Bewitched star was destitute and cleansing bogs earlier than loss of life after career-ending on-set harm
Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter for all the latest entertainment news and reviews
Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter
Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter
The late Bewitched star Dick York was both “financially and physically destitute” after a horrendous on-set injury left him in poor health, author Herbie J. Pilato has revealed.
York, who died from emphysema in 1992 aged 63, rose to global fame playing Darrin Stephens on the popular Sixties sitcom before he was replaced by Dick Sargent for the final three seasons.
His unceremonious exit occurred in 1969 after he became addicted to painkillers, which were initially prescribed to him following an on-set injury while filming the Western drama, They Came to Cordura, 10 years prior.
“Yes, Dick York was financially and physically destitute,” Pilato recently told Fox News. “He just did not have the money anymore. His career had dried up. He was in very poor health. There were no more calls for acting. It was tough to watch.
“Now here I am, just a fan, and then later a friend… to see him in such a horrible situation,” the Twitch Upon a Star author said. “He forced himself to be positive, but he also knew he had to still make money. So, he would end up cleaning apartments to make money.
“He became a cleaning man. He went from being a star of one of the biggest TV shows in the history of television to cleaning toilets. It was humbling for him, and he never complained about it, but… it should not have happened,” Pilato added.
York’s career took a turn when he and his co-stars were propelling a railroad handcar for a scene in the 1959 movie. After the director called “cut,” an extra grabbed hold of the rail that York was pumping and pulling.
“Now, instead of lifting the expected weight, I was suddenly, jarringly, lifting his entire weight off the flatbed — 180 pounds or so. The muscles along the right side of my back tore. They just snapped and let loose,” York said in a 1992 interview published in FilmFax magazine.
“And that was the start of it all — the pain, the painkillers, the addiction, the lost career. I didn’t attend to the problem then. I continued to work through it.”
Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 days
New subscribers only. £8.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled
Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 days
New subscribers only. £8.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled
Eventually, the discs in York’s spine began to compress, leaving him hunched, according to the Los Angeles Times. Instead of seeking medical attention, he took painkillers to try and manage the chronic pain. By the time Bewitched premiered in 1964 on ABC, he was reportedly fully reliant on the medication to get through the day.
The pain became so unbearable at one point that it caused York to collapse and pass out while filming one of the sitcom episodes. He was then hospitalized.
“He never really recovered from the pain,” Pilato said. “He missed 14 episodes. What’s Bewitched without Darrin, without the main conflict of, ‘No, honey, don’t do the magic’?”
“They had to replace him — they didn’t have a choice,” Pilato said. “He felt horrible about it. He did not want to damage the opportunity for all those people who were [working on the series].”
“He didn’t want them to lose their jobs. He didn’t want the show to end, so he just gave in and left. However, he did tell me that if he had that summer of 1969… to fully recover, he [felt] that he would have been able to finish the show.”
