Our Interview With Kasey Rogers
Kasey Describes What a Typical Day Was Like Working On Bewitched
"It was what I call a luxury shoot. In 2-3 days you would shoot a show. So, on Bewitched, we would go in on Monday and have a read-through. They would do timing and wardrobe, and the writers would be there and they would do any re-writes. Then we would start shooting on Tuesday. We would shoot Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and if we didn't happen to finish, then we would shoot on Friday, and that is truly a luxury shoot, a week long shoot for a 1/2 hour show, which was totally unheard of.
"I wore all my own clothes on the show. You would take your clothes in the week before and wardrobe would make sure they were all cleaned, pressed and altered for you, which is nice. Everything had to be perfect. They gave us no guidelines as to what we were to wear - you could pick whatever you wanted. The only time that I remember them supplying an outfit for me was the sequined formal dress that the portrait of me was painted in, and that's because that's considered unusual wardrobe. The exceptions were Elizabeth and Dick York/Sargent, and maybe Agnes. They had special clothes. We all wore jeans when we went in in the morning.
"You would get your call sheets the night before, and it listed out what time you are to arrive, what time you are to be on the set, and what scenes you would be shooting. I lived in Encino at the time, and I would leave by 5:30 am, and it was about a half hour drive to the studio. One of the things you learn is NEVER to be late, because being late costs the production company thousands of dollars. I would almost always be running lines and scenes on my way to work. If we were shooting outdoor scenes, we'd spend the day at the Ranch. On the Ranch, the pool sometimes seen on Bewitched and other shows was across the street from the house exterior. There are no houses across the street. The Kravitzes house is down the street on the same side as the Bewitched house. We would not do interior and exteriors on the same day. Mostly we'd be doing interiors at Sunset, which is still there today as is the makeup department. It doesn't look the same today as it did back then - they've divided things up into 3 different sections, and it all looks different. The Bewitched set is not there anymore.
"Anyway, I would arrive at Sunset Gower Studios at 6:00 am. The camera crew is there before you are. They're lighting and getting ready for the first shot of the day. They allowed 2 hours to wash, set, comb hair and do the makeup, and we would be on the set at 8:00 am. The hairdressing area was one big room, and you might be sitting next to Barbara Eden or the Flying Nun having your hair done. For makeup, you went into individual rooms. You had your individual makeup artists. (Rolf Miller was wonderful, he'd do me and Liz and others, but he was killed in a plane accident during Bewitched). They would bring you breakfast and you would eat while they were rolling your hair. Elizabeth, Dick and Endora had their own trailers. The rest of us had trailers outside the door of the soundstage, or sometimes there were no trailers. It is a bit of a production line, regardless of what people think, but it's wonderful, I loved it.
"The layout of the house was just as it looks on TV. As far as size and proportion, you could move into that house - it was to scale. The upstairs bedrooms were off to one side on the same floor as the living room/kitchen/yard. The bedrooms may not always have been there, but they were there when we needed them. When you walked up to the front door, it had the porch, and it had little fake shrubbery, and it had the door and the entry hall - we used that hall time and time again. The front living room wall was not usually there, but when they needed it, they would put it in and turn around and shoot in that direction. The soundstages were a little bit dirty - the first thing you do at the end of the day is blow your nose, believe me, because your nose is just FILLED with dirt!
"So, at 8:00 am, you walk on the set and start rehearsing (still in jeans). It was a filmed show, so we had beautiful lighting as compared to that on live television. The director is the captain of the ship. He runs everything. It isn't that he just directs actors, he oversees the cameras, the wardrobe, the dialog, the lighting, EVERYTHING. He is NOT there to teach you how to act. When you are on a set, it's because you are competent, because you can do what's expected of you with minimal direction. Being the director truly is a tremendous responsibility. Anyway, you rehearse before every scene. (It's not like a play where you get 6 weeks of rehearsal). When you're doing a scene, the actors and the director will block the scene (decide where you walk, etc.), the actors saying the lines, but not "acting" yet. Once you have the blocking, you do the final lighting. Then after the final dressing, we would do a performance. It is not unusual to forget lines - not habitually, but during the day someone will always blow it.
"With Bill (Asher), if you did a professional job, that was fine. You never really got a pat on the back - it was on to the next scene. He expected perfection, and he got it. While shooting, Liz would do things that I respected and admired her so much for - let's say that it's a close-up of Liz, and Darrin or Endora has just done something, and she had just finished the dialog. Asher wouldn't say CUT. Liz would just stand there and do reactions - and she would react to the scene and what had just happened, and she had such a variety of reactions that always pertained to the situation. Asher would wait and wait and wait while she would go through reaction after reaction, on purpose, just to see what she would do. He finally would eventually say CUT. It was beautiful. Watch at the end of a scene in a close-up especially when she's reacting to something, you'll get 2 or 3 or 4 reactions and they all pertain to what has just happened. Now, stretch that to 8 or 10 or 12 reactions (which was what had been originally filmed). They were always right on. I really admired her for that. Bill enjoyed seeing her do them. Bill knew his business. It was a well-oiled team, everyone knew their job, they knew their character, they knew what was expected, they came in prepared, they did their job, and they went home.
"We would break for lunch and go either to the commissary or off the lot to a restaurant, always away from the set. We didn't usually go together, everyone went their own way as we had our own cars on the lot. After lunch you'd shoot more, working until 6:00 pm. At the end of the day they'd say "that's a wrap" and you're out of there as fast as you can. Before leaving, you have to undress etc., so you'd leave about 6:30 p.m., and get home around 7-7:30 p.m. I had live-in help since I had 4 kids and a house and a husband. When I got home, we had a family hour, and it those days you had cocktails, more than what you have today. The children would have their little (non-alcoholic) drinks and everyone would talk about what they had done during the day. After work, it always took a good 2 hours to come down, because your adrenalin is just so high. Working is a total charge. I loved every day I worked on Bewitched".