'Bewitched' Star Liz Montgomery Was Related to Ax Murderer Lizzie Borden, Who She Once Played on TV

Photo byClassic TV Preservation Society

[Note: Unless otherwise indicated, the quotes and commentary in this article are from interviews conducted by the author with those mentioned. Additionally, this article is edited material from the book, Twitch Upon a Star: The Bewitched Life and Career of Elizabeth Montgomery.]

Bewitched and Beyond

After the cancellation of Bewitched, actress Elizabeth Montgomery, the show's leading lady, appeared in a series of violent-laden, dramatic TV-movie roles that were quite different from her magical comedic performance as twitch-witch Samantha Stephens.

Those included The Victim (ABC, 1972), A Case of Rape (NBC, 1974), and The Legend of Lizzie Borden (ABC, 1975).

The latter was a real-life story based on the woman who was accused of murdering her father and stepmother.

Cousins, Nothing But Cousins

On Bewitched, Elizabeth Montgomery played the dual roles of Samantha Stephens and lookalike cousin Serena. That relationship was based on Montgomery's relationship with her real-life look-a-like cousin Panda.

However, according to genealogist and true-crime writer James Pylant, Montgomery had a more interesting relative. She and Lizzie Borden were sixth cousins removed, both descending from seventeenth-century Massachusetts resident John Luther.

Author Rhonda R. McClure originally documented the Montgomery-Borden connection in her book, Finding Your Famous (And Infamous) Ancestors, in which she asks, "I wonder how Elizabeth would have felt if she knew she was playing her own cousin?"

Retro curator Ed Robertson, another author and the host of the TV Confidential radio show, once weighed in on the Montgomery-Border link.

"Whether that's true or not, I don't know," Robert said. "But I'm not sure whether Elizabeth would have taken on the role, or at least allowed Borden to be characterized the way she was in the role, had she know she was in fact playing one of her own cousins."

Years After the Borden Movie

Years after starring in The Legend of Lizzie Borden, Elizabeth Montgomery finally learned of her lineage to her historic and diabolical distant cousin. According to entertainment historian Thomas McCartney, who has archived Montgomery's life and career since 1994, the actress was "bemused by the idea" of being related to Borden. "But never said anything else about it."

But Then There is the Robert Montgomery Issue

As the liberal-minded daughter of the conservative-geared actor Robert Montgomery, Elizabeth Montgomery was politically active and enjoyed stirring the pot, especially when it came to her father. The two had a love-not-like relationship and for one, were on opposite sides of the political spectrum, as she campaigned for Democratic candidates and championed social causes.

Elizabeth, who was known as "Lizzie" by those closest to her, took particular delight in her father's utter surprise that she was playing Lizzie Borden. Upon learning that her daughter would portray an ax murderer who killed her father and stepmother, the elder Montgomery told his famous offspring, "Oh, you would!"

That response was a reference to his daughter's resentment that Robert Montgomery divorced his wife, and Elizabeth's mother, Elizabeth Allen, to marry yet another Elizabeth: Elizabeth "Buffy" Harkness.

In other words, Robert Montgomery believed his daughter starred in The Legend of Lizzie Borden in revenge for him divorcing her mother and wedding Harkness.

In the end...

In an interview from 1989, Elizabeth Montgomery summed up her various TV-movie experiences in this way: "They all have different kinds of 'feels' to them, and that's probably one of the reasons why I've done them. I get letters from people saying one of the things they like best about what I've done since Bewitched is that they never knew what I'm going to do next."