Erin Murphy says Dick York was more than a co-star on Bewitched. The actress, who played Tabitha Stephens from 1966, said York was like a dad to her on and off camera, while also pushing back on years of stories about Elizabeth Montgomery and York’s final days.
Murphy made the comments in a 2025 interview, revisiting a show that debuted in 1964 and ran for eight seasons until 1972. Bewitched followed newlywed Darrin and Samantha Stephens as they tried to live a suburban life around Samantha’s secret identity as a witch, with Tabitha added in season two and played by Erin and Diane Murphy starting in 1966.
The memories matter because York’s departure in 1969 has long been one of the most discussed breaks in the series. He left amid serious medical issues tied to a debilitating back injury and addiction to painkillers, and Dick Sargent took over the role with no explanation for the change in appearance. Murphy said Montgomery never talked to York after he left the set, and that social media stories claiming she showed up when he was dying were not true.
Murphy also described Montgomery as far more distant from the cast than her on-screen image suggested. She said Montgomery was all business when the series ended and that she stayed connected mostly through Christmas cards and through Montgomery and Bill Asher’s children. In Murphy’s telling, Montgomery could be role-model-like, but off camera she was serious, businesslike and disconnected from the rest of the group once the show was over.
That leaves a sharper picture of the old set than the one many fans grew up with: affectionate in some corners, detached in others, and shaped by York’s illness more than by any simple backstage feud. York himself later said leaving Bewitched was the worst day of his life because he thought he had failed everybody, and that he felt guilty, embarrassed and upset that he did not finish the show. Murphy’s account suggests the emotional distance after his exit was real, and that the myth of a last-minute reunion at his death was just that — a myth.
