“That Guy” on “That Girl” — with a “Bewitched” Twitch…er Twist

A Magical Tribute To Actor/Director Ted Bessell

On Friday, October 4, 1996, I had a phone conversation with actor/producer/director Ted Bessell best known as boyfriend Don Hollinger to Marlo Thomas’ Ann Marie on the TV classic That Girl (ABC, 1966-1971).

Both Bessell and I were excited about his then-new assignment to helm a feature film adaptation of another TV classic: Bewitched. As the author of the original Bewitched Book, a subsequent revision titled Bewitched Forever, and two biographies of Bewitched star Elizabeth Montgomery, namely, Twitch Upon A Star and The Essential Elizabeth Montgomery, I was to serve as a consulting writer on the big-screen Bewitched. This new rendition of the adventures of Montgomery’s twitch-witch Samantha Stephens was to be produced by actress/director Penny Marshall, best known as Laverne DeFazio opposite Cindy Williams as Shirley Feeney on TV’s Laverne & Shirley (ABC, 1976–1983). Marshall, sister to producer/writer Garry Marshall (The Odd Couple, Pretty Woman, etc.), got her start on That Girl in a bit role in one of that show’s famed opening sequences (in which Thomas’ Marie would be identified in some random way by a given character who upon noticing her would yelp, “That Girl!”).