"Bewitched" creator William Asher dies at 90

William Asher, who helped birth TV sitcom Bewitched, co-created The Patty Duke Show and directed hundreds of episodes of series, including I Love Lucy and Bewitched, the latter starring his then-wife Elizabeth Montgomery, has died in Palm Desert, California, according to the Desert Sun. He was 90.

But even if he hadn't worked in television at all, Asher would be remembered for writing and helming the beach movies starring Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon: Beach Party, Muscle Beach Party, Beach Blanket Bingo and How to Stuff a Wild Bikini.

(Amid working on these "Beach Party" films, he developed the pilot of the beach-set comedy Gidget for Sally Field and directed a number of episodes.)

He won an Emmy in 1966 for directing an episode of Bewitched and was thereafter nominated three more times for his work on the show.

The creation of Bewitched was spurred by his desire to see Montgomery keep working as an actress after their marriage in 1963. "She didn't want to do anything, she wanted to have babies," Asher said in a 1999 interview with the Bewitched.net fan website. Asher suggested that they do a TV series together, and he wrote a pilot that was "very close" to Bewitched for Columbia Pictures' Screen Gems unit. But the studio had a similar script on hand from sitcom vet Sol Saks, The Witch of Westport, featuring more of the Halloween-like trappings of, say, The Addams Family. Asher blended the disparate visions, emphasizing comedy over cobwebs and boiling cauldrons. Saks, Asher acknowledged, "hated it," even though the show became a staple of ABC's lineup from 1964-72 and a perennial favorite in syndication for generations.

He started out in the mailroom at Universal Studios, co-directed the film Leather Gloves in 1948 before beginning work in television in the medium's earliest days, directing episodes of The Danny Thomas Show and The Colgate Comedy Hour, among many others.

A job helming the pilot of the classic sitcom Our Miss Brooks, adapted from radio, led to his work on I Love Lucy, for which he directed 100 episodes. He also produced and directed episodes of Fibber McGee and Molly.

He continued work as a director into the 1970s and beyond, helming episodes of The Paul Lynde Show, Operation Petticoat, Alice, the TV adaptation of The Bad News Bears and Private Benjamin. He helmed the reunion telepics I Dream of Jeannie... Fifteen Years Later in 1985 and Return to Green Acres in 1990.

Besides the "Beach Party" films, Asher also directed a number of crime dramas for the big screen: Mobs, Inc., The Shadow on the Window, Johnny Cool, as well as sci-fier The 27th Day. He took Avalon and Funicello onto the racetrack for the action comedy Fireball 500 and returned to the big screen in 1985 with the Walter Matthau-Charles Grodin comedy Movers and Shakers.

William Milton Asher was born in New York. His mother was the actress Lillian Bonner; his father, Ephraim M. Asher, was an associate producer on the 1931 horror classics Dracula and Frankenstein. The family moved to Los Angeles when William Asher was 10.

Asher was married four times, the second time to the late actress Elizabeth Montgomery, the third time to actress Joyce Bulifant.

Asher is survived by fourth wife Meredith; a son and a daughter from his first marriage, Liane and Brian; two sons, William Asher Jr. and Robert Asher, and a daughter, Rebecca Asher, from his marriage to Montgomery; four stepchildren; nine grandchildren; and eight step-grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held September 29 at Desert Springs Church in Palm Desert.


[Via Variety -- www.variety.com/article/VR1118056655]