Actor Dick York, who played the befuddled husband of a nose-twitching witch in the 1960s television series "Bewitched," has died at 63, a funeral home spokesman said.
York died Thursday afternoon at Blodgett Memorial Medical Center in Grand Rapids, said David Pederson of Pederson Funeral Home in the nearby town of Rockford, where York lived.He had suffered for several years from emphysema and a degenerative spinal condition but worked to raise funds for poor people.
For five years, York played Darrin Stephens, the stressed-out husband to Elizabeth Montgomery's Samantha on the popular ABC series about a witch who could work miracles with a twitch of the nose who was married to a mortal advertising executive.
Agnes Moorehead played York's overbearing mother-in-law, also a witch, who perpetually mangled her son-in-law's name.
"Bewitched" was the second-highest-rated series of the season in its debut year, 1964-65, second only to "Bonanza," and stayed in the top 10 most of the years York was on it.
York 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 continued until 1972.
York was born Sept. 4, 1928, in Fort Wayne, Ind.
York began his acting career as a child, doing radio in Chicago, where his family moved when he young. 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," "Going My Way," 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 ailments, 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.