Baby Boomers no doubt recall Elizabeth Montgomery in the comedy series Bewitched, and her fellow cast member Erin Murphy has now opened up about her death.
In a December entertainment interview on Celebrity Drop, Murphy spoke of her TV mom’s 1995 death from colon cancer at the age of 62. She played the role of Samantha Stephens’ (Montgomery) daughter, Tabitha in the sitcom.
She was heartbroken over the loss of her co-star and explained what made it even more difficult was that several media outlets reached out to her rather than to her real-life children, Bill, Rebecca and Robert Asher for comment on her illness. Murphy did say it was likely that they did so “out of respect to the family,” but it made things really difficult for her.
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“They were putting together her obituaries, her in memoriams [sic], you know, weeks leading up to her passing away. So, I mean, that part was very difficult,” Murphy said in the December interview. Moreover, Erin noted that her former co-star died at the age of 62, saying, “She was much too young. I’m going to be 62 next year, so the thought of that is just crazy.”
At the time, Murphy said she had no idea how sick Montgomery was with her cancer, making it even harder for her. “I’d heard about it through her son that she wasn’t feeling well. She’d been working on a film and just wasn’t feeling well,” said Murphy.
Back in 2022, Murphy was interviewed by Pop Culture Retro, where she opened up about her time working with Montgomery, saying how fond she was of her co-star and the work. Bewitched ran for eight seasons up until 1972, and she noted that she was only two years old in its third season. According to Erin, due to her age, she attracted some of Montgomery’s personality traits due to spending so much time together on the Bewitched set.
“In some ways, I’m more like Liz than like my own mom because it was my first eight years of my life, I was on set,” Murphy said in the 2022 interview.
In addition, she described Montgomery in the comedy as “smart and hilarious and beautiful.” She also said that while she didn’t have the closest relationship with Montgomery after Bewitched came to an end, she’s still friends with her children, whom she shared with her second ex-husband, Bewitched director William Asher.
As noted on the sitcom’s IMDb page, the American sitcom tells the story of a young witch, Samantha, who marries an ordinary mortal, Darrin Stephens. While she promises her husband that she will restrict her witch powers and be a normal housewife, life has other plans for her. One of the cutest aspects of Montgomery’s character was how she twitched her nose while making a spell.
Besides Montgomery and Murphy, Dick York starred as Darrin Stephens, Elizabeth’s husband, Agnes Moorehead played Endora and David White starred in the role of Larry Tate.
