Bewitched and Beyond: The Fan Who Came to Dinner (17 page)

How would this be accomplished? We researched her dialogue from past
Bewitched
episodes and any time Louise Tate needed to speak, her voice would be culled from old episodes and Kasey would then lip sync to herself. You can’t imagine what we went through to

try and make this happen. But sadly, Sony never realized its potential and still doesn’t.

My chapter title is a bit misleading. Although Alice has since passed away, she will forever be at her home on Reklaw Avenue in Studio City. She was cremated, and her ashes laid to rest next to her husband Felice, under the large orange tree in their backyard.

I was grateful to be given Alice’s guest room furniture and many other odds and ends from her home after she passed on. As I was leaving with my truck laden with mementos and treasures from “Esmeralda,” I noticed a broom standing all by itself by the kitchen door.

DOROTHY
(to the witch’s guard):
The broom. May we have it?

GUARD:
Please. And take it with you.

That was the beginning of my broom collection. I now have several that are signed by Hollywood’s best, including one from Billie “Witchiepoo” Hayes.

Alice age 11!

The final resting place of Alice and Felice.

Me, Alice and Felice.

Chapter 24

Kasey's Commercial

1998 was a year filled with ups and downs.

My father passed away on August 3rd. In early October Kasey’s former husband, Bud Lewis, died.

Kasey had landed her first commercial audition in years and was set to shoot the day he passed away. She came to my room and told me, and I remember her not wanting to cry so she’d look alright for the commercial shoot. Now, some may find this crass but remember they had not been together for nearly 25 years, and while terribly saddened by it all she decided “The show must go on!”

Kasey was very proud of getting cast in that commercial. At the age of seventy-three, she looked young enough to be playing the wife of a forty-eight year old man! She never revealed her true age to the producers, and didn’t tell them that her ex-husband had died that day until the shoot was over. What a trouper!

When the family finally decided to have Bud’s memorial service, (he had been cremated) we marched up a hillside in Zuma Beach, so his ashes could be scattered in the wind. Funny thing, Bud Lewis always
hated
me and never cared much for his stepson Jay, and ironically, it fell to the two of us to cart his ass up that steep mountainside in a bag!

Bernard Fox gets “hosed down” for this scene from “Weep No More My Willow,” shot on July, 11, 1968.

Chapter 25

America Gets a Step-Dad: The Second Darrin

What more can be said about the infamous change of Darrins on
Bewitched
? It’s been the butt of jokes for forty plus years now. While writers were spending
sixteen
years writing what became the greatly disappointing and widely panned
Bewitched
movie, every writer thought he had the original idea of “switching Darrin’s” half way through, because it was clever. Needless to say, fans thought that joke was old then, and still do. Still, it might have helped that film!

Sadly, the change in Darrin’s was just a necessary evil. One man could no longer perform the role, and another needed to step up to the plate and do his best.

Actually, Sargent’s Darrin isn’t that bad. If you watch carefully in his series debut, it’s Elizabeth that’s bad!

Yes
Bewitched
fans, I know… I just committed the
ultimate
sacrilege. But truth be told, she was so busy compensating, that the normally perfect luminary was adding nothing but a bit of frantic acting.

By Dick’s second season, things seem to be on more of an upswing, but by his third and final season of the series, Elizabeth is all but
phoning
in her part! She was so ready for the show and that part of her life to be over that she couldn’t get away fast enough! And poor Dick Sargent always gets the blame.

However, the Sargent years did leave us with some great episodes — especially the ones shot in Salem.

Bewitched
was the first sitcom to ever go on location to film, therefore making TV history. And Salem should thank its lucky stars. Those episodes of
Bewitched
put Salem on the map as a popular tourist destination. Roughly a million tourists fill Salem (mostly in October) annually. A town once known for trying to sweep its witch-hysteria under the cauldron, Salem has finally embraced it because of the money it brings in. Before the witches came back to town Salem didn’t even have a museum dedicated to that unfortunate event centuries ago. So…

…when TV Land decided to pay homage to the show by erecting a statue of “Samantha,” they chose Salem, Massachusetts instead of Westport, Connecticut — a decision not without controversy.

On the flip side, it helped clean up a derelict park, home to transients, and reopened long shuttered businesses. Today, the Lappin Park area is a bustling, thriving tourist destination. (Thanks, Sam!)

Dick Sargent, who will probably always be known as “the second Darrin,” was a
very
nice man. I got to know him during my first two years in LA; the last two years of his life. He was charming and fun — an absolute sweetheart. His original surname was Cox. He used to delight in telling people that his mother never quite understood why he decided to change his name from “Dick Cox” to Dick Sargent.

During my first March in L.A., Kasey and I called him for a little get-together we were hosting at her acting studio. This soirée included Sandy Gould, Erin Murphy, Kasey, Dick, and me. It was like old home week for everyone from the cast, and I was beside myself as you can well imagine. These people had not seen each other in twenty years, and here they were getting reacquainted because they wanted to do
my
project,
Bewitched… Again! Surreal
is the only way to describe how it felt to be sitting right in the middle of it all!

Everyone was so pleased to see each other again, and kept saying, “Why haven’t we done this before?” I remember Dick kept saying, “I didn’t think any of you liked me!” He couldn’t have been more wrong.

Another adventure we all shared was the time that Kasey, Sandy, and I made plans to meet Dick at a gay nightclub in West Hollywood called Rage. There I was, sitting amidst these
Bewitched
icons, watching all these guys do double-takes as they walked by. For those that were bold enough to ask who I was, Dick introduced me as his son, “Adam”!

To all of America, he may just be Darrin #2, but to me, he’ll always be my favorite
step-dad!

I talked to Dick one last time in June of 1994. All of us were genuinely heartsick when he told us that his prostate cancer had returned. Like so many others from
Bewitched,
it was far too soon, and Dick was far too young.

His memorial service was held on July 24th, 1994 at Forest Lawn Cemetery Burbank in the Old North Church (a replica of the church made famous by Paul Revere). Seated on the pew with Kasey and myself were Bernard Fox, his wife Jacque, Erin Murphy, Alice Ghostley, and Sandra Gould.

Shortly before the service began, the doors in the back of the church quietly opened, and in walked Elizabeth Montgomery. She knew that arriving early would have caused the press to focus on her, diminishing the reason we were all there.

Though I tried not to stare, I couldn’t help but notice that Elizabeth looked absolutely radiant! Her hair was long again, not curly, as it was in the Edna Buchanan TV movies, but with a more relaxed flip, reminiscent of Samantha Stephens. She wore a burgundy dress and heels that accentuated her shapely legs, and she looked phenomenal!

No one would have believed that she too, would be gone only eight months later.

After the service, we were all invited over to Dick’s house; a lovely cottage built into the mountains of the Hollywood Hills that overlooked the valley. It was especially beautiful that night, watching fireworks shoot into the sky from Universal Studios.

As we walked inside, I found it a little odd that the kitchen was in the process of being remodeled. The refrigerator and stove had been moved and were sitting at odd angles, and all the flooring had been torn out, exposing the sub-floor.

On an easel in the living room was a large, color, abstract painting of Dick. But noticeably absent from the rest of the house were mementoes of his career; the exception was a color photo of him and Elizabeth used as a
TV Guide
cover shortly after he took over the role of Darrin Stephens.

This was also the evening that Sandra Gould introduced me to Elizabeth Montgomery. Now I finally had the opportunity to tell her how much
Bewitched
meant to me, but I had also been forewarned that I had to tread lightly, as this was
not
her favorite subject.

According to Kasey and many others, Elizabeth could never bring herself to enjoy the accolades of playing Samantha Stephens. She suffered inner conflict and emotional turmoil over the very thing that brought so much joy to millions of people the world over.