Twitch Upon a Star (66 page)

However dismissive that review may have been for
Murder
, like
The Corpse Had a Familiar Face
before it, was a ratings bonanza. In fact, it became the highest-rated TV-movie of 1995. Consequently, Elizabeth had intended to play
Buchanan
in two or three movies a year, as Peter Falk had reprised his
Columbo
character for new ABC-TV movies in the 1990s based on his popular
NBC Mystery Movie
series of the 1970s. (At one point, Lizzie had even been interested in playing
Mrs. Columbo
in a semi-sequel to Falk's seminal show. But the lead for that series, which failed, went to Kate Mul-grew, who later starred as
Captain Janeway
on
Star Trek: Voyager
.)

Meanwhile,
Deadline
co-star Saundra Santiago's memories of working with Lizzie are “nothing but pleasant”:

Mirroring Cliff Robertson's recollections of Lizzie in their youth, Santiago goes on to say how “grounded” Lizzie was as a person. “She knew how to keep herself
real
[in Hollywood]. She was the most unassuming actor I've ever worked with … very humble and very sweet. She was a real pro … a very lovely woman.”

A fan of
Bewitched
, Santiago was initially apprehensive about talking with Lizzie about her most famous role:

And since
Murder, She Wrote
was on its way out at CBS, the network was looking to fill that older-female-mystery demographic. But fate had other plans.

“No one ever knew she had cancer,” Santiago says of Lizzie. “And then when she died, it was shocking to me … to work so closely with someone like that … and then only to have them pass away such a short time afterward. It was just so sad.”

Upon working with Lizzie, Saundra was not aware that her father was Robert Montgomery, who in 1981 had succumbed to cancer, which, as it turns out, had also taken the life of Saundra's father. “It's not a discriminating disease,” she says. “It'll grab onto whoever it can.”

And as much as she wants to remember the happy experience of working with Elizabeth, Saundra can't help but recall a few other developments that transpired on the
Deadline
set that she calls “eerie and kind of weird.” She explains:

Santiago had become apprehensive of taking pictures ever since a trip to Santorini Island in Greece, which she calls “a very superstitious place. It's a volcanic island, with all kinds of ‘spirits.' And I took a few pictures there, and they all came out like the Polaroid picture that crew member took of me and Elizabeth. There were a lot of ghost-like images all over the place. It came out very strange.”

Away from the set of
Deadline for Murder
, Lizzie was busy nursing Robert Foxworth, who had recently undergone hip-replacement surgery. As the actor told
People
magazine on June 5, 1995, Lizzie was strong and confident, whereas he was apprehensive. “She was there for me when I first tried getting up on crutches.”

Foxworth “was quite devoted to her,” says actress Bonnie Bartlett, who had known Lizzie from New York in the 1950s and when they both appeared in 1975's
The Legend of Lizzie Borden
. Like Saundra Santiago had lost her father to cancer, Bartlett lost her father, mother, and brother to colon cancer, the same form of the disease that did not spare Lizzie's life. “If my father would have had the proper exam, he would have pulled through,” Bartlett says. Just like Lizzie, “he didn't have to die. And as I recall, she was never tested for colon cancer, and neither was my Dad.”

According to
People
magazine, Foxworth, Bill Asher, and Lizzie's children each tried to get Lizzie to see a doctor. But she refused, even after her daughter Rebecca noticed how thin she had become on the set of
Murder
. Still, Lizzie disregarded the notion, and ultimately ignored what were in effect warning signs that something was wrong … deadly wrong.

But as Saundra Santiago has revealed, and as Liz Sheridan once explained on A&E's
Biography
in 1999, that's how Lizzie was; she kept things to herself. There was “no dwelling.” She was secretive and preferred that people didn't know if she was upset or worried or in pain, in anguish of any kind; she toughed things out. As Sheridan later expressed to MSNBC's
Headliners & Legends
in 2001, Lizzie never really wanted to face anything that was “bad or ugly.” She was in a “huge state of denial.”

Such denial, however, still did not betray her loyalty. Lizzie instructed the powers-that-be to cast Sheridan in
Deadline for Murder
so the two could visit. As Sheridan later revealed at Lizzie's Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony, January 4, 2008, “She was getting ill and I didn't know it. She didn't let on.”

Then, in mid May 1995, the phone rang at Sheridan's home. She picked up the receiver, and heard Lizzie's voice with a simple, “Hi.”

In attempt to break through the tears with a smile, Sheridan asked, “So, what's new?”

“Oh, a little of this and a little of that,” Lizzie replied, bravely. Then she giggled, Sheridan followed suit, and in between those little laughs were the last words they spoke.

By then, Lizzie had finally checked into Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. As
People
magazine reported, exploratory surgery had brought the tragic diagnosis: colon cancer. Bill Asher said Lizzie's mood was upbeat but nervous. First she was shocked. Then she was angry.

By the time her doctors performed additional surgery to remove the cancer's growth, she was too weak for radiation therapy, and the disease had progressed. At that point, and as Bob Foxworth explained in 2006 on
Entertainment Tonight
, she wanted “to go home.” He knew then, he said, that
she
knew she was going to die. And that she wanted to die at home.

As Billy Clift, Lizzie's hairdresser and good friend, relayed in his compelling book
Everything Is Going to Be Just Fine: Ramblings of a Mad Hairdresser
(Everything Is Going to Be Just Fine Society, 1998), Bob Foxworth had explained to him the events of Lizzie's last night of life. She had experienced a great deal of pain, made dire sounds, and her breathing was highly erratic. They were Foxworth's most challenging hours at her side. He made every valiant effort to remain awake, but by 6 AM, he needed some sleep. Then, two hours later, Elizabeth's nurse awakened him. There were new developments. Lizzie had become restful, tranquil, and then she passed away … at approximately 8:23 AM, May 18, 1995.

In the end, at least Lizzie was surrounded by the family she loved and held dear: Foxworth, Bill Asher and her three children with Asher, Billy Jr., Robert, and Rebecca in particular, who was most often at her mother's bedside, soothing her throughout interrupted bouts of sleep.

Foxworth told
People
those last days with Lizzie were “loving and intense,” a fitting description for one who lived a life filled with many contradictions, some delightful, others confounding. One moment, she joked about wanting pina coladas poured into her IV. At another, she felt energetic enough to cheer on the New York Knicks during a televised basketball game—one of the simple pleasures which she embraced. But as Asher also told
People
, Lizzie knew she was “losing the battle.”

It was a fight for her life that ended in the early morning hours of May 18, 1995, when she was alone in her bedroom at home, taking her last breaths, with her loved ones waiting quietly in the living room, as she had requested. “She didn't want anyone to see her that way,” Asher said. Then she slipped away.

According to what Billy Asher, Jr. relayed to MSNBC's
Headliners & Legends
, his mother's physicians were surprised that she was still hanging on in those final days. She wasn't going to take-off during the dark of night, young Asher told them. When she's ready to go, he thought, it'll be in the morning with the light and the sun, “and that's kind of what happened.”

As it had been for Lucille Ball—shortly before she died of a ruptured aorta on April 26, 1989 at Cedar-Sinai Hospital—countless cards, letters, gifts, and calls arrived at Lizzie's room at the same hospital and at her home in Beverly Hills before she passed away in 1995.

Lizzie, like Lucy, felt an overwhelming outpouring of adoration. Most of the senders were viewers who considered themselves family members and friends, people whom she had only met through the magic of television, and then others with whom she actually worked in television, like her friends Cliff Robertson and Sally Kemp.

But unlike Liz Sheridan, who at least had a chance to speak with Lizzie on the phone before she died, Cliff and Sally would not be granted that opportunity. Shortly before his “Lizbel” passed away, Robertson shared a random in-studio TV interview with Robert Foxworth after which he said, “Bob invited me to drop by the house … for a visit.”

“I'm sure Elizabeth would love to see you,” Foxworth said.

“I was looking forward to it,” Robertson recalled in 2011, “because I had not seen her in a long time.”

So, that spring day, sometime in mid-May 1995, Robertson followed Foxworth to the home he shared with Lizzie in Beverly Hills. Upon arrival, they parked their separate cars and Foxworth went inside to tell Lizzie that her friend was waiting outside. Only a few moments later, he emerged to tell Robertson that she was too ill for visitors. “And she died shortly thereafter,” Robertson lamented. “I never got to see her. She just didn't want to see anyone, and I didn't blame her. But to this day, I miss her … because we had such a rollicking good-pal relationship.”

“I loved her dearly,” says Sally Kemp. “You know … some people are a source of light in your life, and she was just a source of light in mine.” And Sally was “deeply saddened” when she heard of Lizzie's passing because, like so many of her friends, Sally “hadn't known that she had been sick.”

On June 18, 1995, a memorial service for Lizzie was held at the Canon Theatre in Beverly Hills. Herbie Hancock provided the music, and Dominick Dunne spoke about their days together in New York when they were both starting out in the business. Other speakers including Robert Fox-worth, who read out loud sympathy cards from fans, her nurse, her brother, daughter, and stepson. Amanda McBroom sang, and the entire service ended with the lights going down. A beautiful shot of Lizzie on a video screen, flickered in the dark, and those in attendance rose and applauded. Lizzie had asked that any donations in her memory should be made to the William Holden Wildlife Association in Kenya or the Los Angeles Zoo.