Bewitched ran from 1964 to 1972 and followed the adventures of a young witch named Samantha,
who can work wonders with a simple twitch of her nose. From the infamous "New Darrin"
to an ill-fated feature film starring Will Ferrell, this is the untold truth of Bewitched.
The idea for Bewitched didn't appear to screenwriter Sol Saks in a puff of smoke, nor did he use
a magic spell to cook it up. Rather, Saks was inspired to create the sitcom after watching
I Married a Witch — a quirky rom-com shot during the Golden Age of Hollywood.
As stated on Turner Classic Movies, I Married a Witch was adapted from a 1941 Thorne Smith
novel called The Passionate Witch. The 1942 picture tells the story of a woman named Jennifer,
who just so happens to be a witch living in 1600s New England. When Jennifer is burned
at the stake in Salem, she vows to get revenge on those who ordered her execution. Centuries
later, her spirit is accidentally set free, and she is able to roam the Earth once more.
She develops an interest in a local politician, but things get complicated when she realizes
that her perfect man is a descendant of those who had her killed. Ultimately, the power
of romance overcomes their differences. Iconic Hollywood starlet Veronica Lake played Jennifer,
while Academy Award-winner Fredric March played her lover and all his ancestors.
Bewitched fans loved the chemistry and camaraderie between Elizabeth Montgomery's character Samantha
and her onscreen husband Darrin. In real life, Montgomery had a husband she was just as wild
about — William "Bill" Asher, one of the show's producers. Montgomery met Asher on
the set of 1963 TV movie, Johnny Cool, which she starred in, and he directed.
"Johnny, I need you. I need you right now."
As detailed in Herbie J. Pilato's biography, Twitch Upon a Star: The Bewitched Life and
Career of Elizabeth Montgomery, Asher and Montgomery were attracted to each other at
the time, but neither of them were emotionally available, having just come out of separations
with other celebrities.
By the time Screen Gems executives William Dozier and Harry Ackerman started working
on Bewitched, Asher and Montgomery had spent more time together and were a happy couple.
Dozier was a friend of Montgomery's and had been wanting to collaborate with her for some
time. After New York actress Tammy Grimes turned down the part for Samantha, Dozier
offered the part to Montgomery, and she gladly accepted. Asher joined the show as a director.
Eventually, he would take the reins in a full-time producing role.
Elizabeth Montgomery was pregnant three times over the course of Bewitched. Throughout much
of the first season, she was expecting her first son with Bill Asher, William.
However, because her character was so recently married, the producers opted to disguise her
pregnancy with carefully chosen clothing and camera angles. By the time she was expecting
second son Robert, characters Samantha and Darrin had already been married for a while.
Instead of recommending the show's previous approach, the network censors allowed the
Bewitched writers to weave Montgomery's pregnancy into the script.
"You're what?"
"I'm gonna have a baby."
Thus, when Robert was born, so was Tabitha, the first Stephens baby. During season six
of the show, Montgomery became pregnant again — this time with third child, Rebecca. Once
again, the Bewitched team decided to write the new baby into the sitcom. Samantha and
Darrin's second child was a boy named Adam, who would eventually become a warlock.
When most people think of the Tabitha character, actress Erin Murphy comes to mind. However,
the role of Samantha and Darrin's daughter was actually filled by seven different children
over the course of the show's run. First was Cynthia Black, who was only 2 and a half weeks
old when she appeared in the episode "And Then There Were Three," which depicts Tabitha's
birth.
Next up was a set of twins — Heidi and Laura Gentry, who took turns portraying the baby
witch in the episode "My Baby the Tycoon." The Gentry girls were shortly replaced with
another set of twins — Tamar and Julie Young, who played Tabitha for the rest of Season
Two. Season Three, which showed Tabitha growing up, featured older twins Erin and Diane Murphy
in the role.
When the differences between the girls became apparent, Erin, who looked more like Elizabeth
Montgomery, took over full time. Her sister Diane wasn't left in the dust — she was
brought in for various guest roles, such as a girl who gets punched in the stomach in
"A Bunny for Tabitha" and a human version of Raggedy Ann in "Samantha and the Troll."
Many devoted fans of Bewitched were upset when Dick Sargent replaced Dick York as Samantha's
husband Darrin in Season 6. It turns out that Agnes Moorehead, who played Endora, might
not have been so pleased with the decision to recast him either. As detailed in Herbie
J. Pilato's Twitch Upon a Star, there was often an uncomfortable dynamic between the
two on the set.
David White, who played Darrin's boss Larry Tate on the show, recalls that at the first
table read with Sargent as Darrin, Moorehead rose from her seat and announced, quote, "I
am not fond of change." Later, when the cast flew to Salem, Massachusetts, for an on-location
shoot, White saw Sargent crying. Sargent explained that he had been hurt by something Moorehead
had said. However, the actors did ultimately reconcile. In a 1992 interview, Sargent told
author Owen Keehnen,
"She was certainly the most professional woman in the world, and she was so good [an actress].
Thank God we became friends eventually."
Bewitched is primarily known for its humorous riffs on gender dynamics. However, the show,
which aired during the civil rights era, also discussed racism in an episode called "Sisters
at Heart," thanks in large part to a woman named Marcella Saunders.
In 1969, Saunders was an English teacher working at Thomas Jefferson High School in Los Angeles.
Hoping to get her students interested in writing by creating a connection to television, Saunders
reached out to several popular shows, including Bewitched. Elizabeth Montgomery and William
Asher wrote back to her, inviting her students to the set of the show. After the exciting
field trip, the students wrote a sample storyline for the sitcom and sent it to the Bewitched
team as a thank you.
The plot revolved around an interracial friendship between Tabitha and a Black classmate of hers.
Staff writer Barbara Avedon felt so strongly about the concept that she turned it into
a real episode — the show's 1970 Christmas special.
"Tonight's show was created in the true spirit of Christmas. The story was written by the
tenth grade english class at Thomas Jefferson High School, in Los Angeles."
In "Sisters at Heart," Tabitha is friends with a Black girl named Lisa, whom she refers
to as her "sister." When a high-profile client of Darrin's comes to the house and sees the
girls playing together, he assumes that Darrin is married to a Black woman and stops doing
business with him out of prejudice. After being called out by Larry, Darrin's boss,
the businessman comes to recognize the error of his ways and apologizes for his racism.
Bewitched is famous for its cartoon intro, created by Hanna-Barbera Productions. Every
fan of the series can instantly recognize the iconic sequence, which depicts Samantha
flying over the city on a broomstick, turning her hat into a frying pan, transforming into
a cat, and finally jumping into the arms of Darrin. However, even some diehards may be
surprised to learn that the Bewitched characters also made two other animated appearances.
Samantha and Darrin's highest profile adventure in the cartoon world took place in 1965, when
Elizabeth Montgomery and Dick York guest starred on a special crossover episode of The Flintstones.
The episode, appropriately titled "Samantha," shows the Stephenses moving to Bedrock and
befriending Fred, Wilma, Betty, and Barney. Like many Bewitched plots, the story deals
with gender stereotypes and conventions.
When Fred and Barney go on a camping trip "for the boys," Samantha sets up camp with
Betty and Wilma to prove that they can handle the wilderness just as well. Seven years later,
the Stephens children got their own animated special with Tabitha and Adam and the Clown
Family. According to Jeff Langburn's Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons, this hourlong program,
part of ABC's "Saturday Superstar Movie" program, followed Tabitha and Adam as they visited
an aunt who works with the circus.
Many viewers of Bewitched were enamored by Tabitha, Samantha and Darrin's mischievous
daughter. In 1977 — five years after the sitcom's final episode — ABC decided to
give audiences more of the fan favorite by creating Tabitha, a spinoff starring a grown-up
version of the character. According to IMDb, the series followed the adventures of Tabitha
and her brother Adam as they worked at Los Angeles television station KXLA.
As in the original series, Tabitha was a witch who sometimes employed her magic powers to
get herself out of predicaments. Adam, who was a warlock in the Bewitched universe, was
rewritten to be a mortal so that he could fulfill the role of the rational cynic, much
as Darrin did initially. Other recurring characters included Aunt Minerva, who encouraged Tabitha
to use her witchcraft more often, and Paul Thurston, a TV host who acted as Tabitha's
on-again-off-again love interest.
Erin Murphy, who played the original Tabitha, was just 12 when the spinoff went into production.
Therefore, the network had to find a new star. They ultimately landed on 21-year-old Lisa
Hartman, who would later become a musician.
"Don't you recognize me doctor? I'm Tabitha Stephens."
"Oh, yes, of course, Samantha's daughter."
David Ankrum played the role of her brother, while Karen Morrow and Robert Urichstepped
into Minerva's and Paul's shoes.
Bewitched made it to the big screen decades after its run in 2005, when it was made into
a feature film by famous rom-com director Nora Ephron. The film puts a meta spin on
the original sitcom. It tells the story of an actual modern-day witch who auditions for
the part of Samantha in a Bewitched remake and uses her powers to make her co-star fall
in love with her.
"It, it's Bewitched, the TV show. We're redoing it."
Nicole Kidman plays Isabel Bigelow, the Samantha actress, while Will Ferrell plays Jack Wyatt,
the Darrin actor.
"Oh, she doesn't need her car, she has her broomstick."
Shirley MacLaine, Sir Michael Caine, Jason Schwartzman, and Kristen Chenoweth all had
starring roles, as well.
Not everyone was a fan of the Bewitched movie, though. The film currently has a 24% approval
rating on Rotten Tomatoes — and the New York Times called it, quote, "an unmitigated
disaster."
However, Kidman and Ferrell received high praise for their performances. Australian
film critic Margaret Pomeranz said Kidman, quote, "captures the sweet naivete of Isabel
well," and called Ferrell, quote, "really impressive in a part that is really demanding."
Meanwhile, iconic film critic Roger Ebert referred to the duo as, quote, "funny and
likable."
In retrospect, it's impressive how far Bewitched's influence has reached. The sitcom was so critically
acclaimed and well received that it spawned remakes around the world, in countries as
far as Japan and Russia. According to IMDb, the Japanese version of Bewitched was aired
in 2004, 50 years after the original gained popularity. There, the Japanese title was
translated to "my wife is a witch." It was also called Bewitched in Tokyo.
The Russian version of Bewitched, which had the title "My Favorite Witch," was broadcast
in 2009. According to the official website of Russian network TV3, this adaptation reimagined
Samantha as Nadya Stoletova, the great-great-granddaughter of a Baba Yaga, a fearsome type of witch in
the Russian folklore tradition.
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