Bewitched and Beyond: The Fan Who Came to Dinner (4 page)

After the show, we went backstage and Kasey told Carol of her experience with Bill Eyeth and
Lend An Ear.
Carol, who was very sweet, smiled, and then very tongue in cheek, told Kasey that it was
impossible
because Kasey couldn’t be old enough to remember all that! Carol is something else!

Pressured by Paramount to change her name, Josie Imogene Rogers Donnellan became “Laura Elliot.” She chose “Laura,” because she liked the song from the movie of the same name, and thought the film’s star, Gene Tierney, absolutely gorgeous. The surname “Elliott” was suggested by a studio executive.

Armed with a new name and one of Hollywood’s leading studios, Laura Elliott would go on to make twenty-eight films and become a part of Paramount’s second Golden Circle.

Laura was the only starlet to be put under contract that year but soon others followed, and to the New Golden Circle came the likes of Barbara Rush, Ann Robinson, and Peter Hansen.

Kasey remembered, “We all did studio promotions together. You can also find us altogether in several Paramount films including
A Place in the Sun,
and the original
War of the Worlds.
We got to work with some of the biggest names in the business; George Stevens, Frank Capra, C.B. DeMille! It was great fun.”

Although Laura and the others didn’t have very much to do in these films, they were grateful for the opportunity to be there, and found them great learning experiences.

Many years later, at a long forgotten function, Kasey was asked to stand up and talk about working with film legends Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift from
A Place in the Sun.
Not having a clue what to say (because she didn’t even remember having met them on the
one
day she was on set) she quipped, “Well, let’s see…

Take the “Elizabeth” from Taylor and the “Montgomery” from Clift and you have
Elizabeth Montgomery.
Let’s talk about
Bewitched
!” She got a big laugh but then honestly admitted she was only on set one day during a party scene and didn’t remember too much about it.

But Laura’s biggest film was yet to come: Warner Bros. adaptation of the Patricia Highsmith novel,
Strangers on a Train
directed by the legendary Alfred Hitchcock.

In 2003, fifty years later, “Laura” was re-united for the first time with costar Farley Granger at a screening of “Strangers” at the Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles. Farley, who was eighty-something at the time, was still quite handsome and dapper and charming as ever.

Laura played Miriam; Farley Granger’s bitchy, conniving wife, who quickly gets her come-uppance at the hands of an insane Robert Walker, in his last major role.

The demise of Miriam is reflected in the glasses that fall from her face as Bruno strangles her. Kasey actually kept a pair of those glasses and today they reside in a small museum of Hollywood memorabilia called Movie Madness Museum in Oregon. They were given to the owner, Michael Clark, by Kasey, who was a friend.

In 2004 when Michael was in Los Angeles, we all went on a “field trip” and found the location that had been used as the carnival site in
Strangers.
Today, it is covered by a large housing development, but the lake on which they rode into the tunnel of love is still there!

Kasey recalled one of her cousins going to see the film with friends, and how embarrassed she was by Kasey’s
bad girl
antics. “My cousin denied even knowing me in the film and slunk down in her seat!” Kasey laughed. “Well, I
was
pretty risqué in that film.” (Just watch her eat the ice cream cone…) Even Kasey admitted to not realizing what “Hitch” was going for until many years later. “I was so square then!” she’d say.

Kasey relished her role in
Strangers,
and always loved playing the bad girl. “It was always so much more fun!”

One favorite memory Kasey had was during the strangulation scene. It was filmed on a large, bare soundstage with a camera pointing into a big, concave mirror. Nothing on the set; no tree, no Robert Walker, as seen in the finished production.

Hitchcock sat in his director chair and simply said, “Laura, float backwards to the ground.” “Yes, Mr. Hitchcock,” she replied. So she “floated” backwards a bit and then THUD! — landed on the hard, cement floor.

“Laura,
float
to the floor,” was his one and only response and line of direction. So she got up and did it again… and again… and again. Finally, on the
seventh
take, she somehow managed to float
all
the way to the floor. Hitchcock simply said “Cut,” and that was it.

The amazing thing about the shot is the lack of Robert Walker and the tree reflected in the sunglasses. Those elements were added in post-production. Many times I attended film school lectures with Kasey and she would explain to the students how the scene was shot, compared to what they saw in the actual film.

One thing Kasey was VERY proud of, but didn’t know until many years later, was that Hitchcock was once quoted in the book,
Hitchcock,
by Truffaut, as saying, “The gal who played the wife was particularly good.” It’s a shame he never said it directly to
her.
But he did tell her, “Lose ten pounds and you could play leads!” Laura took his constructive criticism seriously and found Hitchcock to be right, as many leading roles were soon to follow.

It was during this time that Laura also met and briefly dated Conrad Hilton, wealthy and affluent owner of the prosperous chain of Hilton Hotels. (Imagine if that particular situation had panned out: Kasey would’ve been Elizabeth Taylor AND Zsa Zsa Gabor’s
mother-in-law,
as well as Paris Hilton’s Grandmother…or Great Grandmother?! Well, something like that).

In August of 1999, Hollywood celebrated the 100th anniversary of Hitchcock’s birthday, in which we attended several parties. Most Hitchcock fans never knew what happened to “Laura Elliot” since she had been re-christened “Kasey Rogers” many years earlier.

At one party, held on the roof top at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on August 13, 1999, we found Tippi Hedren “holding court” with several rapt fans and reporters. Suddenly one reporter saw Kasey and recognized her as
Laura.
Much to her amazement, every fan, every reporter, every photographer moved
en masse,
away from Miss Hedren and over to Kasey. The
buzz
of that evening became, “We never knew Louise Tate was Miriam!” So the long lost Laura Elliott had at last been found alive and well, but I’m not sure Tippi ever forgave us.

Another party was held in the forecourt of Grauman’s Egyptian Theatre and in attendance was Patricia Hitchcock. She played Ruth Roman’s kid sister in
Strangers
and Kasey had not seen her in nearly fifty years.

Pat Hitchcock is a very nice lady and a lot of fun. When I remarked how much I liked our table centerpiece, she insisted that I take it! I still have the bowl, and Kasey and I later used it in one of our Hallowe’en craft books.

Sadly, at yet another screening of
Strangers
during the 1999 celebration, we received word that Ruth Roman had passed away just moments earlier.

In July of 2005 we attended another Hitchcock function in San Francisco, and appeared on stage with Pat Hitchcock and Tippi Hedren. It was Kasey’s last public appearance.

You’ve gotta hand it to Kasey. There she was living with a tracheostomy tube in her throat to breathe and a G-Tube in her stomach for eating, and she still looked
fantastic
!

Kasey enjoyed having people recognize her as Laura, which was at first rare, but now, it was becoming common knowledge that Laura and Kasey were the same gal.

As “Laura Elliot,” she also made a handful of Westerns while at Paramount. Produced by Nat Holt, they included
Denver & the Rio Grande,
with Edmond O’Brien, Dean Jagger, J. Carroll Nash, and ZaSu Pitts, and
Silver City,
also with Edmond O’Brien, and Yvonne DeCarlo (“Lily Munster”).

Kasey remembered Yvonne making sure that EVERYONE on set knew she had just been voted the “Most Beautiful Woman in the World,” and apparently was a big pain in the ass about it.

Many years later, in 1996, Kasey and I went to an awards function in Antelope Valley and Yvonne DeCarlo was there as well. Kasey looked svelte and lovely in a beautiful sequined gown, and Yvonne… well… Yvonne looked like the golden cow they worshiped in the
Ten Commandments.
She didn’t immediately recognize Kasey, but later when Kasey was on stage speaking, she mentioned that she had worked with Yvonne many years before in
Silver City.
I happened to be sitting within earshot and heard Yvonne say,

“
That’s
where I know her from!” It suddenly dawned on her who Kasey was. Yvonne quickly made a few disparaging remarks (one inferring that Kasey had been quite “popular” with all the stunt men on the set), then suddenly “took ill,” and left in quite a huff. (Smile.)

FUN NOTE:
Producer Nat Holt had a daughter named Jacqueline, who Laura met on the set of one of the Westerns. Years later, “Jacque,” grew up to marry Bernard Fox (“Dr. Bombay”) from
Bewitched
! While Kasey only did one episode of
Bewitched
with Bernard, the two never actually met, as they never had any scenes together.

Sometime after I arrived in L.A., I finally got Bernard and Kasey together. During the meeting, both Jacque and Kasey looked at each other at the same time and said, “I know you!” and it suddenly became apparent from where. Small world, huh?

In the movie
Denver & the Rio Grande,
a massive train wreck was filmed. Two antique Victorian locomotives were smashed together, which actually brought tears to the eyes of several old, grizzled train engineers who were watching off-camera. However, before doing so, the trains were stripped of all their finery.

Actress ZaSu (pronounced ZAY-zoo) Pitts saved a bell from one of the trains, and Laura kept a beautiful hanging lamp from one of the dining cars. One of her sons still has it today. Later, one of the wrecked trains was refurbished and today resides at Knott’s Berry Farm where you can still ride it and see Laura’s picture, which hangs in their depot.

You really should check out these mid-century Westerns. They are beautifully photographed, the color pristine and the vistas are stunningly gorgeous.

Kasey/Laura went on to star and co-star in films such as
Sampson and Delilah
(she loved her one scene in that, when she asks the man with her why he doesn’t gaze at her the same way he looks at Delilah he responds “You’re NOT Delilah!” HA!),
Jamaica Run, Ask Any Girl
and her favorite “clunker,”
Two Lost Worlds
with an unknown Jim Arness.

After her Paramount contract was up, Laura met and hired a publicist to help her career. His name was Walter “Bud” Lewis and he would later become her second husband, as well as the one responsible for changing her name from “Laura Elliott” to “Kasey Rogers.”

In retrospect, Kasey felt it was a poor decision that ultimately divided her career in half.

Although it was the end of “Laura’s” movie career, it was also the beginning of “Kasey’s” successful career on television; one that would eventually boast over six-hundred leads and appearances on the small-screen throughout the fifties and sixties.

Laura Elliot