Rising Star Elizabeth Montgomery

A witch? A witch who doesn’t really want to be a witch? Who’s going to buy that?

An awful lot of TV viewers, that’s who. And it was mainly thanks to a lovely actress named Elizabeth Montgomery.

Bewitched stayed on the air for eight seasons despite a pretty ridiculous premise. Montgomery, though she played a witch, was the reality anchor of the show. She came across as natural and believable, even as the seasons rolled on and the show got more and more cartoony and over-the-top.

The show featured a couple of extremely skilled dramatic actors, Agnes Moorehead and (on occasion) Maurice Evans. Montgomery may not have been in their league, but she appeared on TV drama in the 1950s and leaned toward dramatic roles after finishing her career as Samantha Stephens.

She was profiled very early in her career. TV Guide of July 24, 1953 featured her and her father, actor and furniture salesman Robert Montgomery (her mother is absent from any mention in the article).

Montgomery died of cancer at the age of 62 in 1995.



Like Dad, Like Daughter?
ELIZABETH MONTGOMERY WILL HAVE TO PROVE IT TO BOB
ELIZABETH MONTGOMERY hopes some day to be known as the famous daughter of a famous father, Robert Montgomery. But if she does, it won’t be because she tied herself to her father’s shirt-tails.
Like any good father who has taken an interest in his offspring’s career, Montgomery is providing as many breaks as he can. He signed her this year as a member of the stock company on his summer TV series. But despite the obvious boost, both father and daughter insist that Liz is to shape her own career.
“I have a standing offer with Liz,” her father said. “Any tie she wants to discuss her career with me, I’m available. But the decisions are hers.”
Because of his lengthy show business experience, however, Montgomery thinks he knows what is best for his daughter professionally.
Liz sat for some publicity pictures, for example, prior to doing her first TV show. When she and Montgomery looked them over, he spotted one he deemed unflattering. He immediately insisted that Liz rip up the copy and have the negative in the network publicity files destroyed.
The younger Montgomery freely admits that she derived her acting ambitions from her father. Now an attractive 20-year-old, she was growing up during her father’s hey-day in Hollywood. “I grew up with Dad’s acting, which probably raised my hopes of becoming an actress,” she said. “But I think I’d have wanted that even if Dad had never acted.”
Liz Competes for Roles
Liz recalls an incident, which she cites to prove that this father-daughter relationship isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. Anxious to get a role in Eye Witness, she requested a screen test, which her father granted her. “The only trouble with that,” Liz said sadly, “was that another actress, Ann Sheldon, got the part.”

Liz finally won a part in one of her father’s productions several years later, but this time it was TV. She played the role of the father’s daughter in Top Secret, in 1951. He has his own memories of that experience.
“The last line in the show was the best one in the script,” he recalls. “It was originally to have been mine. But Liz wanted it, so I had to give in. What else could I do?”
Liz hopes some day to emulate her father’s Hollywood success but wants to establish her reputation first in TV and on Broadway. She was graduated in March from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts’ two-year course. To gain further experience, she served as an apprentice last summer at the John Drew Memorial Theater, in Easthampton, L.I.
Plays Ingenue Parts
She is playing ingenue roles in Montgomery’s TV stock company this summer, and because of her youthful experience, is already fearful that she may be typed. “Even though I’m 20 now,” she says ruefully, “everybody thinks I’m about 15. If this keeps up, I’ll probably be playing ingenues until I’m 40.”
Again following in her father’s footsteps, Liz would prefer to play comedy roles. She would also like to try her hand at musical comedy but confesses, “I can’t sing.” She has had ballet training, in case a Broadway musical ever materializes.
With the exception of that one role in her father’s show, she has done not TV, mostly because the Academy frowns on its students doing outside work. Liz is thankful to the Academy for teaching her to reach lines ell, something which her father has been impressing on her for years.
“Dad taught me to read everything since I was a little girl,” she said.
Although he still intends to let her live her own professional life, Montgomery will be on hand all summer to produce the TV series in which Elizabeth plays. But he insists he won’t favor her over others in the cast, including John Newland, Margaret Hayes and Vaughn Taylor. She’ll have to prove herself.