Happy Birthday, Samantha!

Yesterday was the birthday of Elizabeth Montgomery, who starred as Samantha Stevens in one of the most popular and iconic sitcoms in television history, "Bewitched", 1964-72. Elizabeth died in 1995 of cancer; yesterday would have been her 77th birthday.
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Montgomery managed to be funny, incredibly cute, and unbelievably sexy, all at once. She set fashion styles of the day, and even though she played a devoted wife and mother, the storylines of her sitcom often involved her taking strong, feminist positions. She didn't back down to anyone, and not just because she could twitch her nose and turn that person into a goat, either. She had a mind, and she wasn't afraid to show it.
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"Bewitched" wasn't a paragon of writing, the plotlines often repeated themselves ad nauseum, but the show gave us some of the most famous sitcom characters of all time, i.e. Endora, Uncle Arthur, Gladys Kravitz, Tabitha, the two Darren's, etc. Montgomery even played a dual role as her identical twin cousin, the more sexually promiscuous Serena.

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Elizabeth Montgomery later played Lizzie Borden in a classic t.v. movie, and ended her career playing in a string of t.v. films in which she played detective Edna Buchanan. But as popular as Montgomery was, she never won an Emmy Award, despite being nominated nine times. In those days, Emmys weren't given out like candy, as they are now, and Montgomery suffered from playing in what was considered a lighthearted, fluff comedy.
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Elizabeth, the daughter of famous screen actor, Robert Montgomery, evidently took strong positions in real life, too, as we found out in 1992 when she rode in the Los Angeles Gay Pride Parade as co-Grand Marshal alongside her openly gay, former "Bewitched" co-star, Dick Sargent. For those who are too young to remember, it was still risky in the early '90's for famous actors to publically align themselves with the gay movement, but Montgomery was front and center in that regard, and for that, we, and the entire country, owe her a great deal of respect.
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(elizabeth montgomery and dick sargent)

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Every famous actor had those roles that "got away", and Montgomery was no exception. In 1954, the role of Edie Doyle in "On The Waterfront" came down to Elizabeth and Eva Marie Saint. Director Elia Kazan thought Elizabeth projected too much of an air of "upper crust society", and gave the role to Saint, who later won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for it. Montgomery was offered the part of Krystle Carrington in 1981 in the t.v. primetime soap, "Dynasty", but turned it down. We don't know why.
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Elizabeth Montgomery is one of our all-time favorites, we love her.