Richard Stanford Cox (1930 - 1994)

Born 19 Apr 1930 in Carmel-by-the-Sea, Monterey, California, United States

Ancestors

Died 8 Jul 1994 at age 64 in Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, United States

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Deena Cross [send private message]

Richard Cox is Notable.

Biography

Dick Sargent was an American actor, best known for his role as Darrin, the husband of Samantha played by Elizabeth Montgomery on the beloved television program Bewitched.

Dick was born Richard Stanford Cox 19 April 1930 at Carmel-by-the-Sea, Monterey, California. His parents were Elmer Cox, a show business agent, and Ruth McNaughton Powell, a retired actress from the silent film era.^[1] Through his mother's side of the family, Dick was a descendant of Rebecca Towne Nurse, one of the women accused in the 1692 Salem witchcraft hysteria.

Dick attended Stanford University, where he majored in drama.

He was never married, but later in life he revealed that he was gay. He had two major relationships in his life, an unnamed companion he lived with for 20 years and Albert Williams, Dick's domestic partner who was together with him until Dick's death in 1994.^[2].

He died 8 July 1994 in Los Angeles, California, after suffering with prostate cancer. He was 64 when he died.^[3]

Obituary: ^[4]

LOS ANGELES -- Dick Sargent, the affable actor best remembered as Elizabeth Montgomery's second television husband on the sitcom "Bewitched," died Friday. He was 64.

Ron Wise, spokesman for Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, said he died there of prostate cancer, first diagnosed in 1989. Wise said Sargent had been admitted Wednesday.

In 1969, after parts on several failed sitcoms, Sargent replaced the late Dick York in the role of Darrin Stephens on ABC's "Bewitched." York, who departed after five seasons because of a debilitating back injury and an addiction to painkillers, died in 1992 at age 63.

As husband to Montgomery's Samantha, a winsome witch who could work magic with a twitch of her nose, Stephens tried vainly to juggle the pressures of his ad agency job along with the calamity caused by his wife and disapproving mother-in-law, usually with little success.

As Dick Sargent, he began on the big screen in the late 1950s with roles in such forgettable films as "Bernardine" and "Mardi Gras." In 1959, he was seen with Cary Grant and Tony Curtis in the wartime comedy "Operation Petticoat." Later movies included "That Touch of Mink," "Captain Newman M.D.," "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken," "The Private Navy of Sgt. O'Farrell" and "Hardcore."

He also appeared in dozens of TV shows, among them "Gunsmoke," "Playhouse 90" and "Family Ties," and was a regular in the 1961 situation comedy "One Happy Family."

Following the end of "Bewitched" in 1972, Sargent continued to act occasionally, with guest appearances on such television shows as "Taxi," "Murder, She Wrote" and "L.A. Law," and in B-grade movies like "The Clonus Horror," "Body Count," "Teen Witch" and "Rock-a-Die-Baby."

After mostly withdrawing from show business in his final years, Sargent returned to the news in 1991 when he announced that he was gay, ending what he said was an awkward facade he had maintained throughout his entire professional life.

"It was such a relief," he said that year. "I lived in fear of being found out. Now it's given me a whole new mission in life."

A supporter of the Special Olympics, Sargent was a highly visible advocate of gay rights as well. "We won't be ignored," he said at a 1992 gay pride parade and festival in Orange County, Calif., for which he was grand marshal. "We deserve to be heard. People don't understand that we're everywhere.

Sources

1. ↑ "California Birth Index, 1905-1995," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VL13-JRV : 27 November 2014), Richard Stanford Cox, 19 Apr 1930; citing Monterey, California, United States, Department of Health Services, Vital Statistics Department, Sacramento.
2. ↑ Dick Sargent Biography on Wikipedia.
3. ↑ Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/5759/dick-sargent: accessed 17 December 2022), memorial page for Dick Sargent (19 Apr 1930–8 Jul 1994), Find a Grave Memorial ID 5759; Cremated, Ashes given to family or friend; Maintained by Find a Grave.
4. ↑ Houston Chronicle (Texas) 09 July 1994, obit for Dick Sargent of "Bewitched' loses battle with cancer at 64, GenealogyBank.com (https://www.genealogybank.com/doc/obituaries/obit/0F8EB235AFC66BA8-0F8EB235AFC66BA8 : accessed 17 December 2022)

See also:

• "Family Tree," database, FamilySearch (http://familysearch.org : modified 16 May 2016, 05:16), entry for Richard Stanford Cox(PID https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/4:1:K2X9-435); contributed by various users.