Bewitched and Beyond: The Fan Who Came to Dinner (22 page)

Another odd little thing happened in June of 2008, when I was working at my part time gig at Calico Corners.

I was helping out with an inventory, and what do you suppose the odds are that the first two bolts of fabric I started with were named “Lizzie” and “Montgomery”?! HA!

On my 45th birthday, Rose Marie’s daughter, “Noopy,” found a large yellow and black sign on the side of the road. These types of signs are used to direct people to film shoot locations. They are bright yellow, 16 x 20, have a large black arrow in the middle, and always have one “key” word on the top and bottom. The one Noopy found said “WITCH.” She knew she had to get it for me, so late one night she “took” it. We both laughed saying, “It’s a sign! It’s a sign!” (And it literally was!)

But three days later, as I was exiting the freeway to go to work, there was another one of those identical signs; only this time the one word on it was “TATE”!

Again I ask, what are the odds??? Well, I
had
to have it so I stopped and took it, right in broad daylight!

Now fast-forward a couple of weeks to July 14,th 2008, which was the second anniversary of Kasey’s burial. I was feeling really bummed, and for some reason, this particular date bothered me more than June 30th, the date of her stroke, or July 6th, the date of her death.

Kasey must have known that I needed some cheering up, that day, because as I was driving down Ventura Blvd., I happened upon yet another one of those same yellow signs… but this time, there were only
two letters
on it. And of all the combination of letters in the world, this one was “KR.”

Yup. It’s mine!

One last odd little thing to add to all the others, as it turns out, I recently discovered that David Story, (the young man who first introduced me to Herbie Pilato) and I are fifth cousins on my father’s side. That means:

One of my own family members helped introduce me to the cast members of
Bewitched
! But wait…

Odder still, I had never put two and two together before, but my father’s mother is a direct relative of the Tobias family of South Carolina, and George Tobias is part of that family, meaning that I am directly related to Abner Kravitz! HA!

Who would have ever believed that members of my own family were part of
Bewitched?!
Destiny perhaps? One never knows…

FUN SIDE NOTE:
Readers may find this strange, but amusing. George Tobias (Abner Kravitz) was actually late for his own funeral! Now this might not have surprised a lot of people who had known him during his last years, because George’s mind hadn’t quite been what it once was. (Sandy Gould even remembered having to help him remember his lines on “Tabitha”). But as everyone was gathering for George’s funeral, George himself never made it! There was literally no
body
because the hearse he was riding in had been
stolen
and was not found for several days! But thankfully there was George, undisturbed and still resting peacefully in the back!

The table, the chair and the infamous lamp! Bewitched fans may like to know that the shelf above KR’s chair was from Elizabeth Montgomery’s home. You can see it on the ground in the
photo of me at the yard sale.

Kasey prepares for battle with an out-of-control bull (ahem…) in Mexico City. She tells it that all the stars of Screen Gems were asked to fight the bull (in reality just a baby that was NOT harmed in anyway). No one would do it so to “save face” she got in the ring. Later on Vito Scotti got into the act also.

Chapter 32

Wrapping Up The Years

February 2003, Kasey and I attended the first ever TV Land Awards. I have to say it was like pulling teeth to even get the cast of
Bewitched
invited. The fact that Elizabeth Montgomery was gone made them lose interest in the show, but I persevered and they eventually did invite William Asher and Kasey. I, being Kasey’s escort, also got to attend.

That night was a lot of fun. I remember one of the categories had something to do with favorite sinister characters and Jeannie’s evil twin sister won out over Serena… (perhaps because Barbara was on hand) Through the magic of special effects, both “Jeannies”
were there
to accept the award! This is all from the same network that ran the same contest year after year… to find out who was more powerful; Samantha or Jeannie. For those of you who don’t know who won that contest each and every time, look it up.
Tinka-tinka-tee
!

I also remember that one of the things TV Land edited out of the final broadcast was David Cassidy asking the audience if they noticed that “the only people winning awards were those still alive?” (I guess that didn’t sit too well with the Powers That Be!)

That same night was not without its embarrassing moments courtesy of yours truly.

Right before the show started, I went to the men’s room. There were three urinals on the wall and the two outer ones were in use. Shyly, I took my place in the middle. Only then did I realize who I was standing between. After a moment of awkward silence I asked, ”Do you guys know how hard it is to pee between Mr. Spock and The 6 Million Dollar Man?!” Leonard Nimoy and Lee Majors both started to laugh and Nimoy said: “Tell me if he (Majors) does it in slow motion!”

Later, the subject of Jack Cassidy came up that night between Kasey and me. During the conversation it dawned on me that if you take the “I,D,Y” off of “Jack Cassidy”, you end up with
“JACKASS”!
And yes, I said it out loud.

Immediately I heard a loud guffaw behind me and it was then that I realized Shirley Jones and Marty Ingels were standing within earshot. I was a little embarrassed and most apologetic, but they thought it was funny, especially Marty.2003 also saw a star for William Asher (November 22). Not in Hollywood, which is one of the crimes of the century — make that TWO centuries now — but in Palm Springs’ version of the Walk of Fame. SueAne had gotten one there on her birthday, March 8, 1997.

Kasey and I were invited to attend and we stood alongside the adorable Henry Gibson from
Laugh-In.
Henry once had played Napoleon on an episode of
Bewitched.
Paul Lynde has the greatest line in that: “Stand up… (He is)… all the way!”

The after-party was a lot of fun and it was here that I really got to meet the rest of the Asher family. I still treasure my little star-shaped pin with Bill’s name that I received that day.

SueAne Langdon received a star there as well, on her birthday, March 8, 1997. So if you’re ever out “star-gazing” in Palm Springs, look for Bill and SueAne’s, which were both well-deserved and long overdue and just across the side street from each other.

August of 2004 it was my turn to go in for surgery. Lasik eye surgery, that is. Kasey was right outside the operating room as I lay in a complete panic on a table in a room that was freezing! I thought I wouldn’t live just out of fear alone… but I have to honestly say that if you’re considering the surgery, go for it, because much to my surprise, it didn’t hurt a bit!

Kasey had waited until I had “healed” before she told me that she was concerned about her throat, which at the time we both thought was strictly a fibrosis issue brought on by a lot of radiation therapies.

In the early days, most doctors didn’t believe or understand that radiation caused this problem, so they did NOT bother putting patients on any kind of regimen to keep it from becoming debilitating. Sadly, Kasey was one of those, as she was slowly being robbed of the ability to swallow.

She asked me to feel her neck and throat area.

When I did, I was stunned.

The entire area felt like a solid concrete brick covered with a thin layer of tissue paper!

I also couldn’t understand why she had waited so long to say anything. I later found out that both fear and denial were running rampant through her mind.

Despite all that was going on, we still held our annual Halloween party at the Stagecoach Inn Museum that year, and on November 1st Kasey and I shot a pilot for a proposed series based on our craft books called “Hands-on Holidays.”

That September, we also shot a spooky, Victorian-style commercial for the yearly Halloween party that benefited the museum.

Rose Marie conducted the séance; complete with flickering lights, banging doors, and a
live
ghost! Seven lucky visitors got to sit at the dining room table with her and partake.

Margaret O’Brien was in the upstairs bedroom with a haunted cradle that began to rock after she put down “her” invisible baby.

I sang the old Bing Crosby Disney song, “The Headless Horseman” in the parlor, and at one point I forgot the lyrics! I looked over and for some reason, it just dawned on me that there stood SueAne Langdon, playing my “wife.” After all those years of knowing her, it still blew my mind that I was doing a scene with SueAne Langdon! The party was a great success.

By that Christmas, we knew that Kasey had more than just a fibrosis problem. Her throat cancer had returned.

One of the hardest things you’ll ever do in life is go with your partner, spouse, or best friend, to a cemetery and pick out plots, caskets, grave markers and flowers. But that’s what Kasey and I did.

Not knowing if she would even survive the upcoming surgery, she insisted on making sure that everything was taken care of.

Kasey was operated on by Dr. Sinha, an incredible physician at USC, who would be performing an incredibly complicated procedure.

He had to remove tissue from Kasey’s left wrist as well as part of the main artery. Afterwards, he
removed
her
entire throat
along with all the surrounding cancerous tissue. He then
replaced
her throat with the tissue he took from her wrist. Many long hours later, we finally got the word that Kasey had come through beautifully.

The following year and a half that followed now seems like a blur.

As I touched on before, Kasey had a tracheostomy tube that needed constant cleaning. We employed everything from tweezers to Q-Tips, as well as a suction machine that was constantly in use.

She was fed through a G-Tube to her stomach for the rest of her life which entailed the same cleaning and wound dressing.

But I’ll tell you, she was innovative! We would get Marie Callender’s Chicken pot pies, add milk, and then put it in this blender we found that could’ve ground up a tree branch!

Taking care of the trach and the G-Tube feedings became a very personal thing to Kasey. She didn’t want anyone else to do it except me — not even members of her own family.

She also had a little bell to ring for me during the night, which we later supplemented with a Walkie-Talkie that had a button that would do the same thing.

There were countless times I would have to go to her room in the middle of the night because her dinner had come back up. She would clean herself up and I would take care of all the bedding and put her back to bed.

Many nights I would lay there with her until she fell back asleep. We were close before, but we became even more so at this point.