Submitted by Scott


The Plain Dealer
(Cleveland, Ohio)
1967


A Rose by Any Other Name Is 'Bewitched'

  Elizabeth Montgomery has to be the most-envied woman in America. Not because she stars in a top-rated TV series, "Bewitched," on Channel 5 every Thursday night. Not because she is happily married to an attractive man, William Asher, who produces and directs "Bewitched." Not even because she has two cute little sons and a mansion in Beverly Hills.
  BUT because with a witch-twitch as "Samantha," on the TV show, she can clean up a house, repair a broken dish, prepare a feast for a king or more.
  And yet Elizabeth Montgomery has her Achilles' heel too. She has just as much trouble with her garden as the rest of us mortals because even though a witch-twitch can work wonders in the marvels of television, it just doesn't make it in actuality.

  Consider the case of Elizabeth and her Bewitched roses. It seems that a company in Los Angeles which develops roses (Germain's Inc.) coincidentally named one of its new creations the Bewitched rose and it fortuitously won a prize for the most beautiful Hybrid Tea rose of this year.

  It seems only logical--to the press agents who work on "Bewitched," at any rate--that the bewitching star and the Bewitched blooms meet up. Logic prevailed in the accompanying photo and because the executives of Germain's are also fans of the "Bewitched," series, they gifted Elizabeth with a carload of the lovely pink rosebushes.
   "That's when I wished my fairytale world of 'Samantha' and the real-life existence of Elizabeth Montgomery Asher were one and the same," she grinned.

   "Did you ever try to plant rosebushes at the end of the day when it's getting dark and you can't see where to dig the holes? Did you ever prevail on your patient mate to hold a flashlight while you wield a shovel? Or take turns flashing while he digs? Did you, or anyone else, ever figure out a way to avoid thorns on rosebushes from digging into fingers, or even through gloves? And did you ever fight, and win the battle over aphids?

  I shall never take a rose for granted again," says Elizabeth, "and everytime I walk through the garden I pet each of my bushes like precious puppies. But I still wish witchcraft worked as well in the garden as it does on stage 4 at Screen Gems every day!"

 

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