Bewitched and Beyond: The Fan Who Came to Dinner (6 page)

Peyton Place
originally aired twice a week. It wasn’t long before its ratings zoomed into the top twenty, eventually prompting ABC to order
three
episodes a week; quite unheard of at the time. Imagine a primetime series that aired three new episodes every week, with no reruns! Today, we’re lucky if we get nine new episodes a season.

In the premiere episode, Kasey’s character, Julie Anderson (Barbara Parkins’ mother), is caught kissing Leslie Carrington (Paul Langton); a married man she works for and father to Ryan O’Neal’s character.

To complicate matters, Julie is married to a man called “Crazy George” (played by Henry Beckman), which only adds to the drama. Once again, Kasey was playing the bad girl. However, this bad girl would soon be known all over the world because of the immense popularity of the series. “I remember getting off a plane in Lima, Peru and all I heard was ‘Hola, Julie Anderson! Hola!”

Fun Side Note:
Many years later, dear friends of ours, Steve and Thomas, decided to throw a huge surprise party at Raleigh Studios in Hollywood, honoring Kasey’s career. Steve and Thomas contacted as many people from Kasey’s past as they could find. Unfortunately, most were either gone or had serious health issues and could not attend. This included
Gunsmoke
star, James Arness. Contrary to popular belief, Arness’ first film was NOT
The Thing.
It was a really
bad
film called
Two Lost World’s,
the vehicle for Kasey’s third starring role and his first! Though the film was full of pirates, ship wrecks, volcanoes, and dinosaurs, even Kasey had to admit it was a stinker.

Production still from Two Lost Worlds. Of interest is the built up platform that holds the volcano and backdrop on the soundstage. Kasey spent most of the time flipping her long hair around and ends up changing Arness’ name half way thru the film! Where was the Continuity Girl on that day??

Henry Beckman (her husband on
Peyton Place
and who would later guest-star on
Bewitched
) attended the party with his son, traveling all the way from Washington State. Henry and Kasey had not seen each other since their Peyton Place days and the reunion was a lot of fun. Sadly, Henry’s son passed away quite unexpectedly soon after and we never saw Henry again. Henry passed away 2 years after Kasey on June 17, 2008.

Kasey enjoyed working on
Peyton Place,
but remembers it was rather daunting at first, appearing for the first time as the mother of a teenager. Luckily, it wasn’t long before her worries began to subside, and she began to relish her time on
Peyton Place.
“It was much more fun and relaxed than
Bewitched,
” she later told me.

Kasey recalled there was once a rather complicated scene involving over thirty cast members and extras. “It was amazing. We had to ‘block’ the scene with all these different camera angles and characters. It was supposed to be one long continuous shot. We rehearsed it, broke for lunch, then came back and did it. And we did it in one take! We were all so surprised and proud, that we darn near ruined the end due to the excitement of it all!”

Also during her time on
Peyton Place,
Kasey was there to witness Mia Farrow’s infamous hair-cutting incident. “Mia was so angered over not being able to join Frank Sinatra overseas for an Easter vacation because of her
Peyton Place
schedule, that after one of the rehearsals, she went in her dressing room and chopped off all of her gorgeous auburn hair! Practically down to the
roots
! I guess she was thinking, ‘That’ll mess up continuity enough to get me a few days off.’ But Paul Monash [the director] took one look at her and said, ‘Write it in!’ and walked away. Poor Mia had to work anyway, but it gave her a stunning new look and a lot of publicity — things which both lasted a lot longer than her affair with Frank!”

Unfortunately by 1966, the bloom was off Kasey’s character, and Betty’s mother was written off the show. Sadly, she was also never included in any of the subsequent
Peyton Place
films, which hurt her deeply.

This is the last professional head shot that Kasey had made… it was always both of our favorites and I still have the raggedy jacket she wore in it.

Where’s Rodney?

Production still from
Two Lost Worlds.
Of interest is the built up platform that holds the volcano and backdrop on the soundstage. Kasey spent most of the time flipping her long hair around and ends up changing Arness’ name half way thru the film! Where was the Continuity Girl on that day??

Chapter 6

So, On to Westport

For the first two seasons of
Bewitched,
an actress named Irene Vernon played the part of Louise Tate, but as she would soon find out, there were many changes brewing on the set of
Bewitched.

Director (later producer) William Asher and wife,
Bewitched
star Elizabeth Montgomery, had now taken over the reins of the show and were doing a bit of house cleaning.

Not only was the show to debut in color for its third season, the new producers also felt that Larry Tate needed a younger, “trophy wife.” So, it was goodnight Irene, Kasey’s up to bat!

“Bewitched
was one of my favorite shows before I got to be on it,” Kasey told me. “It was a real thrill. I didn’t even have to read for the part. I just went in, met with Harry [Ackerman] and Bill [Asher], and the next week I was ‘Louise!’ At first, it was kind of a challenge to go from all the ‘internalizing’ of
Peyton Place,
to the wide eyed comedic innocence of Louise Tate yelling, ‘Larry!’

I also donned a dark wig so the change in actresses wouldn’t be quite as noticeable. I wore that dark wig until Dick Sargent took over the role of Darrin. It used to itch and bother me. You can even see me scratching at it from time to time in some of the episodes.

So one day, in make-up, I asked Bill if I had to keep wearing it and he remarked he didn’t even know why I was wearing it to begin with! So that’s how Louise became a red-head overnight!”

Other changes on the show included a new “Gladys Kravitz.” Sandra Gould would replace Alice Pearce, who had passed away from cancer at the end of the previous season.

The producers, as well as the network, didn’t like the idea of an older married couple getting divorced, and in a situation comedy, the sudden death of one of the main characters was out of the question, so the role of Gladys Kravitz had to be recast.

For a few transition episodes, actress Mary Grace Canfield played Abner’s sister, Harriet, while a suitable actress was found to fill the larger than life shoes of Alice Pearce.

Some
Bewitched
trivia here: Alice Ghostley, who would later play nervous nanny Esmeralda, was offered the chance to replace Alice Pearce in the role of Mrs. Kravitz, but declined because she and Alice were old friends, and she just didn’t feel right about accepting the offer. Sandra Gould once told me that when she had been a young child, George Tobias (her on screen hubby and fifteen years her senior), had been her baby sitter!

Along with the new color episodes, came a new look. Samantha no longer wore the full-skirted, shirt-waist dresses of the “Donna Reed” era, but sported a sleeker, sixties look; not too “mod” but pleasantly “hip.”

Also gone was the bow Elizabeth wore on the back of her head which pulled up the sides of her hair. (I always missed that… Next time you watch an episode, notice that her hair is even
drawn
that way in the opening cartoon credits, although the bow is undoubtedly hidden under her pointed hat!)

“I was very glad to be on
Bewitched,
but it wasn’t always a happy set,” Kasey would say. “I wasn’t privy to a lot of what was going on, but when the Asher ‘take-over’ came, there was a lot of bad feelings that took time to dissipate.

I remember one time I was to wear a fur coat in a scene. I didn’t really have a dressing room because I wore all my own clothes on the show and make-up was in a different building, so I asked a crew member for a place to hang the coat between shots. But I might as well have been talking to a brick wall. I didn’t get anywhere and guess I was looking a little frustrated when Elizabeth came over and asked if I needed anything. I told her, ‘Yes,’ I needed somewhere to hang up this expensive coat. A moment later the same crew member came over, hammered a big nail in the side of a flat and walked off. I had to hang this
beautiful
fur coat on a nail on a flat! Incredibly friendly place, huh?!!”

Kasey also told me many times that she “had to sit through take after take of that
dreadful
“Iffin” song,” (Hippie, Hippie, Hooray).

And she recalled a Halloween episode where Elizabeth comes into the room and accidentally spills a drink down her entire front, which was not supposed to happen. “She never stopped. It was only water (supposedly the pre-requisite martini), and it must’ve been cold, but she just kind of wiped it away and kept going. You can still see that on the episode. I have to say that Liz was a consummate pro.”

Elizabeth Montgomery could sometimes be a tad mischievous. Kasey recalled a particular scene at the Stephens’ dinner table. “It was the last shot of the day, and even though I know everybody thinks we drank like fish on the show, we didn’t. The characters did, but the actors didn’t. Let me clear the air right here, ‘booze’ is always faked.
Except
in this one shot, Liz had replaced the fake wine with
Sangria
and nobody knew! We sat down at the table and the cameras began to roll. We were saying our lines and one by one, we all took a drink, realized, and all looked over at Liz who had this impish little grin on her face the entire time.

I also remember Bill wrapping up the filming of another evening’s shoot because I was running late to catch a cruise ship. I know a lot of people, such as Sandra Gould, had problems with Bill, but I always adored him and was never treated any way by him except nice…