Double, Double, Toil & Trouble: Celebrate These 13 Classic TV Witches
Among TV witches, Elizabeth Montgomery’s Samantha Stephens reigns supreme, the epitome of elegant, nose-twitching cool. But she had company on Bewitched, and there are other small-screen sorceresses worth remembering. Here’s a coven of (what else?) 13 more spellbinding characters:
Endora (Agnes Moorehead), 'Bewitched'
Samantha’s imperious dragon-lady mother, a late-career highlight for the four-time Oscar-nominated Moorehead, never had a good word for her mortal son-in-law Derwood — er, Darrin. The original monster-in-law.
Clara (Marion Lorne), 'Bewitched'
A fan favorite, the sweetly stammering, bumbling aunt made awkward entrances and exits, and her spells invariably went awry. We loved her anyway.
Esmeralda (Alice Ghostley), 'Bewitched'
After Lorne passed away in 1968, Ghostley began appearing as the Stephens’ insecure housekeeper, though she had a tendency to fade away whenever she got nervous. Which was often.
Serena (Elizabeth Montgomery), 'Bewitched'
Conjuring a naughty vibe to contrast with her much sweeter cousin Samantha, this brunette had more fun flirting with Darrin and otherwise causing mischief, often while pretending to be Sam. (A favorite slapstick moment: Samantha hurling a pie into Serena’s face, essentially pieing herself.)
Morticia Addams (Carolyn Jones), 'The Addams Family'
There’s debate whether this exotic, eccentric Gothic beauty was actually a witch, but she certainly cast a spell on besotted husband Gomez (John Astin) and brought a much-needed sheen of glamorous magic to her grotesque brood in the merrily macabre 1960s comedy.
Angelique (Lara Parker), Dark Shadows
On the groundbreaking spooky soap of the late 1960s and ’70s, the devious and spurned seductress from Martinique put a curse on her husband Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid) in 1795 that turned him into a vampire. Even death couldn’t curb her sinister ambitions.
Elvira (Cassandra Peterson), 'Elvira’s Movie Macabre'
In the 1980s, this comically curvy character, developed (like Paul Reubens’ Pee-wee Herman) with the improvisational Groundlings troupe, took the role of horror-movie host to a new level. From local TV in L.A., she gained national notoriety on talk shows and commercials — and eventually her own comedy film, 1988’s Elvira: Mistress of the Dark.
Melissa Joan Hart, Sabrina the Teenage Witch
The heroine from the world of Archie Comics got her own TGIF comedy in the late 1990s. Learning the ropes of witchcraft through her high school years, Sabrina lived with her aunts Zelda and Hilda and confided in Salem, her magical talking cat. A darker supernatural drama, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, starring Mad Men‘s Kiernan Shipka premiered on Netflix 15 years after the original sitcom’s cancellation in 2003.
Willow (Alyson Hannigan), 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer'
In the acclaimed coming-of-age horror fantasy (1997-2003), Buffy’s shy best friend blossomed from wallflower to a confident practicing witch, so mighty that she nearly destroyed the world with dark magic while reeling from a tragic loss.
Prue, Piper and Phoebe Halliwell (Shannen Doherty, Holly Marie Combs, Alyssa Milano), 'Charmed'
We’ll count these sisters — plus half sibling Paige (Rose McGowan), who took over after Prue’s death — as one, because it required “the power of three” to vanquish evil in the popular young-adult supernatural melodrama that ran from 1998 to 2006 (later revived with a new cast in 2018).
Tabitha (Juliet Mills), 'Passions'
A campier supernatural daytime drama from the early 2000s featured Mills, formerly the magical title character of Nanny and the Professor, as a centuries-old witch forever plotting against the good people of Harmony. Her constant companion was the talking doll Timmy (Josh Ryan Evans), and her diary (published as Hidden Passions) became a New York Times bestseller.
Cassie (Catherine Bell), 'The Good Witch'
Because no bad witches are allowed on the Hallmark Channel, this beneficent newcomer to bucolic Middleton quickly caught on with her herbal potions and magical intuitions. After seven TV movies, Cassie graduated to a TV series that ran for seven seasons (2015-21).
Regina (Lana Parrilla), 'Once Upon a Time'
The Evil Queen of this inventive fantasy mashup (2011-18) was also the mayor of Storybrooke, where her dark spell trapped classic fairy tale characters including Snow White and Prince Charming in a seemingly modern town, stripped of their memories. Bad witch!
Witches
October 2023
Take a fond look back at our favorite small-screen spellbinders
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