A Look to the Life of 'Bewched' Star Dick Sargent and How He Came out as Gay

HOW BEWCHED WENT GAY WHOUT EVER SAYG "GAY"

In the actured, ntent tim, the one thg that we n all agree on is that Bewched was a super duper gay show. Right? It’s not jt me? Like the rt of you nerds, I’ve been thkg about Bewched a lot lately, ever sce got a ltle homage on WandaVisn. I ed to watch Bewched religly as a kid ( rens! I’m not that old) and my memori was extremely queer. But... * darren on bewitched gay *

BewchedIn the actured, ntent tim, the one thg that we n all agree on is that Bewched was a super duper gay show. It's a ltle strange to thk of as queer sce never actually had any explicly gay characters or same-sex upl.

‘BEWCHED’ AND BE GAY!

Amid Pri Month, The Hollywood Reporter tak a look back at the s, featurg Dick Sargent, who was a league wh Rock Hudson for livg the closeted Hollywood liftyle, and Pl Lyn, who played gay whout explicly g out as gay. * darren on bewitched gay *

Other ss around the same time (M*A*S*H, All the Fay, Mary Tyler Moore) all had gay one-offs, but Bewched never did.

So why do I remember as beg so gay — gayer, fact, than any of those other programs? I wish the show uld have gone gayer — to give Uncle Arthur, played extremely broadly by Pl Lyn, a boyiend.

But as an artifact of the late '60s and early '70s, Bewched still succeeds whout explicly gay ntent. Queerns is lible s central metaphor, far more than the one-off gay-of-the-week episos that TV would provi until the late '90s. “Bewched” was load wh some of the gayt stuff around, jt brimmg unr the surface.

HOLLYWOOD FLASHBACK: ‘BEWCHED’ HAS BEEN A GAY FAVORE SCE 1964

Good and betiful wch Samantha (played by Elizabeth Montgomery, who was the lovelit, most supportive queer iend imagable) marri the mortal Darr Stephens (who, after a restg, was portrayed by gay actor Dick Sargent). LOS ANGELES -- Dick Sargent, 64, who played the beleaguered hband on the televisn seri "Bewched" and later clared his homosexualy wh pri, died of prostate ncer July 8 at Cedars-Sai Medil Center here.

Sargent announced he was gay. The high rate of suici among young homosexuals was the ma reason, he said, jokgly referrg to himself as a "retroactive role mol. For a 1960s s that on the surface was about as straight as you n get — attractive woman who happens to be a wch wants to be normal hoewife, so she marri a high-stng ad exec — a lot of gay magic lurks jt beneath the surface of ABC’s Bewched.

But when he me out, he did big time: He and Montgomery were grand marshals of Wt Hollywood’s 1992 Gay and Lbian Pri Para.