her eyes. While giving the sign, she'd intone, “Witches' honor,” which in many ways was an omen of things to come.

At the close of 2011, actress Donna Douglas, who played
Elly May Clampett
on
The Beverly Hillbillies
in the 1960s, settled a lawsuit over a Barbie doll that used her character's name and likeness. According to
The Associated Press
, Douglas had originally sought $75,000, but the details of her actual settlement were confidential.

On September 22, 1994,
The Toronto Star
reported a similar suit, although on a much larger scale in which Lizzie claimed Sony (by way of Screen Gems/Columbia) owed her $5 million in
Bewitched
licensing dues. A short time before she passed away in May of 1995, the suit was settled and, as with the Douglas case, the amount was confidential. But Lizzie was clearly looking out for her fortune, and ultimately did not want to have her children go through that legal battle without her.

On September 10, 1995, less than four months after she died, television's top executives, producers, agents and actors turned out to honor her at the
Women in Film's Second Annual Lucy Awards
. The award, named for Lucille Ball, had also been bestowed upon
Bewitched
guest star Imogene Coca (
Your Show of Shows
), Brianne Murphy, Fred Silverman and Tracey Ullman, and it is given for innovation in television. During the three-hour ceremony, which was held at the Beverly Hills Hotel, Robert Foxworth delivered a touching tribute to Lizzie, while afterward her daughter Rebecca Asher accepted the award.

On April 19, 1998, the Duet Nightclub in Los Angeles hosted a birthday celebration/wardrobe sale/auction in Lizzie's name. Donations of her belongings collected by her children and Robert Foxworth were auctioned to benefit the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (which was established in 1987). According to
www.bewitched.net
, the benefit raised approximately $15,000 to $20,000.

On June 12 and 13, 1999, Lizzie's family—led by daughter Rebecca— held an estate sale of her belongings at her Benedict Canyon Drive home in Beverly Hills. As documented by
www.bewitched.net
, some of the items sold included her 1977 Bentley (with the license plate, BENTLIZ), which fetched $15,000; a 1970 Oldsmobile Cutless in sound condition (which sold for $4000.00); and some African jewelry that Lizzie and Bob Foxworth had brought back from their on-location-in-Kenya shoot for their 1990 Hallmark Hall of Fame TV-movie,
Face to Face
.

Approximately six years later, on June 15, 2005, the network executives at TV Land announced plans to erect a nine-foot bronze statue of her likeness as
Samantha
in Salem, Massachusetts, which
TV Guide
had years before labeled “America's Number 1 witch city.”

While
Bewitched
was still in production and at the onset of its seventh season (1970–1971), Lizzie and the cast and crew traveled to Salem for what became the show's only main on-location shooting for an arc-storyline involving
Samantha's
trip to a witches' convention. As Lizzie said in 1989, “The crowds were crazy in Salem. It was really spooky. I mean it was terrific because it meant they felt (we) were terrific.” Lizzie's co-star Dick Sargent also said in 1989, “It was the first time I felt like one of The Beatles.”

Decades later, the scene was not all that different in Salem at the induction of Lizzie's
Samantha
statue. According to
The Boston Globe
, the
Bewitched
minions were still present in droves, as nearly 2,000 people gravitated toward the city's Lappin Park at the corner of Washington and Essex Streets to unveil Lizzie's larger-than-life likeness:

She sits on a broom. In the background, a crescent moon rests atop a cloud on a pedestal. She's dressed as she mostly appeared on
Bewitched
: as an average housewife of the 1960s in a typical housedress. She's smiling, with her left arm turned up at the elbow, and legs crossed at the ankles; the perfect lady; the perfect woman … at least of the era.

On stage partaking in the commemoration: Bill Asher,
Bewitched
performers Bernard Fox (
Dr. Bombay
), Erin Murphy (
Tabitha
), and Kasey Rogers (
Louise Tate
, 1966–1972), Salem's Mayor Stanley J. Usovicz, Jr., and Larry W. Jones, President of TV Land and Nick at Nite, who explained: