Out Spotlight LXXXIII

Today's Outspotlight is actor Dick Sargent.

He may be best known for his role as the second Darren (or Durwood, if you are Endora) Stevens, on the iconic television show Bewitched. He was cast as the straight man to the kooky cast of characters that came with marrying his witch wife Samantha (Elizabeth Montgomery). But on National Coming Out Day in 1991 Dick Sargent gave up the role of "straight man" in real life and became known for an entirely different reason.

Sargent was born Richard Cox in Carmel, California on April 19, 1930. His mother, Ruth McNaughton Cox, had been an actress in silent films. His father, Colonel Elmer Cox, had served with distinction in World War I.

Sargent auditioned successfully for a lead role for Bewitched but couldn't to accept it because of contractual obligations to Universal Studios. He eventually did take the part in 1969 when actor Dick York, who originally played the role, had to withdraw for health reasons.

Sargent took over the part of Darrin, an adman who was married to a beautiful witch and who had to put up with the shenanigans of her decidedly eccentric supernatural relatives. He joined a cast that included actress Agnes Moorehead (who has be the subject about much discussion and debate about her own sexuality) and gay actor Paul Lynde, neither publicly came out before their death.

Like many other actors Sargent remained closeted, fearing that the revelation of his sexual orientation would spell ruin for his career. And like others, including Raymond Burr, had done before him, he invented a former spouse, in Sargent's case a fictional divorced wife. Later, he cooperated in fueling media speculation that he was romantically involved with women by being seen escorting starlets to Hollywood parties. On one occasion he posed with actress Connie Francis for pictures that appeared in a movie fan magazine. "We looked passionately at each other, but that was the only time I ever saw her," Sargent recalled in 1991.

Unknown to audiences, Sargent was in a loving and stable relationship with another man, a television screenwriter, whom he later identified publicly simply as Frank. It pained Sargent not to be able to speak openly about their bond and to have to call the love of his life a "business associate." The pair were together for twenty years until Frank died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1979.

Among those who knew of the relationship was Elizabeth Montgomery, the star of Bewitched, who became a good friend to Sargent. She and her husband often went out with Sargent and Frank.

In 1991 with so few actors were openly out as gay men that it made Sargent's made quite a significant impact. Overnight he went from playing roles to being a role model. Sargent said that factors motivating his decision to come out included California governor Pete Wilson's veto of a bill to protect gay men and lesbians from job discrimination and also his concern about the rate of suicide among young gay people, but he was also responding as well to his outing by a tabloid newspaper, The Star, that erroneously reported that he and a new lover had trashed a house and that the police had evicted them. He was not dispute the fact that he was gay, but that the rest of the story was false.

Howard Bragman, a past Out Spotlight topic himself, handled Sargent's PR when he finally came out , 20 years after the Bewitch ended.

Remembers Bragman: "I got a call from a guy named David Smith who was head of PR at the \[LA\] Gay and Lesbian Center at that point. David said, 'Listen, we're all going to march in Sacramento and this week is National Coming Out Day and I have two people who are coming out: Sheila Kuehl (Zelda Gilroy on The Many Loves of Doby Gillis) and Dick Sargent. Can you handle that?' We went to 'Entertainment Tonight' and we gave them Dick Sargent and Sheila Kuehl and Dick was joking: 'I'm in my 60s, who's gonna care? I haven't been on TV in decades.' People did care. A lot of actors had not come out at that point and still, to this day, when an actor comes out it's big news. So, I helped him out of the closet and was there when he passed away."

Sargent found coming out liberating. In a interview he shortly after he came out, he talked about the experience. "It was such a relief. I lived in fear of being found out. Now it's given me a whole new mission in life,"

Once out he became a leader to many through his visibility as well as his activism. In the months to come Mr. Sargent dedicated a great deal of energy to aiding gay and lesbian causes (in addition to his ongoing commitment to The Special Olympics). He a participated in the Lesbian and Gay Public Awareness Project and began speaking out on gay rights issues. 1992 he along with his former Bewitched co-star Elizabeth Montgomery, served as the Grand Marshals of The Orange County Pride Parade of 1992.

Sargent was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1989, despite going under extensive radiation treatment he passed away on July 8, 1994.