Twitch Upon a Star Read Online Free PDF

father if he would narrate the Bewitched pilot. In the interview she granted to Ronald Haven for the Jordan laserdisc, she referenced her dad’s decline to speak life into Bewitched , calling his response, “very strange”:
    â€œNo … I don’t think so.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œIt’s your show.”
    â€œAh, ok. All right.”
    Elizabeth was disappointed, and she later told him so. She would have enjoyed him kicking off Bewitched , her new series in 1964, just as he had given a jumpstart to her TV career when she made her small-screen debut on Robert Montgomery Presents in 1951.

    For Lizzie, success was at times a burden, especially when it came to public revelations. For one, her age was a sensitive issue, cloaked in a chicane. But as author and genealogist James Pylant explains, “Celebrity genealogies are always hard to trace.” In 2004, Pylant authored The Bewitching Family Tree of Elizabeth Montgomery for genealogymagazine.com . “Biographical data abounds,” he said, “yet there’s no guarantee of accuracy.”
    Elizabeth played into such wriggle room. Various studio and network press bios document her birth year as 1936 and 1938. In reality, it was 1933, as recorded in the State of California, California Birth Index, 1905–1995, published in Sacramento by the State of California Department of Public Health, Center for Health Statistics.
    When she died in 1995, a few obituaries listed her age as fifty-seven, trimming five years off her birth date. Others offered conflicting details about her marital status: some said she was single at the time of her demise; some said she was survived by her fourth husband, Robert Foxworth.
    But the “marital mystery,” as Pylant put it, was orchestrated by the self-protective Lizzie, who kept a step ahead of the press. She viewed her relationship with Foxworth as confidential. Even their marriage in 1993 was shrouded from the media. The event took place at the Los Angeles apartment of her manager Barry Krost and not a soul knew about it until after the fact.
    Nevertheless, she appears on the Social Security Death Index as “Elizabeth Asher,” the surname of her third ex-husband, Bewitched producer/director William Asher. There, at least, her birth date is correct—April 15, 1933—although “Elizabeth A. Montgomery” is the name listed on her death certificate. The “A” is either for “Asher” or “Allen,” the maiden name of her mother, actress Elizabeth Allen.
    According to A&E’s Biography, Elizabeth Montgomery: A Touch of Magic (which originally aired on February 15, 1999), Lizzie’s middle name was “Victoria,” a moniker sometimes linked with royalty, as is the name “Elizabeth” itself.
    But that fits. From the mid-1970s until her demise in 1995, she was known as Queen of the TV-Movies . On Bewitched, Samantha was crowned Queen of the Witches (in the episode, “Long Live the Queen,” September 7, 1967); before that Aunt Clara ’s (Marion Lorne) bumbling magic mishaps forced Sam’s introduction to Queen Victoria (Jane Connell in “Aunt Clara’s Queen Victoria Victory,” March 9, 1967).

    Before Lizzie basked in the sparkle of stardom as Samantha , she was born in the shadow of Robert Montgomery’s fame. The story of who she was begins with him; the seeds of who she became were indelibly planted by this versatile actor and political idealist—a father who was just as complex as his daughter; a daughter who had a father complex.
    Five years after his marriage to Broadway actress Elizabeth Allen on April 24, 1928, Lizzie was born into her privileged childhood, at the peak of his film popularity.
    Talented, handsome, athletic, rich, and famous, Robert had the right social credentials, coupled with a solid intellect. Before his stable career on the small screen of the 1950s, he was a feature film