IRENE VERNON (Louise Tate from 1964-1966)

Irene Vernon was bom in Mishawaka, Indiana, and graduated from Mishawaka High School. From there she traveled to New York to become a dancer, performing in many nightclubs, including Ben Martin's Riviera in Fort Lee, New Jersey.

After doing a few Broadway shows such as the 1943 hit Artists and Models on Broadway (which starred Jane Froman and Jackie Gleason), Vernon signed a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios in California and appeared in bit parts in films, including 'Til the Clouds Roll By (1946, her first movie) and The Pirate (1948), starring Judy Garland and Gene Kelly. "I was very excited, says Vernon, "but very dumb and naive about the business. I was seventeen years old when I left home.

Even though I started out as a dancer, acting was really what I wanted to do. I got lucky later because I was pretty and received a lot of publicity because of my contract with MGM."Vernon came to Bewitched through her association with Danny Arnold, whom she had known in New York. "Danny and I knew each other from the forties," she recalls, "and we had studied together with a Russian actress named Batani Schneider and her husband Benno Schneider, who had directed Ingrid Bergman on Broadway in Liliom."

Years later, when both Vernon and Amold resided in Los Angeles, they met again on the Columbia Studios lot. "I was auditioning for some other show," she recalls, "and we had bumped into each other and had coffee. It was then he offered me the part of Louise on Bewitched, explaining that it was a very small role but that it would grow. So I said okay."

On leaving Bewitched, Vernon ventured into a successful career in real estate, lived in Beverly Hills, California. Later she remarried and moved to Florida. She died on April 21, 1998.

* Biography from "Bewitched Forever" by Herbie J. Pilato

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