Ray Fulmer as Darrin? (1 Viewer)

[longhornaccord]

I really wish the producers of Bewitched had considered and gone with actor Ray Fulmer to replace Dick York when he left the show. After all, Ray was already a known quantity to Screen Gems, having starred in season 5 of Hazel, also filmed there. Plus, Fulmer was just about the exact age of Liz Montgomery so age-wise, they would have been a plausible married couple. Also, Ray was a good actor who proved he could play the exasperated husband in dealing with Hazel so he would have been perfect to deal with Endora. Plus, I personally think he would have made a better Darrin than Dick Sargent. I realize Sargent was the original choice for the Darrin character when Bewitched started back in 1964, but that doesn't mean they had to go with him again in 1969. Don't you think Ray Fulmer would have been a good Darrin?

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Well, let me ask this...

Was Dick Sargent a bad choice?

I thought the two actors looked identical, and quite frankly I don't really remember being bothered by the replacement.

 

[Ron Lee Green]

Interesting idea. He certainly fit the mold. But Hazel was cancelled after the season Mr. Fulmer took over. At least Bewitched ran another three seasons with Sargent. I looked up Mr. Fulmer's credits on imdb and was surprised to see very few roles after Hazel. I wonder if he went into another line of work, or maybe he went into theater?

 

[Ethan Riley]

Ray Fulmer actually looked like the long-lost love child of both Dick York and Dick Sargent, so...sure!

 

[JamesSmith]

Is there a photo of Ray Fulmer?

 

[Kasey]

 

[Taylor * D]

Well, let me ask this...

Was Dick Sargent a bad choice?

I thought the two actors looked identical, and quite frankly I don't really remember being bothered by the replacement.

I love Dick Sargent, he didn’t bother me either. However when he joined the cast it turned pretty campy, pretty quickly.

 

[longhornaccord]

See the pictures above of Fulmer. He even looks like Darrin! And he could get that exasperated look that would have been perfect when dealing with Sam's relatives.

 

[GMBurns]

Dick Sargent was good and I'm sure Ray Fulmer would have been fine as well. But no one did exasperated like Dick York. The first four seasons of the series are far and away the best. He became a little uneven in the fifth season, but Dick York was made to be Darrin.

 

[JamesSmith]

Mr. Fulmer even looks a little like Paul Lynde. He does have a similarity between York and Sargent.

--jthree

 

[Garysb]

I always thought of Dick York as the befuddled Darrin and Dick Sargent as the angry Darrin. I preferred Dick York . That is due in part because he was first and the premise was fresh. The show also started as a romantic comedy. By the 6th season the show had become more for children and they started reusing scripts from earlier seasons. As the show was being rerun in daytime at the same time as the Dick Sargent episodes were shown at night, the reuse of scripts were obvious. I don't know if Ray Fulmer would have been better than Dick Sargent given the state of the show by the 6th season. The story I remember about Dick Sargent being first choice for Darren ahead of Dick York was that this was only when Tammy Grimes was offered the female lead Cassandra later Samantha. I don't believe he was considered once Elizabeth Montgomery and William Asher were involved.

I certainly preferred Alice Pearce over Sandra Gould as Gladys Kravitz . Alice was funny and endearing. I felt Alice was a noisy, friendly neighbor wondering what is going on. Sandra played it like she was out to get Samantha and have her deported as if she were a communist during the red scare of the 1950's. The same with Marion Lorne and Alice Ghostley. Playing different characters but serving the same function on the series. Marion Lorne was so good.

 

[MatthewA]

With so many late-era episodes being outright remakes of early episodes, I'm not sure it would have made a difference in that respect.

 

[Larry Tate]

Who was first cast as Darrin Stephens and by Whom?

Although some have said it is so, the following is not an incorrect story that is being repeated over & over again, rather it is proven & corroborated Documented fact and has been accepted as such over 40 years. What is incorrect is the revisionist history that is being perpetuated of late by those that can't stand the idea that Dick York was not alone in consideration for Darrin in the initial early time period when Bewitched was created & cast by Liz & Bill Asher in the Fall of 1963. At no time has Bill Asher said that Dick York was the first & only choice by them as Darrin, quite the opposite is the case actually & it is on the public record & William Ashers comments on the record & on camera state that the Dick Sargent's contractual obligations such as his being on the Tammy Grimes show were indeed the reasons why he could not be cast as Darrin after he was cast as Darrin by Elizabeth Montgomery & William Asher after they joined the project and Sol Saks left. There is no reliable proof or corroboration that Dick Sargent was cast prior to Bill and Liz getting involved nor that he was involved whatsoever while Tammy Grimes was being considered as Cassandra (Samantha), no one at anytime, anywhere, that was associated with the show in any way has stated this was the case. As well Tammy Grimes had never actually signed onto to doing Bewitched & never was happy with a script for a Pilot, even the last one Sol Saks did just prior to Liz & Bill coming on board, as such as in effect the project was in such a initial state with Samantha not even having been officially & contractually cast, that there would have been no casting of the other characters such as Darrin until Tammy Grimes had indeed officially signed on which of course she never did. In fact Sol Saks the Producer for Bewitched prior to Liz & Bill taking over has stated on tape that no casting was done on his watch nor was it being seriously considered which in effect states that Dick Sargent was considered, auditioned and cast as Darrin by Liz & Bill after they had joined the show. This makes the whole Dick Sargent being cast back then with Tammy Grimes as being illogical as well. All this is is second or third hand fantasy or in some cases wishful thinking. As well there was almost no time in between when Tammy Grimes pulled out to to a Broadway show & Liz & Bill being asked to take over it by Harry Ackerman the shows Executive Producer. That Dick Sargent stated himself that he was the first choice by Bill & Liz in interviews & as well in Bewitched Forever is proven fact & not merely a wishful assumption. Likewise so is the fact that this was stated at the time of his joining the show in 1970 in numerous interviews in magazine articles by himself, ABC & Screen Gems Executives & that Liz herself never said it was not so, these again are facts not wishful thinking that someone merely makes up. As well in the ET Bewitched special & in the subsequent pieces ET did on the two Darrin's re Dick Sargent & Dick York it was stated by them in each of them that Dick Sargent was the first choice & that Dick York was only considered when Dick Sargent was not available when they went back to him after their initial interview in order to offer him the role. Furthermore Bill Asher in the E! True Hollywood Special himself on camera clearly states that Dick Sargent was the first choice as Darrin, that THEY as in he & Liz wanted him but that he was unavailable, so there it is fact instead of fiction. Screen Gems did all the casting themselves for the Pilot & after when the show was sold, Liz & Bill had final say in all casting after they came aboard. Asher has been utterly consistent over the years on Dick Sargent being his & Liz's first choice, there are no instances where this has been stated by him otherwise, nor has there been any offered as proof, why?, because it does not exist. From 1963 to the last year or two Bill Asher has always said it was Dick Sargent & never said it was Dick York, what he said was that Dick York was the best choice in hindsight & the only choice in that respect, not that he was the first one, there is a difference. In a recent article on Ebay about Dick Sargent taking over as Darrin it was stated that Dick Sargent had been offered the role and was a prime candidate in 1963 for the role When producer Bill Asher was casting the show but had to turn it down due to a recent contractual commitment to another studio, Universal.

 

[Larry Tate]

Remakes?????...........What Remakes????
Thank God we had 3 more seasons of Bewitched with Dick Sargent
I do not see what I want to see rather what is actually to be seen & is on the screen itself.

Others see what they choose to through a prism that is distorted by the affection that they feel for DY, hence I believe the place from where all the hatred for DS comes from by the Yorkies who express it.

What I saw was DS as Darrin clearly in love & devoted to Samantha with great affection for her & totally devoted to being with her evermore.

Most Yorkie's have the view that you express but most Bewitched fans in total, although may prefer DY, still very much like & enjoy DS as Darrin & his seasons a great deal.

He was very popular with the original generation of Bewitched fans that count the most the & although they are not as vocal as the Yorkie's they exist just as much to the same extent.

Although the ratings which are a relative thing to other shows did go down, the actual number of Households & people watching Bewitched were actually higher in the DS years then the early DY years for example.

As well the changeover prior to season 6 was not publicised & was largely unknown to the Bewitched Fan base till it happened. So when the fans tuned in to see the first episode of Season 6 they were expecting to still see DY, the ratings for this episode where they were tuning in to see DY were exactly the same as they were for the rest of the season when when they were tuning in to see DS, as they knew of the switch after seeing the first episode.

As well after the switchover there was no reaction from Bewitched fans, nobody called or wrote & cared or had a problem with it.This according to Screen Gems executives of the time like Bill Asher, Harry Ackermen, Richard Baer & Richard Michaels.

Thank goodness that the show did not end after season 5, that would have been a huge mistake & instead it should have been as it was done with the show continuing onwards for 3 more Wonderful Seasons.

Yes, Liz & DS were very good friends in a personal sense while she & DY were merely fellow workers who otherwise were not acquainted & were nothing more, which is why they had zero contact after DY left the show.

The Dynamics of the show as to how the characters such as Darrin, Samantha & Endora etc. interrelated & the Premise of the show was unchanged by the changeover from DY to DS, everything was maintained as it had been with consistency.

The 8th season was excellent & very enjoyable, all this Liz was bored,unhappy, hated being there, was a hateful Samantha & changed the character is a lot of Rubbish & is not what one sees on the screen, rather one sees the opposite of all this hateful comments.

Furthermore Elizabeth Montgomery is on record in many interviews that she loved doing all 8 years of the show, was never ever bored for a minute or unhappy doing the show during the 8 seasons & that it was a great experience throughout the entire run of the show & that she would not change anything about her experience in doing the show.

Her words are the truth & after all she should know as they were her feelings.
In fact what one sees is a happy & joyful Samantha, more so even then the previous seasons & that is saying something.

Good examples of this are Bewitched,Bothered & Baldoni, Three Men & a Witch on a Horse, where Adams powers were tested & the final episode, all that i have described is clearly delineated in those episodes.

#72 "What every Young man should know" from season two is a remake of the Pilot.

Remakes began as early as that not only in the last three seasons as so many say.

I would say from season 3 on there were 2,2,3,3,4,4 (out of the first 22 episodes in season 8) remakes, it was only at the end of season 8 that they were largely the case with 3 of the last 4 episodes being remakes.

These facts just show how creative & diverse Bewitched was, that although they stuck to their main premise through all 8 years they still never became formulaic or just rehashed themselves on a regular basis, quite the opposite was the case with varied &
unique episodes being the norm the vast majority of the time rather then them being glorified remakes of each other as has been suggested.

I must say as well that episodes where a spell was placed on Darrin or when he was transformed, ones time travel back & into the future, witch illness ones etc. were never remakes but all unique & creative episodes in the form of sub premises of the main premise, otherwise you might as well say that each time Samantha twitched her nose or Darrin kissed her that this made it a remake episode.

This would make as much sense as it would be to say the ones i referred to above were remakes as well,
& not the word for word of the entire episodes(which none of them ever were)which so often are claimed to be the case by those people who claim most if not all of the episodes the last 3 seasons & especially they say the last season were remakes..............they weren't needless to say.

Even when they were remakes they changed them around so much that they were dissimilar and ony had the odd line in the odd scene that was word for word the same with 98% of the dialogue utterly different from the original episode, this was not like the Japanese or Russian versions of Bewitched where they took the original scripts for each Bewitched episode and then remade them literally word for word scene for scene, when Bewitched even had a rare remake then this was not the case, far from it.


I don't think the issue was the lack of new writers but rather that if you were going to stay true to the fundamental premise & the original characterizations then one was limited in what one could do over 8 years.

The alternative would be to go off on a completely different tangent that would not have been good or healthy for the show.

The fact that they stayed true to their original intent & premise is laudable in my view.

Actually a good quarter to a third of the shows the last few years were from new writers.

To me Little Pitchers Have Big Fears", "Soapbox Derby" are the same as It's Magic and Prodigy,the sort of Good Sam helps the Mortals sub premise and therefore would not constitute a remake, same as a spell on Darrin would not even though it had been done before & the basic aspects of it were the same in premise such a spell, complications for Mortal Darrin, he freaks, he & Sam work to fix it out, she uses magic as a last resort to do so, Witches ,laughing at all the mischief they created, mortals saying did i just see that................that sort of thing, but they were not remakes either.

 

[Larry Tate]

Both were befuddled, but clearly DY's Darrin was by far the angrier of the two with DS being quite mellow and laid back by comparison relatively speaking.DY was the one always screaming and ranting and raving at Samantha whilst DS was just upset and disapproving.

The essential premise of the show did not change at any point in the 8 years of the show, in no way did it ever become a children's show even if there were a few more shows revolving around Tabitha as she was older and able to carry a responsible role in an episode.

Ray Fulmer doesn't look like PL or even DY but DS yes i see a strong resemblance, they could be brothers.
U see your points about RF, he would have been an interesting and good choice as Darrin, not better then DS but a good choice.

 

[longhornaccord]

I think Ray Fuller would have been a better choice to replace Mr. York than Sargent was. It’s all a matter of opinion. Different people are going to have different likes and dislikes.

But no matter who replaced Mr. York would have had a hard time filling his shoes as many replacement actors have had on various other shows as well.

 

[Larry Tate]

More proof at 1.45 that Dick Sargent was the first choice as Darrin after a screen test with Liz and Bill, was offered the job by Bill and Liz and turned it down because he was under contract to Universal.

 

[longhornaccord]

It doesn’t matter to me who was the first choice to play the role of Darrin. I’m just glad that York got the part initially because he was so good in the role. He and Liz had great onscreen chemistry and that chemistry is what made it such a successful show no matter what went on behind the cameras and Liz’s opinion of York.