At Newsner, we have written about many beautiful and talented women – but Elizabeth Montgomery stole my youthful heart right off the bat.
Most movie & TV actors and actresses need makeup and hair stylists to make them look good – Elizabeth did not. She was a natural beauty, and I loved watching her in Bewitched.
So what happened to Elizabeth Montgomery after her run as Samantha Stephens in the popular 1960s sitcom?
In 2024, the talented actress would have celebrated her 91st birthday, but let’s take a look back at her career in film and television before her untimely death in 1995.
Elizabeth Montgomery was born in Los Angeles on April 15, 1933 to a Broadway actress and film star, so acting was in her blood since birth.
“Dad tells me I often climbed on his lap after dinner and remarked, ‘I’m going to be an actress when I grow up.’ I don’t know whether he encouraged me or not, but he told me he would humor me and would tell me to wait and see what happened when I grew up,” Elizabeth said in 1954 interview with the Los Angeles Times.
Her father, Robert Montgomery, was a very popular and acclaimed actor.
”I’ll be real honest and say that Daddy did help me get a break in TV and I’m really grateful for his assistance and guidance. He’s my most severe critic, but also a true friend as well as loving father.”
Elizabeth attended school in California before moving to New York City, where she attended the Spence School. After graduating, she attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts for three years.
When she was still a teenager, she made her television debut on her father’s show, Robert Montgomery Presents. She continued to make several appearances on his show.
By 1953, Elizabeth had made her Broadway debut starring in Late Love. Two years later in 1955 she appeared in her first film, The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell, and then two years later she returned to Broadway.
As her career continued to advance, Elizabeth found love, but it never lasted long.
In 1954 she married Frederick Gallatin Cammann, but the couple divorced a year later. She married Gig Young, an award-winning actor, in 1956, and the two stayed married until they divorced in 1963.
While filming Johnny Cool, Elizabeth met William Asher, a director and TV producer. Not only would he prove to be beneficial to her career, but the two also hit it off romantically.
They married in 1963 and had three children together.
Starring in Bewitched
While Elizabeth Montgomery did star in shows such as Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Loretta Young Show, The Untouchables, and The Twilight Zone, perhaps her most well-known role was as the nose-twitching witch Samantha Stephens on Bewitched.
The supernatural comedy, which aired for eight seasons from 1964 to 1972, propelled Elizabeth into the spotlight.
Suddenly she became a household name and everyone was trying to replicate Samantha’s famous nose twitch.
”I’d never thought much about a series because I liked the idea of picking a script I liked with a character I thought I could sustain for an hour. In a series, you live with one character day in and day out – and you only hope it will be one that will not drive you crazy,” Elizabeth told AP in 1965.
She earned five Primetime Emmy Award nominations and four Golden Globe Award nominations during her spell on the show.
Following Bewitched‘s run and the end of her marriage with Asher, Elizabeth went on to star in many made-for-television movies, many which were in stark contrast to her previous role on Bewitched.
She starred in Mrs. Sundance (1973), A Case of Rape (1974), The Legend of Lizzie Borden (1975), Black Widow Murders (1993), The Corpse Had a Familiar Face (1994), and Deadline for Murder: From the Files of Edna Buchanan (1995).
It was during the filming of Mrs. Sundance that she met Robert Foxworth. The two remained together until Elizabeth’s death in 1995, though they didn’t get married until 1993.
“Before Jane Seymour, before Lindsay Wagner and before Valerie Bertinelli, Elizabeth was the first Queen of the TV movies; she went from queen of the witches to queen of the TV movie and it was no longer a struggle to break away from Bewitched,” Herbie J Pilato, author of two books on Elizabeth Montgomery, said.
Unfortunately, her career was cut short when on May 18, 1995 after a long battle with colon cancer.
According to the Los Angeles Times, her family reported she was 57 when she died, though many places listed her birth year as 1933, making her 62 at the time of her death.
The actress had battled the disease for years and had believed she was cancer-free, but while filming Deadline for Murder: From the Files of Edna Buchanan, she became ill.
By the time she was able to get checked out in March 1995, it was too late. The cancer had spread to her liver.
Elizabeth died in her sleep at her home in Beverly Hills with her husband and three children by her side. One month after her passing, a memorial was held at the Canon Theatre in Beverly Hills. Famous jazz musician Herbie Hancock played music and the author Dominick Dunne, Elizabeth’s lifelong friend, spoke about their early years of friendship when they lived in New York City.
The Bewitched star had her body cremated at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.
On playing a variety of characters throughout her career, Elizabeth said in a 1992 interview:
“They all have different kinds of ‘feels’ to them and that’s probably one of the reasons why I’ve done them. I get letters from people saying one of the things they like best about what I’ve done since ‘Bewitched’ is that they never know what I’m going to do next.”
Looking back at photos from her time on the Bewitched, we are instantly transported to a simpler, more innocent era.
Elizabeth’s playful charm and iconic nose twitch remind us of a time when magic was just a flick away. With each smile, Elizabeth brought warmth and joy to countless families, and her legacy continues to shine brightly today, reminding us of television’s golden age.
“Elizabeth was the least arrogant star I’ve ever met,” Herbie J Pilato, author of Twitch Upon a Star and executive producer of the documentary Elizabeth Montgomery: A Bewitched Life, told Closer in April 2023. “She channeled that down-to-earthiness into Samantha, and we all loved her.”
Such a naturally gorgeous woman! It’s a shame that she was taken from us way too soon.
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