This month we are learning about some Bewitching characters and their careers. Today we get to learn more about Dick York, the first actor to portray Darrin Stephens.
York was born in 1928 in Fort Wayne, Indiana, part of a working-class family; his father was a salesman, and his mother was a seamstress. During his younger years, the family relocated to Chicago, and at 15 he began acting on the radio in “That Brewster Boy.”
He would appear in hundreds of radio episodes and instructional films before heading to New York City in 1951 where he lived at the YMCA. In New York, he appeared on Broadway and then began his film career. That same year, York married Joan Alt. While he was doing the radio show “Jack Armstrong, All-American Boy,” they met when she came in to do a commercial.
In 1959, he was filming They Came to Cordura with Gary Cooper and Rita Hayworth when he suffered a back injury on the set. As York described it, “Gary Cooper and I were propelling a handcar carrying several wounded men down a railroad track. I was on the bottom stroke of this sort of teeter-totter mechanism that made the handcar run. I was just lifting the handle up as the director yelled ‘Cut’ and one of the wounded cast members reached up and grabbed the handle. 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. And that was the start of it all: the pain, the painkillers, the addiction, the lost career.”
However, the injury didn’t catch up with him at that exact moment. A year later he was offered a role in Inherit the Wind. He would end up in ten films during his career, but it was television where he spent most of his time.
A couple of years later he was part of the cast of Going My Way for a season. His television career continued, and you’ll see him in episodes of The Twilight Zone, Dr. Kildare, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Route 66, and Wagon Train, among others.
In 1964 he was offered the role that made him a house-hold name, Darrin Stephens on Bewitched. York was with the series for five years and was nominated for an Emmy in 1968. York was nominated along with Richard Benjamin from He and She and Brian Keith and Sebastian Cabot from Family Affair, but they were all beat by Don Adams from Get Smart.
His back caused him a lot of pain while on the Bewitched set. The crew constructed a wall where he could lean between scenes, but half-way through season three, he was diagnosed with a degenerative spine condition which often sent shooting pains through his body. Watching seasons three and four, Darrin often can be found lying down or on the couch in many of his scenes.
Things escalated during the fifth season. York fell ill with a temperature of 105 degrees. He was feeling awful but decided to try to get through a few scenes. He was sitting on a scaffolding with Maurice Evans, Samantha’s dad on the show, when he told a crew member that he thought he should get down. “He started to help me down and that’s the last thing I remember until I woke up on the floor. That’s about all I remember of the incident . . . I’d managed to bite a very large hole in the side of my tongue before they could pry my teeth apart.” While he was in the hospital, he and William Asher had the tough talk about his future, and he agreed he needed to quit; he was then replaced with Dick Sargent.
In his autobiography, York says the next 18 months found him bedridden and dependent on painkillers. He got off the meds, but it took six months. He was able to beat his addiction. He and Joan had five children that needed care.
The family struggled economically after his addiction. In the mid-seventies, a real estate investment of theirs failed, and they were forced to go on welfare. In the early eighties the couple moved to Michigan to help care for York’s mother-in-law; they were surviving on a $650 monthly pension from the Screen Actors Guild.
York always kept a positive attitude. While he was bedridden, he made phone calls to help raise money for the homeless. He said, “I’ve been blessed. I have no complaints. I’ve been surrounded by people in radio, on stage, and in motion pictures and television who love me. The things that have gone wrong have been simply physical things.” He tried to revive his career, appearing on Simon & Simon and Fantasy Island, but it was just too late.
In addition to his back issues, York smoked three packs of cigarettes a day, and he eventually was diagnosed with emphysema. By 1989, he needed oxygen to help him breathe. He passed away from complications of the disease in 1992 at the young age of 63.
What a sad and painful ending to such a promising career. It’s amazing that someone in that kind of torment could still reach out to help others and try to spin a positive attitude about what he was grateful for. Thank you, Dick York, for leaving us with 68 great roles and the chance to get to know Darrin Stephens.
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