Dick York (September 4, 1928 – February 20, 1992) was an United States actor in radio, Broadway theatre, and television. Born Richard Allen York in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Indiana, York grew up in Chicago, Illinois, where a Roman Catholic Church nun first recognized his vocal promise. He began his career at age 15 as the star of the CBS radio program That Brewster Boy. He also appeared in hundreds of other radio shows and instructional films before heading to New York City, where he acted on Broadway theatre in Tea and Sympathy and Bus Stop. He performed with stars including Paul Muni and Joanne Woodward in live television broadcasts and with Janet Leigh, Jack Lemmon, and Gary Cooper in movies, including My Sister Eileen, Cowboy, and They Came to Cordura. He played the role of Bertram Cates, the young teacher charged with teaching the theory of evolution, in the 1960 classic Inherit the Wind starring Spencer Tracy, Fredric March, and Gene Kelly. He went on to star with Kelly in the television comedy/drama Going My Way and to appear in dozens of episodes of now-classic TV shows, including Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Wagon Train, The Twilight Zone, and Route 66. York is best known as the first actor to play Darrin Stephens in the 1960s sitcom Bewitched. The show was a huge success and York was nominated for an Emmy in 1968, but a debilitating back injury he had suffered on the set of They Came to Cordura caused him increasing back pain, and led to his addiction to painkillers. During the fifth season on the sitcom, he collapsed on the Bewitched set and was rushed to the hospital. From his hospital bed he resigned from the show to devote himself to recovery. For the 1969-70 season, he was replaced in the TV series by actor Dick Sargent, who held the role until the series ended in 1972. As he battled his back pain, York gained 150 pounds and lost most of his teeth. He and wife Joan supported themselves by cleaning an apartment house they owned until they fell on further hard times and lost the building. As York related in his posthumously-published memoir, The Seesaw Girl and Me, it took him many more years to regain an interest in acting and to try to revive his career. He lost the weight he had gained and appeared on several prime-time TV shows including Simon and Simon and Fantasy Island. York spent his final years battling emphysema. Ultimately bedridden in a small home in Rockford, Michigan, he founded Acting for Life, a private fundraising effort to help the homeless. Using his telephone as his pulpit, York motivated politicians, business people, and regular folk to contribute supplies and money. York is buried in Plainfield Cemetery in Rockford, Michigan.

                       

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