Montgomery, Elizabeth

(b. 15 April 1933 in Los Angeles, California; d. 18 May 1995 in Los Angeles, California), versatile television actress best known as Samantha, the supernatural housewife on Bewitched (1964–1972), as well as for a wide range of made-for-television movies.

Montgomery was one of two children born to cinematic leading man Robert Montgomery and his first wife, actress Elizabeth Bryan-Allan. She grew up in a privileged environment, graduating from the Spence School in New York City in 1951. She attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts from 1951 to 1953 but acted while studying, making her television debut in the drama “Top Secret” from her father’s anthology program, Robert Montgomery Presents, in December 1951.

Montgomery’s famous father showed no enthusiasm about her following in his footsteps. “It wasn’t that he never gave me any encouragement,” she later said. “It’s that he was entirely unsuccessful in trying to discourage me.… He was my most severe critic, but also a true friend.”

In October 1953 the young actress opened on Broadway in Late Love, for which she was voted the most promising newcomer of the 1953–1954 season by Theater World. She seldom returned to the stage, however, concentrating instead on television. One source lists her as appearing in some 250 programs in the 1950s and 1960s, including two seasons in the summer repertory company of Robert Montgomery Presents and an Emmy-nominated guest appearance as a gangster’s moll on The Untouchables in 1960. She also made a few films, appearing in The Court Martial of Billy Mitchell (1955), Johnny Cool (1963), Who’s Been Sleeping in My Bed? (1963), and How to Stuff a Wild Bikini (1965).

In 1954 Montgomery married Frederick Gallatin Cammann, characterized by one writer as a “blue-blooded New Yorker.” They were divorced in 1955. In 1957 she married actor Gig Young, with whom she appeared in a 1961 television version of The Spiral Staircase. She divorced Young in 1963 to wed film and television director William Asher.

Asher told Herbie J. Pilato, author of Bewitched Forever, that his bride did not want to work after marriage: she feared the separation that film work entailed, and the pair hoped to have children. (They had three: William, Jr., in 1964, Robert in 1965, and Rebecca Elizabeth in 1969.) He suggested that they collaborate on a television series, and the result was Bewitched, for which he served as principal director and producer.

The show ran from 1964 to 1972 and became one of the most enduring comedies of American television by playing both on the theme of conflicts between spouses with different backgrounds (à la I Love Lucy) and on the sciencefiction/supernatural motif so popular at that time (The Munsters, My Favorite Martian). Its protagonist, witch Samantha Stephens, dwells uneasily in suburban Connecticut with her mortal advertising-executive husband, Darrin (Dick York, replaced in 1969 by Dick Sargent), who wishes to rule the domestic roost. In order to maintain marital harmony, Samantha vows not to use her supernatural powers. Her vow is foiled again and again, however. Sometimes the cause of disruption is one of her witch relatives, most often her mother Endora, played with panache by Agnes Moorehead. Sometimes Samantha uses witchcraft to help Darrin’s career. She is usually penitent about breaking the rules, and the couple reconciles at the episode’s end.

Later critics interpreted Samantha’s dilemma in a feminist light, seeing the repression of her magical powers as emblematic of the submission of the average American housewife. In general, contemporary critics did not stress this angle, though Isaac Asimov did suggest in a humorous 1969 TV Guide article that Darrin’s obvious fear of Samantha’s powers did not bode well for American husbands.

In 1972, after selling well in syndication and making money for the Ashers, who owned a percentage of the profits for the program as well as those for related merchandise, Bewitched filmed its final episode. Montgomery went on to concentrate on made-for-television movies.

She spent the rest of her career making such films, including A Case of Rape (1974), The Legend of Lizzie Borden (1975), The Awakening Land (1978), The Black Widow Muders (1993), and The Corpse Had a Familiar Face (1994). She played seductresses, victims, killers, journalists, and pioneer women. Unafraid to take chances, Montgomery was proud of her groundbreaking role in A Killing Affair (1977), in which she played a white detective who falls in love with her married African-American partner.

In 1974 Montgomery divorced Asher, beginning a long-term romantic relationship with actor Robert Foxworth, an occasional costar. The two married in 1993. Her final television movie, Deadline for Murder, was broadcast a week before her death from colon cancer. Her family disposed of her remains privately.

Montgomery charmed fans with her deft hand at comedy in Bewitched; nevertheless, she was proudest of the later work she brought to the small screen. “I’m not trying to put Bewitched down,” she said in the 1980s. “It’s just that I’ve reached another plateau in the type of work I want to do. It’s like a man working all his life as a gardener and suddenly waking up to the fact that he wants to be a landscape architect. I want to act—believe me—because that’s what I do best.”

In a 1996 memorial piece in the Advocate, Bruce Vilanch explained, “As the traditional women’s audience abandoned [movie] theaters for the most part, the guys running the networks noticed that that very audience was watching a lot of TV. A versatile TV star like [Montgomery] could play the full range of roles once available to studio actors such as Susan Hayward and Joan Fontaine if she was willing to do them on TV. And so she did. She was the first.”

Profiles of Montgomery include Herbie J. Pilato, Bewitched Forever (1996). See also Tim Brooks, Complete Directory of Prime Time TV Stars (1987), and Ronald L. Smith, Sweethearts of’60s TV (1989). Other profiles include Alvin J. Marill, “The Television Scene,” Films in Review (Feb. 1981), and Bruce Vilanch, “Magic Moments,” the Advocate (25 June 1996). Asimov’s article, “Husbands, Beware!,” ran in TV Guide (22 Mar. 1969). An obituary is in the New York Times (19 May 1995).

Tinky “Dakota” Weisblat