Twitch Upon a Star (28 page)

PART II

“This is Elizabeth Montgomery. Stay tuned for
Bewitched
. Next! In color.”

—Elizabeth Montgomery, in on-air promos for
Bewitched

Ten

“There's one thing that makes
Samantha
easy to play … she's as much in love with
Darrin
as I am with Bill (Asher).”

—Elizabeth Montgomery,
Look Magazine
, January 1965

In 1985, Bill Asher directed his final feature film,
Movers and Shakers
, written by Charles Grodin, who also appeared on-screen in the movie, along with Walter Matthau and many classic TV legends: Gilda Radner (
Saturday Night Live
), Bill Macy (
Maude
), Tyne Daly (
Cagney & Lacy
), Vincent Gardenia (
All in the Family
); with cameos provided by Steve Martin and Penny Marshall (star of
Laverne & Shirley
, co-producer of 2005's
Bewitched
feature film):

Twenty years before, in 1963, Asher was keeping promises to Lizzie on the set of
Johnny Cool
, although it wasn't exactly love at first sight. In fact, upon first meeting, they loathed one another. As Asher told
TV Circle
magazine in August 1970, “It was a case of instant hate. I was late for our appointment. She didn't like that and I didn't think it mattered whether she liked it or not. So it was rocky going at first, until we began working. Then after a while, bam! There we were.” As Asher concluded on MSNBC's
Headliners & Legends
in 2001, after he cast her, he was pretty well “gone,” in other words, head over heels in love.

However, just prior to their mutual Cupid encounter, Bill and Lizzie were preoccupied with other relationships. As he expressed to
The Saturday Evening Post
, March 13, 1965, “We were both emotional basket cases when we met. Maybe Liz had never been loved, never been happy before. I don't know. I wouldn't want to speculate.”

No speculation required. In 1951, Asher married actress Dani Sue Nolan, who made over thirty film and TV appearances between 1949 and 1988. (She played William Holden's secretary in his famous Asher-directed
I Love Lucy
episode, “L.A. at Last,” in which
Lucy
burned her nose with a cigarette). They had two children: Liane (born 1952) and Brian (born 1954).

By 1963, they'd been separated for approximately two years, but feelings lingered. Elizabeth, meanwhile, had recently separated from Gig Young, feelings depleted.

In retrospect, Lizzie meeting Bill on the set of
Johnny Cool
turned out to be a blessing, if at first in disguise.

Compared to the previous men in her life, he was the opposite of the dashing Fred Cammann and Gig Young, not to mention her debonair father Robert Montgomery. Writer Joe Hyams explained it all that spring in
The Saturday Evening Post
. Asher was muscular, stocky, and tan, but he had bushy eyebrows and closed-cropped hair. He resembled more of a “retired prize fighter than a director.” Although Hyams called Asher the “antithesis” of Lizzie's first two husbands, like Cammann, Young, and her father, he was also “a strong and dominating presence.”

Also like Young, Asher was in his forties and Lizzie liked older guys, this older guy, in particular, whom she called “the greatest director I know, because he's a sensitive, compassionate person.” Consequently, after smoothing the initial bump on the hot road to their
Cool
romance, they became inseparable. Lizzie liked the great outdoors. So did Bill. She loved to play tennis. So did he. In fact, it was one of the many things they had in common. They even shared the same sense of humor. They loved each other. They loved to work. They loved working together, and when they did so, it was magic. Asher, in particular, was a master of making it all work, on-screen and off. As a man, he knew how to please the ladies. As a director, he was one of the greatest conductors to orchestrate media magic in TV history. Before and after
Bewitched
, he was a heralded presence in the industry.