Beloved ‘Bewitched' Star Disappeared From Show 58 Years Ago Today-Here's Why
In 1968, Aunt Clara cast her final spell on Bewitched. The beloved character, played by Marion Lorne, appeared in what would be her final episode, "Samantha's Secret Saucer," which originally aired on April 18, 1968, on ABC.
In the episode, the clumsy and forgetful Aunt Clara accidentally turns little Tabitha's (Erin Murphy) toy flying saucer into a real one-complete with aliens. Said aliens Orvis (Steve Franken) and Alpha (Hamilton Camp) cause enough chaos in the Stephens family's backyard that nosy neighbor Gladys Kravitz (Sandra Gould) calls the Air Force to investigate what's going on over at the house across the street.
"Samantha's Secret Saucer" was the last Bewitched episode to feature Lorne, who died at age 82 on May 9, 1968, weeks after the episode aired.
She had appeared in 28 episodes of the classic TV sitcom, starting with the Season 1 episode "The Witches Are Out." The Aunt Clara character was never mentioned on the show again after "Samantha's Secret Saucer." Instead, timid witch-maid Esmerelda (Alice Ghosley) was brought in as the new clumsy character on the series.
In 1968, Lorne won a posthumous Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy series for her role as Aunt Clara.
Marion Lorne was an accomplished actress
While TV fans best remember Lorne from Bewitched, she previously co-starred on Mr. Peepers and The Garry Moore Show. She also had a small role in the 1967 big-screen film The Graduate. According to her New York Timesobituary, she had filmed her final Bewitched episode just six weeks before her death.
Lorne once said, "People come up to me now and call me Aunt Clara. ...Oh dear, I suppose it really is a compliment, though."
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Erin Murphy recalled working with Marion Lorne
Lorne's co-stars loved working with her on Bewitched. Speaking with Remind magazine in October 2025, former child star Murphy said she vividly recalled working with Lorne when she was a toddler on the episode "A Gazebo Never Forgets."
"The first [memory] that I'm absolutely positive of - because people think a lot of my memories are from watching the show, like ‘You saw that and that's how you remember.' My first memories that I'm 100% sure of are from the episode with the pink polka-dotted elephant with Aunt Clara," Murphy shared. "I remember it because I have memories of meeting the elephant and playing with the elephant outside of the stage that were not filmed."
Series star Elizabeth Montgomery and her husband, producer William Asher, also "loved" working with Lorne. Pop culture historian Geoffrey Mark told Woman's World, "[They] loved that she could do broad comedy and pathos with the same enthusiasm and skill."
Other 'Bewitched' characters were replaced with new actors
Many Bewitched fans were upset that Aunt Clara didn't get a proper farewell-or at least a mention-after Lorne's death.
Bewitched historian Adam-Michael James told Cinephiled, "I was always frustrated by the show never addressing what had happened to Aunt Clara. She was an important character who suddenly disappeared, obviously because actress Marion Lorne had died. I thought it was weird that the show never mentioned her again and just brought in Esmerelda to take over her babysitting duties. I'm sure they had their reasons for not addressing it - I mean, they couldn't really say that Aunt Clara had died. … especially a show about witches who were supposed to live for thousands of years!"
While there was only one Aunt Clara, several other Bewitched characters were replaced over the show's eight-season run due to the original stars' illnesses or death. The original Darrin, Dick York, was replaced by Dick Sargent in Season 6 when York quit the show due to health issues. The first Mrs. Kravitz, Alice Pearce, was replaced by Sandra Gould when Pearce died in 1966. And Louise Tate was originally played by Irene Vernon before being replaced by Kasey Rogers in 1966 for the remainder of the series.
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This story was originally published April 18, 2026 at 4:06 AM.