Bewitched and Beyond: The Fan Who Came to Dinner (5 page)

Top left is soon-to-be TV’s
Superman,
George Reeves. William Eyeth is in the center with KR on his left.

Paramount’s 2nd Golden Circle.

“Is your name, Miriam?”

“Why, yes!”

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” meets Tippi

“Laura” was also cast as she bore a resemblance to Patricia Hitchcock at the time. (A plot ploy in
Strangers on a Train
that nearly sets off Robert Walker to murder again).

“Laura” with another film fatale — Janet Leigh.

Kasey and Yvonne DeCarlo from
Silver City.

Left to Right:
Edmund O’Brien, KR, J. Carrol Naish in
Denver and The Rio Grande.

On July 28, 1951, as a prank, Kasey had the make-up team on
Denver and The Rio Grande
turn her into a grizzled ol’ cow-poke. Then she had the stunt crew teach her how to “take a punch.” They staged and filmed a fight scene, as this series of candid photos show, that did not make the final cut as her cowboy hat flew off revealing her blonde hair. Producer, Nat Holt was NOT amused that his female lead nearly got herself killed…or worse…BRUISED (as that would show)!

Chapter 5

From Peyton Place to Westport

Kasey’s television career really hit the mother lode when she won the role of Julie Anderson in ABC’s,
Peyton Place.
This controversial series was America’s original primetime soap-opera and the forerunner to shows like
Dallas, Dynasty, Falcon Crest,
and
Knots Landing.

When the show premiered in 1964, it took the nation by storm because it was the first of its kind to talk about sex and infidelity in such an open and frank manner. By today’s standards it seems incredibly tame, but not to a world where Lucy Ricardo and June Cleaver were the norm.