Bewitched: The Magic That Captivated a Generation

Sixty years after Samantha Stephens first twitched her nose and brought a little magic into American suburbia, Bewitched remains one of television’s most enchanting creations. For those of us who grew up with it, the series was far more than a comedy. It became part of the landscape of childhood, its characters as familiar as members of our own families, and its particular brand of magic something that has never entirely faded.

I remember, as vividly as though it were yesterday, the excitement of watching Bewitched for the first time when I was a child growing up in London. My brothers, sisters and I would gather in the playroom in the attic of our house, glued to our black-and-white television set, utterly captivated by the extraordinary adventures of Samantha Stephens and her wonderfully eccentric family. The arrival of each new episode was an event in itself, and the series soon became one of the defining pleasures of our childhood. Its characters entered our lives so completely that my younger sister Sandra even named her beautiful grey mare Endora, after Samantha’s formidable mother. The mare was an excellent horse, but mischievous and possessed of a decidedly independent temperament, making the name particularly appropriate. Only recently, having watched a number of episodes again after so many decades, I was astonished by the flood of memories they awakened. The familiar faces, the voices, the music and, above all, that irresistible mixture of innocence, wit and fantasy transported me back to a world that seemed to have disappeared forever. And I realised that Bewitched had accomplished something exceedingly rare: it had not merely entertained a generation of children, but had become an enduring part of their emotional memory.

The witch who conquered television

When Bewitched made its American debut on ABC on 17 September 1964, nobody could have predicted quite how deeply it would enter the popular imagination.

Created by Sol Saks and developed under the creative direction of producer and director William Asher, the series introduced audiences to Samantha Stephens, a beautiful young woman with an apparently ordinary ambition: to enjoy a happy marriage with her husband, Darrin, an advertising executive.

There was, however, one rather significant complication.

Samantha was a witch.

And not merely an amateur practitioner of the supernatural arts, but a member of a formidable magical family whose powers rendered most of the conventions of ordinary human existence entirely unnecessary.

She could transport herself across continents, make objects appear and disappear, transform people into animals, alter the laws of physics and resolve almost any domestic inconvenience with the slightest movement of her nose.

Her husband, unfortunately, disapproved of virtually all of it.

Darrin Stephens was determined that his wife should lead the life of an ordinary American housewife, cooking, cleaning, entertaining his clients and maintaining the respectable appearance expected of a suburban family.

Samantha, who adored him, agreed to try.

The resulting conflict provided the foundation for one of television’s most ingenious comedies.

The series was an immediate success. During its first season, Bewitched became the second-highest-rated programme on American television, an extraordinary achievement for a new comedy built around such an improbable premise. It would remain among the country’s most popular programmes for several years.

But its appeal was never simply the novelty of witchcraft.

The real magic lay in its characters.

Elizabeth Montgomery: the woman behind Samantha

At the centre of the series was Elizabeth Montgomery, whose portrayal of Samantha remains one of the most captivating performances in the history of television comedy.

Born in Los Angeles in 1933, she was the daughter of the distinguished actor Robert Montgomery and had grown up in the privileged yet demanding world of Hollywood.

By the time Bewitched began, she was already an accomplished actress with considerable television experience.

Yet Samantha Stephens transformed her into an international star.

Montgomery possessed a rare combination of qualities: beauty, intelligence, warmth and an extraordinary instinct for comedy.

Her Samantha was never a conventional comic heroine. She was sophisticated without being pretentious, affectionate without being sentimental and capable of conveying the absurdity of almost any situation with a raised eyebrow or an expression of gentle exasperation.

And then, of course, there was the famous twitch of her nose.

It became one of the most recognisable gestures in television history.

Children everywhere attempted to imitate it, often with considerable determination and very little success.

I suspect that in our London playroom we were no exception.

What made Montgomery so remarkable was her ability to maintain Samantha’s essential humanity despite the supernatural nature of her character.

She was a witch who could accomplish almost anything, yet her greatest desire was simply to be loved for herself.

That contradiction gave the series an emotional dimension that distinguished it from many other television comedies of the period.

Endora: the mother-in-law from another world

If Samantha was the heart of Bewitched, her mother Endora was unquestionably its most magnificent source of mischief.

Played by the incomparable Agnes Moorehead, Endora was everything that Samantha was not supposed to be.

Aristocratic, flamboyant, imperious and utterly contemptuous of ordinary mortals, she regarded her daughter’s marriage to Darrin as an almost incomprehensible social catastrophe.

Why, she wondered, would a beautiful and powerful witch choose to spend her life with a man whose principal accomplishments involved selling advertising campaigns and worrying about what the neighbours might think?

Her disdain for Darrin was absolute.

She frequently refused even to remember his name, addressing him by a succession of deliberately incorrect alternatives.

And when verbal insults proved insufficient, she had the considerable advantage of being able to transform him into practically anything she pleased.

Yet Endora was never simply a villain.

Beneath her theatrical extravagance lay a mother whose interference, however exasperating, was motivated by a genuine attachment to her daughter.

Moorehead played the character with extraordinary relish.

Her elaborate costumes, magnificent jewellery, dramatic eye make-up and imperious gestures gave Endora a visual identity unlike anything else on television.

She seemed to have stepped out of some improbable combination of a Hollywood drawing room, a grand opera and an eighteenth-century aristocratic salon.

For a child watching in London, she was irresistible.

And perhaps that explains why my sister Sandra chose to name her grey mare after her.

There could hardly have been a more appropriate name for a beautiful animal with a mischievous disposition and a determination to have her own way.

Endora was, after all, never malicious without reason. She simply possessed an unshakeable conviction that she knew best.

A quality not entirely unknown among spirited mares.

Darrin Stephens and the comedy of ordinary life

Opposite Montgomery, Dick York played Darrin Stephens during the first five seasons.

His performance was essential to the programme’s success.

Darrin was frequently irritable, occasionally pompous and often spectacularly incapable of understanding the advantages of having married a woman with supernatural powers.

Yet York gave the character an underlying warmth that made his frustrations understandable.

He was, after all, a perfectly ordinary man attempting to preserve some semblance of normality in a household where his mother-in-law might materialise without warning and his wife could make a roast dinner appear with a twitch of her nose.

The comedy depended upon his reactions.

His expressions of astonishment, disbelief and barely suppressed panic became as familiar to viewers as Samantha’s magical gestures.

Unfortunately, York suffered from serious chronic back problems, aggravated by an earlier injury, and eventually found the physical demands of the series impossible to sustain.

In 1969, he was replaced by Dick Sargent, who continued in the role until the programme ended.

It was an extraordinary decision by the producers.

Rather than inventing an elaborate explanation for Darrin’s changed appearance, they simply introduced a different actor and carried on as though nothing had happened.

Television audiences accepted the transformation with remarkable good humour.

For a programme in which people routinely changed shape, disappeared or travelled through time, perhaps a husband acquiring a different face was hardly worth mentioning.

An unforgettable gallery of eccentrics

One of the pleasures of revisiting Bewitched is rediscovering the extraordinary supporting characters who inhabited Samantha’s world.

There was Aunt Clara, played by Marion Lorne, an elderly and endearingly absent-minded witch whose powers had become increasingly unreliable.

Her attempts at magic frequently produced disastrous results, often leaving Samantha to repair the damage before Darrin or his colleagues discovered what had happened.

Lorne brought such tenderness to the character that Aunt Clara became one of the series’ most beloved figures. Her performance earned her a posthumous Emmy Award in 1968.

Then there was Uncle Arthur, played by the wonderfully mischievous Paul Lynde, whose practical jokes and outrageous sense of humour frequently reduced Darrin to despair.

Dr Bombay, the flamboyant physician summoned to treat magical ailments, appeared in a succession of improbable circumstances, usually interrupting some exotic sporting or social activity.

Esmeralda, the nervous and accident-prone witch, possessed a particularly inconvenient habit of disappearing whenever she became embarrassed.

And who could forget Gladys Kravitz?

The Stephens family’s perpetually suspicious neighbour was convinced that something deeply peculiar was happening next door.

She was, of course, entirely correct.

But her long-suffering husband Abner refused to believe her, dismissing her increasingly hysterical accounts of people flying through windows, furniture moving by itself and inexplicable apparitions in the garden.

The joke was wonderfully simple and endlessly effective.

The only person in the neighbourhood who consistently recognised the truth was regarded as completely irrational.

These supporting characters gave Bewitched an almost theatrical richness.

Each possessed a distinctive personality, and their appearances created a sense of anticipation that made the programme feel like an extended family gathering.

An admittedly rather unusual family.

A surprisingly modern comedy

Looking back at Bewitched today, one discovers that beneath its apparently innocent surface lay a series of questions that were remarkably contemporary.

The programme began at a time when American society was undergoing profound changes.

The civil rights movement, the emergence of modern feminism, changing attitudes towards marriage and the growing independence of women were challenging established social conventions.

And here was Samantha Stephens, a woman who possessed almost unlimited power but whose husband insisted that she behave like an ordinary suburban housewife.

The contradiction was impossible to ignore.

Samantha could travel to Paris in an instant, furnish an entire house without lifting a finger and overcome virtually any obstacle through supernatural means.

Yet she was expected to spend her days performing domestic chores.

Darrin’s insistence that she suppress her powers can be interpreted as a comic expression of the anxieties surrounding changing gender roles during the 1960s.

Samantha’s abilities represented independence, individuality and freedom from conventional limitations.

Her husband’s objections reflected a world in which men were still expected to exercise authority within marriage.

The writers rarely confronted these questions directly. Instead, they allowed the absurdity of the situations to expose the contradictions.

There was also a broader theme of tolerance.

Samantha’s family belonged to a community that was different from ordinary society, possessing its own traditions, customs and powers.

Her marriage to a mortal challenged the prejudices of both worlds.

Endora regarded human beings as inferior, while Darrin frequently treated witchcraft as something shameful that had to be concealed.

Samantha stood between them, attempting to reconcile two cultures through affection, patience and common sense.

Seen through contemporary eyes, the series was rather more sophisticated than its light-hearted premise might suggest.

One particularly memorable episode, Sisters at Heart, broadcast in 1970, addressed racial prejudice through the friendship of two young girls. The episode subsequently received a special Governors Award from the Television Academy.

For a family comedy, this was no insignificant achievement.

The extraordinary charm of the 1960s

Rewatching Bewitched after so many years is also a fascinating journey into the visual world of the 1960s.

The clothes, furniture, motorcars, hairstyles and domestic interiors belong to a period whose particular elegance now seems almost impossibly distant.

Samantha’s wardrobe was especially memorable.

Elizabeth Montgomery wore an extraordinary succession of dresses, coats and evening gowns that reflected the changing fashions of the decade.

Her appearance evolved from the carefully structured elegance of the early Sixties towards the more relaxed silhouettes and vibrant colours of the later years.

Endora’s costumes, by contrast, inhabited a world entirely their own.

Her flowing garments, extravagant jewellery and theatrical combinations of colour suggested that she regarded the dictates of contemporary fashion as beneath her consideration.

The Stephens household itself became one of television’s most recognisable interiors.

Its comfortable drawing room, staircase, kitchen and garden provided the familiar setting in which the most extraordinary events unfolded.

There was something reassuring about this contrast.

However absurd the magical complications became, the audience knew that everything would eventually return to normal.

And then there was the music.

The animated opening sequence, with Samantha flying across the night sky on her broomstick before descending into the domestic world of her marriage, was a miniature masterpiece of television design.

Its theme tune remains instantly recognisable.

For those of us who watched the programme as children, the first few notes possess an almost miraculous ability to transport us back through time.

It is extraordinary how music can preserve memories that have otherwise lain dormant for decades.

A melody lasting only a few seconds can suddenly restore an entire room, the faces of people we loved and the atmosphere of a particular moment in our lives.

The end of an era

Bewitched ran for eight seasons, from 1964 until 1972, producing more than 250 episodes.

During those years, television itself underwent a remarkable transformation.

The programme began in black and white before moving into colour, reflecting the technological changes that were reshaping domestic entertainment.

Its characters also evolved.

Samantha and Darrin became parents, first to Tabitha and subsequently to Adam, introducing new possibilities for magical complications.

But by the early 1970s, the cultural atmosphere had changed.

Television audiences were becoming interested in more openly contemporary forms of comedy, and the innocent suburban fantasies of the previous decade were gradually losing their dominance.

Elizabeth Montgomery, who had devoted eight years to the character, was ready to pursue other roles.

The series ended in 1972.

Its leading performers followed very different paths.

Montgomery continued to work in television, demonstrating her dramatic range in productions far removed from the light-hearted world of Samantha Stephens. She died in 1995, aged only 62.

Agnes Moorehead died in 1974, leaving behind a distinguished career that had encompassed theatre, radio, cinema and television.

Marion Lorne had already died in 1968, while Dick York and Dick Sargent died in 1992 and 1994 respectively.

Yet the characters they created have proved remarkably resistant to the passage of time.

Through repeated broadcasts and subsequent home-video and streaming releases, Bewitched has continued to find audiences long after its original stars departed.

The programme has become something more than a successful television comedy.

It is now part of the cultural memory of the twentieth century.

The magic that never disappeared

What has struck me most profoundly about watching Bewitched again is not simply how entertaining the episodes remain, but how unexpectedly emotional the experience has been.

There are programmes we remember because they were amusing, others because they were exciting, and still others because they introduced us to unfamiliar worlds.

But occasionally a television series becomes so closely associated with a particular period of our lives that rediscovering it is rather like opening a long-forgotten family album.

For me, Bewitched belongs to that rare category.

Watching Samantha twitch her nose, hearing Endora deliver another devastating insult to poor Darrin, or seeing Aunt Clara emerge from an entirely unexpected location, I find myself transported back to our London house and the playroom in the attic.

I can almost see the black-and-white television set, hear the laughter of my brothers and sisters and recover something of the innocent excitement with which we awaited each new episode.

And inevitably, I think of Sandra and her beautiful grey mare Endora.

It is curious how a fictional character from an American television comedy could have found her way into the everyday life of a family thousands of miles away.

Yet that was precisely the extraordinary achievement of Bewitched.

Its characters became part of our own world.

They inspired our games, our jokes and even the names we bestowed upon our animals.

They gave us a shared language of humour and imagination.

And perhaps, without our quite realising it, they taught us something about affection, tolerance and the importance of accepting people for what they are.

More than sixty years after Samantha Stephens first appeared on television, the special effects may seem delightfully primitive, the domestic conventions occasionally antiquated and the plots reassuringly predictable.

But the performances retain their charm, the humour remains surprisingly fresh and Elizabeth Montgomery’s smile is as captivating as ever.

There is something deeply comforting in discovering that a pleasure from childhood has survived the passage of time.

We grow older, the world changes, houses are sold, families scatter and the familiar landscapes of our early years gradually disappear.

Yet sometimes all that is required to bring them back is a few bars of music and the sight of a beautiful blonde witch twitching her nose.

And suddenly, for half an hour, we are children again.

Perhaps that was Samantha’s greatest spell of all.

EDITORIAL RESEARCH REFERENCES

Historical information was checked against Sony Pictures’ official series history, the Television Academy’s oral-history archive, and Bewitched’s broadcast and awards history. The personal recollections in the opening and conclusion are those of the author.