`Bewitched's' Dick York Dies

ROCKFORD, Mich. - Actor Dick York, best known for his role as Darrin on the 1960s TV series, "Bewitched," has died at 63, a funeral-home spokesman said.

York died yesterday afternoon in a hospital in nearby Grand Rapids. He had suffered for several years from lung disease and a degenerative spinal condition.

For five years, York played the stressed-out husband to Elizabeth Montgomery's nose-twitching Samantha on the popular ABC series about a witch married to a mortal.

He was replaced on the show by Dick Sargent in 1969 when problems stemming from an old back injury, including overdependence on painkillers, forced him to leave. The show ran from 1964-72.

York was born Sept. 4, 1928, in Fort Wayne, Ind. He began his acting career as a child, doing radio in Chicago. At 15, he starred in the network radio show "That Brewster Boy."

In addition to his television work, he appeared in several films, including "My Sister Eileen" and "Inherit the Wind," in which he played the schoolteacher whose teaching of evolution prompts the celebrated 1920s "monkey trial."

He also appeared on Broadway in the mid-'50s in "Tea and Sympathy" and "Bus Stop."

Despite his health problems, York was active in raising funds for the homeless, working by telephone while largely confined to his home. He called his private fund-raising effort Acting For Life.

"I'm ready to fight city hall and scream and yell about everything," he said in a 1988 interview. "It seems to to me, when somebody's hungry, you feed them. If they don't have a place to live, you find them a place to live."

He once said the financial problems his family faced during the Depression were one of the reasons he was inspired to help the poor - and one of the reasons he became an actor.

"I saw the look on my mother's face when she had to give us second-hand Christmas presents," he said. "That's how you learn to act. Because you don't want your parents to know you know."

York is survived by his wife Joan; five children; 13 grandchildren; and a sister.