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Bernard Fox, ‘Bewitched’ Actor, Dies At 89

By Tito Ojo-Medubi
Published on: 17:17 PST, Dec 14, 2016

Bernard Fox, known to TV viewers as Dr. Bombay on Bewitched, has died, the Hollywood Reporter is reporting. The television and movie actor died at the Valley Presbyterian Hospital in Van Nuys, California. Harlan Boll, a spokesman for the family, confirmed that the actor died Wednesday of heart failure.

He was 89.

The funnyman was famous for playing the womanizing warlock Dr. Bombay on Bewitched from 1966 to 1972. Fox appeared in a total of 19 episodes, each time dressed in different attire and hailing from an alternate part of the world. He played the role again in the 1977 sequel Tabitha. In a 1988 interview, Bernard Fox revealed that he drew inspiration for the eccentric character from a man he served with in the Royal Navy during World War II.

“He was the officer in charge of the camp that we were in, and it was an all-male camp, and one evening, I was on duty and we got six Women’s Royal Naval Service who arrived to be put up. So I went to this officer and said, ‘What shall I do?’ And he said, ‘Oh, I don’t know, give ’em a hot bran mash, some clean straw and bed ’em, for the night.’ And I thought, ‘What a great way to play Dr. Bombay.’ And that’s the way I played him, and the writers just kept writing him back in.

“If I’d just gone for an ordinary doctor, you wouldn’t have heard any more about it. But because I made him such a colorful character, that’s why they wanted him back; he was easy to write for. They came up with the idea of him coming from different parts of the world all the time and in different costumes; that was their idea. The puns, I came up with, and in those days, they let you do that.”

Fox was born in Wales in May 1927, according to the New York Daily News. The first acting role of the Welshman was Sixpenny Corner in 1955. He worked in British television for years before journeying across the Atlantic and taking a stab at acting in America. He had frequent guest roles in The Andy Griffith Show and The Dick Van Dyke Show of the 1960s. In 1965, he got the part of Colonel Crittendon in Hogan’s Heroes.

He also guest-starred in M*A*S*H; The Man From U.N.C.L.E.; Knight Rider; The Phantom Major; Murder, She Wrote; F Troop; McHale’s Navy; Perry Mason; and Columbo. He also starred in the television version of The Hound of the Baskervilles in 1972, playing Sherlock Holmes’ reliable sidekick, Dr. Watson.

The 89-year-old appeared in two Titanic movies, 39 years apart. He was first a lookout on board the sinking ship in A Night to Remember, released in 1958. His role in the movie delivered the line, “Iceberg dead ahead sir.” In the 1997 multiple-Oscar-winning version, starring Leonardo Di Caprio and Kate Winslet, he played Colonel Archibald Gracie.

Fox provided voice-over as Chairman in the Disney animations The Rescuers in 1977 and The Rescuers Down Under in 1990. He played retired Air Force pilot Winston Havelock in The Mummy in 1999, alongside Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz. Other movies in his resume include Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo in 1977, The Private Eyes in 1980, and Yellowbeard in 1983.

The actor, who retired from the spotlight in 2004, began his acting career after the end of World War II. Over the course of his career, he garnered more than 100 movie and television credits. He leaves behind his wife Jacqueline, whom he married in 1961.

They have one living daughter, Amanda, who has two children, Samantha and David-Mitchel.

[Featured Image by Tuulijumal/Thinkstock]

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