Did The Bewitched Cast Get Along Off-Screen?

Question

Love revisiting Samantha and Endora scenes; wonder if the sitcom's charm reflected the 'Bewitched' crew's backstage friendships or any tensions?

M. Merrill · Answer

According to the Bewitched interviews I read, the main cast members loved each other and had a lot of fun playing together. I especially got a sense of a sweet friendship between Elizabeth Montgomery and Dick York before he left the show. That kind of camaraderie makes their magic look even more real. It makes me think of the main characters in Intertwined: A Friends to Lovers Romance. They have such genuine, easygoing relationships with each other because of their long history and comfort with each other, and therefore the romantic tension between them always feels earned and believable.

Veronica · Answer

The cast of ‘Bewitched’ was a very complicated group of people. Liz Montgomery was very close to Agnes Moorehead who played her mother Endora on the show. In fact Agnes referred to Liz as her daughter in interviews. She and Liz had a very special relationship on and off screen. Dick York who played Darrin in the first season and Dick Sargent who played Darrin in the last 5 seasons had very different experiences on the show. Dick York had chronic pain and was suffering from addiction off screen and as a result was mostly excluded from the rest of the cast by the time the show was in its final season.

Much like their on screen counterpart, behind the scenes of the show were many bothered by the fast shoot of each show and Elizabeth’s growing role as producer. The longest running cast member, David White, or Larry Tate, humorously remarked that they “tolerated each other professionally” but that was as far as it went. Although the off set dynamic was not idyllic the on set magic was more than enough to make up for the real life problems of the people involved in the show.

Benjamin · Answer

Oh ‘Bewitched’ behind-the-scenes gossip is so fascinating! Liz was clearly the center of the set. Friendly, Professional and adored by everyone, including Moorehead, who was her favorite guest star, as they both loved acting and spent hours rehearsing together for her appearance in the episode. Not so with Dick York however, who became more and more withdrawn due to his health problems. Many of the crew members found him difficult to work with towards the end, but that was all to change when Richard Sargent took over as Dick York’s stand-in, as Sargent was very reserved, but was thoroughly enjoyed by everyone.

Paul Lynde’s scenes as Uncle Arthur were always a highlight of mine because he was always on, sometimes while mercifully cutting away from him to return to our ‘Bewitched’ stars, but other times his scenes were added in to lighten up an otherwise heavy scene. He was that kind of actor and I think the other cast members to be a sort of family and they were quirky. Their ‘dysfunction’ was a big part of their unique personalities, and for the most part all of the Darrin’s had good relations. Even Dick York’s departure was amicably described by Harmon Sargent, the show’s producer for its first 5 seasons, as leaving ‘big shoes to fill.’

Wyatt · Answer

Bewitched was a classic TV family. Some harmony, some friction in the background, but overall a very positive group of people. Montgomery and Moorehead were at the core of the show and Moorehead was a great mentor to the younger members of the cast. Sadly, York had to leave due to illness and everyone missed him, particularly Montgomery. Sargent was very quiet but the cast quickly earned his respect.

It seemed like a perfect family to viewers but there were plenty of creative clashes that would sometimes ensue in tensions off camera. Montgomery wanted to direct more episodes but some producers were wary. But Lynde’s humor and the child actors on the show, including Erin Murphy, who playedbiantha Baird on the show, were always happy on set. Not a perfect family but they managed to make magic happen.

Ivana González · Answer

Those old blooper reels provide a lot of insight into the Sam-Endora dynamic and also to the rest of the main cast and the crew of the show. The laughter seems to be very real – there’s no attempt to be too formal or too sweet. You can see that there are moments of Elizabeth Montgomery’s bursting into laughter, Agnes Moorehead trying to keep a straight face and not get into character and then the whole crew falls apart laughing. The atmosphere must have been a very relaxed one. All the bloopers, in addition to the comic chemistry which really feels personal between Samantha and Endora in all of their scenes, suggests that there must have been a great deal of affection between them all. While we have no idea what their private lives were like on set from day to day, the huge amount of affection and admiration that is expressed in every anecdote is contradicted by not one single unkind word. For eight long seasons the ladies created a wonderful piece of American TV. The cast obviously worked well together and had no public scandals or super-bitter breakups. In itself that is testimony to a very harmonious cast!

Leisl King · Answer

Relationship by relationship, I think we see a core of really deep friendship between Montgomery and Moorehead, two people of real mutual respect. Then there’s Montgomery and the rest of the crew – everyone loved her because she knew their names and fought for them. That kind of relationship trickles down. With York, she had a warm relationship, which was a little tinged with worry about his health, but that was a collective worry, not a creative one. With Sargent, he was a little shy, but very friendly. The cast was very easy with him and I think Montgomery went out of her way to make him feel welcome. David White, Larry Tate, was a well-integrated member of the regular cast and I think the others were all professional actors who basically loved their job. So while I imagine there were lots of bad days, and probably a lot of creative argument, I think the basic relationships were all good enough to give the whole a solid structure to withstand the strains of long-term work. So historically, I think the answer is yes.

mearidc · Answer

I tend to approach behind-the-scenes information with a healthy dose of skepticism, because often it paints an impossibly perfect picture of reality in order to obscure the problems that really did exist. I was therefore happy to find that when it came to information about the making of Bewitched, there were simply too many good sources to deny the basic facts, which align perfectly with my own understanding of the series. Elizabeth Montgomery was not a diva, according to just about every contemporary source as well as later interviews with the entire cast and crew, including the academics who have written about the series for film history classes. Agnes Moorehead found a late career renaissance on Bewitched after her long stint on Dark Victory as Stella. All of the supporting actors commented upon in later interviews seemed to have been treated with the utmost respect by Montgomery throughout her time on the series. The one major crisis of the season, Dick York’s bout of maddening illness, was treated with nothing but compassion and flexibility by Montgomery. It’s certainly possible that there were a few moments of minor, familial-based tension or whatever, that never came to anyone’s attention and therefore were never written up in the hundreds of pieces of Hollywood gossip that pour out every week. But when you compare Bewitched to almost any other series from the 1960s—The Dick Van Dyke Show, for example, or The Addams Family—you begin to realize that this was not just a matter of circumstance. Rather, it had to have been actively created by someone at the top, and sustained throughout eight long seasons by everyone else. For that, credit where credit is due: Montgomery.

Bertie Deas · Answer

You may have detected a few off-screen tensions between some of the actors, but generally there were plenty of positive relationships between them. Elizabeth Montgomery and Agnes Moorehead were particularly close and even Agnes has referred to Elizabeth as the daughter she never had. Elizabeth always described Agnes as her mother on the set. Of course Dick York, the original Darrin, struggled with ill health when he was playing the character but he was always a kind and gentle soul and the other actors felt great sympathy for him. His replacement, Dick Sargent, was another gentle soul and although the transition from one Darrin to the other was far from smooth at first, Sargent soon became a familiar face on set and was treated with the same respect as York. In an industry where so much tension and conflict occurs, the producers of ‘Bewitched’ managed to keep the cast happy throughout the show’s long run. The directing and writing team often spoke about the cast’s cooperation and how there was never any sign of any of them being ‘difficult’ or behaving like prima donnas. A happy set clearly made for magical TV.

Fernando Alonso Jeronimo Torres · Answer

No, Bewitched was one of those “happy” sets. The professionally-run show starred the ever-wonderful and kind Elizabeth Montgomery. She got on famously with Agnes Moorehead (Endora), and they remained the closest of friends until her passing. Moorehead was a serious and focused actress and only had time for a few close friends on set, but Montgomery managed to win her over. As for the two Darrins, Dick York and later Dick Sargent, both got along famously with their co-stars. In fact, the show changed over to Sargent mid-series and it was done without any of the typical on-set problems. I’ve read that Montgomery at one point threatened to leave the show unless the supporting cast were paid more by the network. Clearly she was a loved member of the “family” and I imagine that the rest of the cast were equally as fond of her. No family is perfect but it seems that most of the Bewitched cast and crew had nothing but fond memories of their time on the show, which is more than can be said for most old Hollywood sets.

Did The Bewitched Cast Get Along Off-Screen?

9 Answers

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