Asher met future wife, Elizabeth, when she auditioned for a caper flick he was directing, Johnny Cool, in 1963. Both were married to others but the blonde stunner and producer quickly fell in love, divorced their respective spouses and got hitched. But Liz and Bill's wedding wasn't revealed until months after the launch of Bewitched when she was pregnant with their first child. With Asher in control, he manipulated Elizabeth's real-life nervous nose twitch into an icon of pop and Bewitched became an overnight hit.
Despite incorporating Elizabeth's two real pregnancies into the Bewitched storyline and the loss of the original Darren actor, Dick York, the show was consistently top rated for ABC. However, with boredom setting in, both Montgomery and Asher wanted to kill the show after the fifth season but ABC insisted on continuing the supernatural comedy. Soon, a bewitched, bothered Elizabeth found another outlet for her alluring enchantments.
She began having an affair with one of the show's other directors Richard Michaels, busting up his marriage in 1971 and hers while filming the 8th season. She moved in with Michaels as soon as filming ended. They lived together for two years before splitting up from the guilt. Hubby Asher later admitted he had had an affair as well -- with Nancy Fox, one of the show's extras.
Montgomery and Asher's marriage ended as it had begun - with cheating - and Bewitched was finally canceled in 1972.
POP FYI: A 9 foot bronze statue of Elizabeth as Bewitched's Samantha riding sidesaddle on her broomstick, ala the animated TV show credits, stands in a park in Salem, Massachusetts, the home of the notorious 17th century witch trials.
DICK SIEGEL in New York
special to The National Enquirer
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