Twitch Upon a Star (68 page)

Added Mayor Usovicz:

The sculpture represented the network's fifth effort to honor people, places, and moments from America's small screen heritage by recognizing the
Sam
site as a “TV Land Landmark.” The network's first salute—a bronze statue of
Ralph Kramden
of
The Honeymooners
—was unveiled in 2000 and now adorns the entrance to New York City's Port Authority Bus Terminal. In May 2002, a bronze statue of Mary Tyler Moore from
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
was uncovered and now stands on Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis, MN. An
Andy Griffith Show
statue, which depicts Griffith and a young Ron Howard as
Sheriff Andy Taylor
and his son
Opie
walking, hand-in-hand (as in the opening credit sequence of that classic series), is located in Raleigh's Pullen Park and was unveiled in October, 2003. In July of 2004, TV Land honored yet another of television's most enduring icons, Bob Newhart, with a life-sized bronze sculpture commemorating his role as
Dr. Robert Hartley
on
The Bob Newhart Show
in Chicago.

Thomas Hill, Vice President and Creative Director for TV Land, explains how Lizzie's
Samantha
likeness joined their statuesque legacy:

Creating a TV Land Landmark required extensive preparation and conversation between the various stakeholders. “Finding just the right location was never easy,” Hill acknowledges. He once even suggested placing Dick Van Dyke's
Rob Petrie
on an endless commute between his
Alan Brady Show's
writer office in New York City and the New Rochelle home he shared with Moore's
Laura Petrie
and Larry Mathew's little
Richie
, “but train seats are hard to book permanently.”

As to Lizzie's potential
Samantha
statue landing, Connecticut was once considered as an option, but as Hill recalls, “the civic leaders in Salem seemed more open to embracing the connection.”

Into this mix, Studio EIS, a three-dimensional design and sculpture studio in New York founded by brothers Ivan and Elliot Schwartz, created Lizzie's life-sized bronze sculpture, as well as the Griffith and Newhart sculptures. The Schwartz brothers also created statutes of the Founding Fathers—which are located in the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, and commemorative objects for museums, including the Smithsonian. The week Lizzie's statue was erected, Studio EIS was filled with more than a dozen life-like military figures, part of a project for the Marines.

All EIS's statues were initially received without pause or controversy, that is, except for Lizzie's
Samantha
, due to its placement in the middle of Salem, a town best known for its historic hanging of nineteen citizens accused of witchcraft. It all transpired in 1692 but remained a hot topic centuries later in 2005. As was discussed in the article, “
Bewitched
Statue Bothers Some in Salem,” by David Segal, and published in
The Washington Post
(May 10, 2005), capitalizing on that history with a statue of a broom-gliding media witch rubbed a few locals the wrong way. “It's like TV Land going to Auschwitz and proposing to erect a statue of Colonel Klink,” said John Carr, a former member of the Salem Historic District Commission. “Putting this statue in the park near the church where this all happened, it trivializes the execution of nineteen people.”

But that night on June 15, 2005, the statue's mold and fate had already been cast, shaped, and determined by a vote of the Salem Redevelopment Authority, which owns Lappin Park, where Lizzie's likeness was placed. Mayor Usovicz liked Carr's odds. No disrespect intended, he said. The town takes its dark past seriously and deals with it reverently in museums, but that doesn't mean it should have declined to showcase a pop culture icon.

“Will this statue redefine Salem? Absolutely not,” he explained. “Will it add to the experience of coming here? Definitely.”

On
Bewitched, Samantha
and company may have lived in Westport, Connecticut. (In fact, as Screen Gems executive Harry Ackerman explained in
The Bewitched Book
[and elsewhere], he had drafted an original “eight- or nine-page treatment” for a show he called
The Witch of Westport
.) But as to those few seventh year episodes shot in Salem for the witches' convention, it made the city a logical place for TV Land to erect its statue, especially when they visited the town during Halloween and found that thousands of revelers had descended upon the area.

“What we saw was a huge Halloween party,” said Robert Pellizzi, a TV Land senior vice president. “So we thought, it certainly makes sense to ask.” They sought advice about where to place the statue and they made a generous offer. Not only would the town get the bronze for free, but TV Land also offered to renovate Lappin Park and to pay for upkeep of the statue, too. In return, of course, TV Land hoped for public relations points, including some good photo opportunities when the statue was unveiled.

“If I were one of the people who had a house on the beautiful common there, would I hate it?” asked Ivan Schwartz, partaking in a conference from June 15, 2005 that addressed the issue. “Yes, probably. But it seems like [Salem] was going down that path long before this TV Land thing ever surfaced.”

“That path” was the path of cashing in on Salem's witch backstory, something the town has been doing for a while (that is, police officers have a witch and broom stitched into their uniform emblems; at Halloween, various costume shops and haunted-houses open, etc.). Yet, for residents such as John Carr, the camp was getting a little out of hand. “God bless the mayor, but he thinks that statue is contemporary art,” Carr said at the time. “The whole idea is bad taste beyond belief.” Either way all these years later, the controversy has subsided, and Lizzie's stilted bronzed presence remains.

“Unfortunately,” Thomas Hill was unable to attend the statue's dedication, so he has “little recollection of the imbroglio,” but he's sympathetic with the historians who “didn't want this dark chapter in Early American history to be treated frivolously. But, naturally, I see America's pop culture history as a valid inspiration for public art.”

However, Hill does recall TV Land's President Larry Jones partaking in a TV news discussion program during which he defended the statue against someone representing the historically minded. “But the show had also booked a third guest, representing the modern day
Wicca
perspective— pro-witch, I suppose?”

Hill concludes, this particular Wiccan's presence “made the entire debate appear rather absurd.” Consequently, despite even her physical absence, Lizzie's name—and likeness—remained infused with political conflict and social issues—and she would have loved it.

On January 4, 2008, at yet another ceremony, this time presided over by honorary mayor Johnny Grant in Hollywood, California, Lizzie finally received her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In attendance at the rain-drenched ceremony were a multitude of her fans, including radio host and journalist Jone Devlin, who recounts her experience of that day:

Devlin and her fellow
Bewitched
fans then heard special memories shared from Lizzie's children Rebecca and Billy Asher, friend Liz Sheridan and Robert Foxworth. Each of those who spoke mentioned how delighted Lizzie would have been with the ceremony. The downpour of rain, which all speakers believed she would have found amusing, could not compete with the outpour[ing] of respect from the loved ones and fans who attended the event despite the cloudburst. “It is
so
awesome that it is raining,” Rebecca said at the ceremony. “I can't even really express it. She [Lizzie] is so happy right now.”

According to Devlin, Rebecca went on to explain how there are not many things more gratifying than seeing “someone you care about” being recognized for their work, especially if that individual happens to be a parent. Rebecca then described her mother as “an incredible human being … full of grace and wit and beauty and brilliance.” How every day, Lizzie brought a sense of wonder to everything she did, and gave a unique perspective to everything she rested her eyes upon. In short, Rebecca enthused, “She was incredible!”

Rebecca then expressed how she and her brothers Billy, Jr. and Robert appreciated how they directly experienced their mother's influence on the lives of others. They saw it that day at the ceremony, and continue to see it every day in the eyes of those who find out that they're Lizzie's children. Rebecca said her mother worked hard and always challenged herself and her audience with the characters she chose to play. Rebecca expressed how much she and her brothers always loved their mom and still do; how proud they remain of her; how honored they were to have been present at the ceremony on their mother's behalf. Rebecca then thanked the crowd for their loyalty to Lizzie, and left the podium.

At which point, Bob Foxworth approached the podium, and delivered an equally heart-felt and revealing sentiment. He began by defining Lizzie as shy, a quality of her character and personality that he said benefitted her life and career. He said her shy demeanor added a special sparkle to every character she portrayed because in the process of discovering who the character was she would “dig into herself and reveal someone that maybe she didn't even know she was.”

Consequently, to each of her roles Lizzie brought a special quality, whether it's with what Foxworth called “women of the west,” as in TV films like
Belle Star
or
The Awakening Land
, the latter of which he described as a “beautiful and historical film,” or
The Legend of Lizzie Borden
, which he called “a classic for television.” Each time, he said, she revealed more of herself—“it was like the peeling of an onion.”

Foxworth was certain that the crowd was well aware of her comedic talents by way of
Bewitched
. But what they might not have known, he said, was that Lizzie was “hysterically funny” in her private life as well. He explained how she was not “terribly enamored with the glitz and glitter of Hollywood,” how she would much rather dirty her fingers in the garden than get “all gussied up” and attend some “fancy function,” and even though she loved doing that, too, it wasn't her favorite thing in the world.

Foxworth then concluded his speech as he had started it, saying, “She was a very private person and that sense of privacy came from her shyness.”

But when it came to advocating for young minds or human rights, the ill or disadvantaged, Lizzie's personal objectives took a backseat to compassion and concern for others … for better or for worse. More times than not, “she had a lot of problems with her self-confidence,” Bill Asher said in 2001 on
Headliners & Legends
. So, she stayed home a great deal. She could at times be considered a Hollywood recluse. Other times, not so much, because she enjoyed parties, especially if they were charity events.

In keeping with her indeterminate style, she kept everyone guessing, while one thing was certain: Elizabeth had little desire to age.

Ginger Blymer is a retired movie hairdresser whose famous clientele included the likes of Natalie Wood, Sean Connery, Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, and more. She worked with Lizzie on
The Awakening Land
and
Belle Starr
, both of which Foxworth had defined as classic films about “women of the west.”

In 2002, Blymer authored
Hairdresser to the Stars: A Hollywood Memoir
(Infinity Publishing), in which she remembers how much Lizzie loved horses, the racetrack, games, and any sort of mental competition; how Elizabeth's home was filled with “wonderful things,” like a merry-go-round-horse in the bar, and a hundred pillows on her bed. At Christmas, Blymer wrote, there were amazing decorations throughout Lizzie's home. “The staircase with pine wound up the bannister. It smelled great.”