Elizabeth Montgomery was an American film and television actress whose career spanned several decades. She is best remembered for her famous roles as Samantha Stephens in Bewitched, as Ellen Harrod in A Case of Rape and as Lizzie Borden in The Legend of Lizzie Borden.
Montgomery made her television debut in her father's series Robert Montgomery Presents, and her film debut in 1955 in The Court Martial of Billy Mitchell.
Her early career consisted of starring vehicles and appearances in live television dramas and series, such as Studio One, Kraft Television Theater, The Twilight Zone, and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. In 1954 she lost out on co-starring with Marlon Brando in the seminal film On the Waterfront directed by Elia Kazan. Kazan in his autobiography says that although Montgomery tested well in the role, she had an air of "finishing school" that troubled him.
She was also featured in a role as a masochistic socialite with Henry Silva and Sammy Davis, Jr in the offbeat 1963 gangster film Johnny Cool and, the same year, with Dean Martin and Carol Burnett in the motion picture comedy Who's Been Sleeping In My Bed?, directed by Daniel Mann. The latter film's poor reviews and scant box-office slowed down her film offers. Nevertheless, Alfred Hitchcock had her in mind to play the sister-in-law of Sean Connery, who sees herself as a rival to the troubled heroine in the movie Marnie, but Montgomery was unavailable due to her commitment to a new television show: Bewitched.
Although Montgomery enjoyed enormous success with the show, she felt typecast and pigeonholed when she sought other roles after the show's run ended. Montgomery refused to do Samantha's famous nose twitch for fans after Bewitched went off the air, and was reluctant to discuss the show.
She spent much of her career pursuing dramatic roles that took her as far away from the good-natured Samantha as possible. Among her later roles:
* She received Emmy Award nominations for playing a rape victim in A Case of Rape (1974), for her portrayal of Lizzie Borden in William Bast's The Legend of Lizzie Borden (1975), and for her role as a strong woman facing hardship in 1820s Ohio in the mini-series The Awakening Land (1978).
* In 1977, Montgomery turned heads when she played a police detective having an interracial affair with her partner in A Killing Affair.
* She also made a chilling villain in the 1985 picture Amos, playing a nurse in a state home who terrorized residents Kirk Douglas and Dorothy McGuire.
* One of her final roles was in an episode of Batman: The Animated Series entitled "Showdown," in which she played a barmaid.
* She also had a long run as a guest performer on the game show Password, and host Allen Ludden referred to her as the best Password player ever on the show.
* Her final television movies were the highly-rated Edna Buchanan detective series.
Montgomery was one of the first actresses to broaden her career from series work with television movies, and set the precedent for other TV series actresses, such as Farrah Fawcett, Jaclyn Smith, Melissa Gilbert, Carol Burnett, and Barbara Eden, to follow.
She had been discussed to star in the 1975 thriller based on the novel by Ira Levin, The Stepford Wives and, in 1994, Premiere magazine listed her as one of the stars considered to play glamorous, overbearing "Pearl Slaghoople" (Wilma's Mother) in the live-action film of The Flintstones.
filmography
* Robert Montgomery Presents in 22 episodes from 1951-1956.
* Patterns (1955)
* The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell (1955)
* Studio One appearances from 1955 - 1958
* Alfred Hitchcock Presents as Karen from "A Man with a Problem" (1958)
* The Untouchables as Rusty Heller (for which she received an Emmy Award nomination) (1960)
* "Two" (an episode of The Twilight Zone) (1961), alongside Charles Bronson.
* Johnny Cool (1963)
* Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed? (1963)
* How to Stuff a Wild Bikini (1965)
* The Flintstones as animated Samantha Stephens (1966)
* The Victim (1972) (TV)
* Mrs. Sundance (1973) (TV) as Etta Place
* A Case of Rape (1974) (TV) (Emmy Award nomination)
* The Legend of Lizzie Borden (1975) (TV)(Emmy Award nomination) as Lizzie Borden
* Dark Victory (1976) (TV) as Katherine Merrill
* A Killing Affair (1977) (TV) as Vikki Eaton
* The Awakening Land (1978) (TV)(Emmy Award nomination)
* Act of Violence (1979) (TV) as Catherine McSweeney
* Jennifer: A Woman's Story (1979) as Jennifer Prince
* Belle Starr (1980) (TV) as Belle Starr
* When the Circus Came to Town (1981) (TV) as Mary Flynn
* The Rules of Marriage (1982) as Joan Hagen
* Missing Pieces (1983) as Sara Scott
* Second Sight: A Love Story (1984) as Alaxandra McKay
* Amos (1985) as Daisy Daws
* Between the Darkness and the Dawn (1986) (TV) as Abigail Foster
* Face to Face (1990) as Dr. Diana Firestone
* Sins of the Mother (1991) as Ruth Coe
* With Murder in Mind (1992) as Gayle Wolfer
* The Black Widow Murders: The Blanche Taylor Moore Story (1993) (TV) as Blanche Taylor Moore
* The Corpse Had a Familiar Face (1994) (TV) as Edna Buchanan
* Deadline for Murder: From the Files of Edna Buchanan (1995) (TV) as Edna Buchanan
Narration
* The Panama Deception (1992)
* Coverup: Behind the Iran Contra Affair (1988) (voice)
* Craven Street: Ben Franklin in London, a five-part radio drama (1993) (narrator)
* Beauty's Punishment (1994) (narrator)
* Beauty's Release (1994) (narrator)
Two audio books in which Montgomery narrates the work of Anne Rice (writing as A.N. Roquelaure) are available as of 2005.
wikipedia.org
Links about Elizabeth Montgomery
