Elizabeth Montgomery

Overview

Born
April 15, 1933 · Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA
Died
May 18, 1995 · Los Angeles, California, USA (colorectal cancer)
Birth name
Elizabeth Victoria Montgomery
Nicknames
- Liz
- Lizzie
Height
5′ 7¾″ (1.72 m)

Biography

Family

Spouses
Children
Parents
Relatives

Trademarks

Nose twitch
Distinctive soft, mellow voice

Trivia

A nine-foot bronze statue of Elizabeth as Samantha Stephens riding sidesaddle on her broomstick now resides in a downtown park in Salem, Massachusetts, home to the infamous witch trials of the 17th century.
She and Robert Foxworth moved in together in 1973, but waited almost twenty years before finally getting married.
Best remembered by the public for her starring role as Samantha in Bewitched (1964). When they were trying to figure out a trademark for the character Samantha, the director William Asher noticed that when she got nervous, she twitched her upper lip, which caused her nose to follow and thus gave the impression she was twitching her nose. Thus, they used that.
Montgomery passed away on May 18, 1995, eight weeks after being diagnosed with colon cancer, the same date her Johnny Cool (1963) co-star Elisha Cook Jr.. She was cremated.
Elizabeth Montgomery and Lizzie Borden were sixth cousins once removed, both descending from 17th-century Massachusetts resident John Luther. Rhonda McClure, the genealogist who documented the Montgomery-Borden connection, said, "I wonder how Elizabeth would have felt if she knew she was playing her own cousin.".

Quotes

The minute someone says, "Oh God, you could never do that; you can't get that kind of stuff on the air!" . . . that's the kind of stuff I want to do.
Like most people, I secretly hope that it's true - that there are witches like Samantha, and that families like hers really do exist.
[commenting on Tabitha (1976), the spin-off of Bewitched (1964)] First of all, I didn't see the show, but I heard that she [Lisa Hartman] didn't twitch as well as I did. I kept getting mail from people were who outraged, saying, Where is Erin Murphy? What in the world (is going on)?! This woman is 25...this doesn't make any sense.' I was getting mail from people like it was my fault, although also saying, 'Thank God you didn't have anything to do with this.' They felt betrayed. I thought, 'How can you be betrayed by a TV show?' But they were irate. I got almost as much mail about that as I get about anything else. It was very funny...ranged from kids who hated it to grownups who said, 'This is the stupidest thing I've ever seen.'
[on her father's reaction to her wanting to be an actress] He told me 'If that's what you want to do, you're gonna really want to have to do it because there's no room out there for some gutless wonder wandering around, you know, there are too many talented people'. And he said it's one of the most horrifyingly, ego-blasting, destructive, awful, businesses that you can possibly get into, and he said 'I really wouldn't really wish it on anyone I care even a little bit about'. So knowing he cared more than a little bit about me, I thought 'Whoops, this is really tough a one'. However after that conversation, he did say to me that when it is rewarding and it is good, it is such a high you can't imagine it, and he's right.
[when asked if it's hard to juggle working and raising kids] Yes it is, and as a result, I will never win any Mother of the Year awards, I hope I'm getting better. Everybody I think, parents and kids have to grow up together. Nobody can really ready you for motherhood whether you work or whether you don't. Parenting is probably the toughest job anybody's ever had, and I'm haven't been really good at it, but like I say, I think I've gotten better.