Elizabeth Victoria Montgomery is a renowned American actress known for her roles in Bewitched, Johnny Cool, Belle Star, Face to Face, The Panama Deception, Amos, The Twilight Zone, A Killing Affair, The Awakening Land, Dark Victory, Mrs. Sundance, With Murder in Mind, The Spiral Staircase, Playhouse 90, and many others.
She was born in April 1933 to Broadway actress Elizabeth Daniel Bryan Allen and movie star Robert Montgomery. She began her acting career in the early 1950s by appearing in one of her father’s TV series, Robert Montgomery Presents.
“Dad tells me I often climbed on his lap after dinner and remarked, ‘I’m going to be an actress when I grow up.’ I don’t know whether he encouraged me or not, but he told me he would humor me and would tell me to wait and see what happened when I grew up,” she said during an interview with Los Angeles Times in 1954.
”I’ll be real honest and say that Daddy did help me get a break in TV and I’m really grateful for his assistance and guidance. He’s my most severe critic, but also a true friend as well as loving father,” Elizabeth said about her film star father.
In 1956, Elizabeth landed a role in a Broadway show, Late Love, and won a Theater World Award for her performance. Three years later, she made a name for herself in the entertainment industry by appearing in the ABC sitcom, Bewitched, and people started recognizing her everywhere.
Montgomery won five Primetime Emmy Award nominations for her role in the series and four Golden Globe nominations. The show ran from 1960 to 1972. After Bewitched ended on ABC, she went on to appear in several movies, including A Case of Rape and The Legend of Lizzie Borden.
As for her love life, the actress married Frederick Gallatin Cammann in 1954, but the relationship didn’t work, and they split in 1955.
Within a year of her first divorce, the Bewitched star married Gig Young, an award-winning actor who was almost twice her age and an abusive alcoholic. The couple stayed together for nearly seven years until Montgomery couldn’t keep up with his toxicity anymore and filed for divorce in 1963.
It was not just her love life that was complicated; Elizabeth’s relationship with her father, Robert, was troubled from her childhood, and that severely impacted her life as an adult.
“Elizabeth had a very complicated relationship with her father, which colored her relationships with men most of her life,” per closer weekly.
After two failed marriages, Elizabeth’s search for love didn’t end, and she moved on to marry two more times – her third marriage was with TV producer and film director William Asher and this union lasted for a decade. In 1973 the couple parted ways.
Elizabeth’s fourth marriage was with Robert Foxworth – the couple tied the knot in 1993 and were still married when the iconic actress passed in 1995.
Elizabeth Montgomery died on May 18, 1995, after a long battle with colon cancer. She was 62 when she passed.
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