Elizabeth Montgomery: The Untold Struggles Behind Bewitched

With just a twitch of her nose or the wave of her finger, unassuming all-American housewife Samantha Stephens could light her husband's cigarette, conjure up a freshly baked pie and perform menial household tasks all on a whim.

In Bewitched, Elizabeth Montgomery as Samantha and her advertising executive husband Darrin Stephens, played by Dick York, were certainly the picture of a perfect American family. From hosting lavish dinner parties in their charming suburban home to her quintessentially mod fashions, Samantha was a symbol of a well put-together, doting wife and mother.

Of course, as viewers of the beloved 1960s sitcom know, Samantha had a looming secret that she was a witch disguised as a housewife, much to the befuddlement of her mortal husband. Often, Samantha often found her spell-binding powers to be quite useful. Whether it was a quick teleportation to Paris for lunch or turning her husband's sleazy business colleague into a dog, Samantha was a good witch whose comical hijinks always had the best intentions.

From 1964 to 1972, Bewitched charmed millions of viewers for eight whopping seasons. The critically acclaimed series put ABC, which was then just a nascent network, on the map and made a household name out of actress Montgomery, who portrayed Samantha for all eight seasons.

Indeed, Montgomery's role as the clever yet kindhearted witch Samantha - whose powers gave her the ability to defy the traditional roles that defined the era - has since gone down in history as one of the most iconic characters of all time.

But just like her on-screen counterpart, it appears that Montgomery was hiding a secret of her own, too. While the fictional Samantha was portrayed as a loyal and loving housewife, it would seem that the real-life Montgomery was nothing of the sort.

Instead, her former Bewitched co-star has revealed how Montgomery's on-set behavior was far from the 'motherly' Samantha. Plus, tales of her reputation with men – four husbands, multiple affairs and a torrid relationship with her father - were a world away from the squeaky-clean nuclear family she helmed on TV.

Erin Murphy, the actress who played Montgomery's TV daughter Tabitha from season three of Bewitched until its final episode, revealed that her relationship with Montgomery was 'nothing like' the mother-daughter relationship they portrayed on screen.

'She was nothing like Samantha,' Murphy, now 61, said during a May 6 appearance on The Magnificent Others podcast with Billy Corgan.

She described how Montgomery, who was married to Bewitched director William Asher for ten years, was 'actively involved' in the production of the series. However, Murphy, who was just eight years old when the series ended, had conflated this to mean Montgomery was a stay-at-home mom like her character.

'I also saw her side where she wasn't necessarily as soft and kind as Samantha,' Murphy said.

Murphy said that Montgomery, who welcomed three children with Asher throughout the duration of the show, would spend all day working on set, so much so that her kids were all cared for by a nanny.

'She was a businesswoman and she was serious and definitely had that side. She was also, and I've said this, she had a very dirty sense of humor, and so do I. I know I got that from her.'

Murphy added, 'She was a woman who had many male friends, but wasn't really a girl's girl.'

Murphy's unfavorable childhood reflection of her former co-star would certainly shatter any illusion that Montgomery was the same loving, stay-at-home housewife that she portrayed on TV.

But between her unsuccessful romantic relationships and her desperate attempts at approval from her apathetic father, perhaps it is no surprise that Montgomery was unlike the warm-hearted Samantha that was so beloved by fans.

She was born in 1933 to Hollywood actor Robert Montgomery and Broadway thespian Elizabeth Bryan Allen, and had the privilege of elite schooling and access to industry insiders that so many 'nepo babies' of today regularly enjoy.

She attended the Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles and the Spence School for Girls in New York before making her small-screen debut in a 1951 episode of her father's anthology series, Robert Montgomery Presents.

Much like her parents, Montgomery caught the acting bug at an early age. However, her father would prove many times over the years his disdain towards his daughter's career path.

According to Herbie Pilato, the author of Twitch Upon a Star: The Bewitched Life and Career of Elizabeth Montgomery, Montgomery's father 'never wanted his daughter to be an actress,' he told Closer in 2023.

It was her difficult relationship with her father that would ultimately color many of her unsuccessful relationships with men.

Her first marriage came in 1954 when she was just 20 years old. Montgomery tied the knot with New York City socialite Frederick Cammann, who was born to an aristocratic Swiss family. Although her father was not pleased with her acting aspirations, he reportedly approved of their union.

'Fred was young, handsome and rich,' Pilato told the outlet. 'He was of the upper crust of New York, and Robert Montgomery loved that.'

But their marriage lasted just one year, as Montgomery even expressed her disappointment at the size of her husband's penis. In his memoir, actor and director Griffin Dunne recalled a comment that Montgomery, his former babysitter and then a struggling actress, had made to his mother.

'Elizabeth once told her, while changing my diapers, that I had a bigger d*** than her husband,' he wrote. 'That marriage was, needless to say, short-lived.'

Sadly, her second marriage in 1956 to actor Gig Young suffered an even worse fate. They were married within a year of her divorce, but Young was an actor twice her age and, reportedly, an abusive alcoholic.

'She was just sticking it to her father with marrying Gig, until finally she wised up and just couldn't take the abuse anymore,' the biographer said.

They were married for eight years before ultimately divorcing in 1963. Tragically, Young died aged 64 in 1978 in what police determined as a murder-suicide. His fifth wife, 31-year-old German magazine editor Kim Schmidt, was also found dead in their Manhattan apartment.

Despite her troubled personal life, Montgomery experienced a series of career successes after making several TV appearances throughout the late 1950s and early 60s. In 1961, she earned her first of nine Emmy Award nominations for her performance in an episode of The Untouchables in 1961.

She also appeared in the 1963 crime drama film Johnny Cool, where she met and fell in love with the movie's director, William Asher. Much like her past husbands, Asher was also an older man, 12 years her senior and a seasoned director-producer in Hollywood.

Whether it was by coincidence or a classic case of Freudian complex, it begs wondering if Montgomery's penchant for older men was due to her fractured relationship with her own father.

Their strained relationship was furthered by their stark difference in political views; Montgomery's dad was a staunch conservative, while the actress often expressed her support for liberal issues such as LGBTQ+ rights and was a vocal opponent of the Vietnam War.

Still, she desperately sought his approval.

'My father hasn't always encouraged my acting,' Montgomery told the Elmira Advertiser in 1955, per Women's World.

'For years, I announced to him that I was going to be an actress and that I would eventually do pictures. I'm not sure he was in favor of a screen career for me, but then I don't believe I can develop in just one medium. He always just told me to go ahead if acting was what I wanted.'

By the time she met Asher in 1963, the director also had 'a very complicated personal life' in the early days of their relationship.

Geoffrey Mark Fidelman, the author The Lucy Book: A Complete Guide to Her Five Decades on Television, told Women's World in 2025 that Asher was 'having an affair with three women' at the same time he began a relationship with Montgomery.

But the couple were later married in 1963 and welcomed three children together: William, Robert and Rebecca. The pair would go on to work together on the set of Bewitched for several years.

However, both their relationship and the future of Bewitched suffered a major blow when Montgomery learned of her husband's reported affair, which Pilato said 'broke Elizabeth's heart.'

Still, the biographer also noted that Montgomery had her own affair with fellow director and Asher's so-called protege Richard Michaels.

As it turned out, that was not the first time Montgomery was speculated to have engaged in an illicit affair with a Hollywood star; she's also been romantically linked to major names like Elvis Presley, Gary Cooper and Dean Martin.

The dissolution of her marriage ultimately influenced Montgomery to call it quits on Bewitched altogether. The show abruptly ended in 1972, and their divorce was finalized the following year.

Fortunately for Montgomery, she finally found her enduring love with her fourth husband, actor Robert Foxworth. They met in 1973 while co-starring in the television movie Mrs. Sundance, and they would go on to live together for nearly 20 years until they finally married in 1993.

Sadly, it would be just two years later when her life and career were cut short due to Montgomery's battle with colon cancer. She died in May 1995 at age 62.

Before her untimely passing, Montgomery had made the successful transition from beloved Bewitched star to critically acclaimed TV movie actress. Her roles in 1974's A Case of Rape and 1975's The Legend of Lizzie Borden earned Montgomery two subsequent Emmy Award nominations.

Although her Bewitched co-star Murphy may have remembered Montgomery as a no-nonsense businesswoman on set, it is clear that the star's rollercoaster relationships with men and a cold, distant father proved to impact the trajectory of Montgomery's life, career and relationships.

Murphy said that Montgomery continued to send holiday cards after Bewitched ended in 1972, Murphy said, but 'that was it' as far as whether they maintained a relationship off-screen.

'She did a job and left the job and that was it,' the actress said.

And as countless young women grew up watching Samantha, dreaming of being a housewife with magical powers, Murphy, too, believed that's what she wanted – until she realized the truth much later.

'I spent a lot of my life thinking, Well, I wanna be a stay-at-home mom because my two biggest role models, my mom and Elizabeth Montgomery, were stay-at-home moms,' she recalled.

'It took maybe being a teenager to a young adult to realize Elizabeth Montgomery was the furthest thing from a stay-at-home mom.'