TV Trivia
by Michael Karol
& Craig Hamrick

Dick York in Night of the Auk

A decade before he played the befuddled but lovable Darren on Bewtiched, Dick York appeared on Broadway in an unsual science-fiction play. His costars in Night of the Auk included Christopher Plummer and Claude Rains.

In the 1956 presentation, Dick portrayed Lt. Mac Hartman, one of five men in a spaceship returning from the moon to the Earth. Before they reenter the atmosphere, they witness a catastrophic atomic battle that destroys civilization. Written by Arch Oboler, the play was directed by Sidney Lumet.

The show flopped, closing after just eight performances.

Night of the Auk's marquee name, Claude Rains, is best remembered for a movie he made more than 20 years earlier. He played the title character in The Invisible Man (1933), co-starring Gloria Stewart (who enjoyed a comeback playing the elderly Rose in 1999's blockbuster Titanic). (Rains also appeared in the 1942 classic Casablanca.)

New York Hearld-Tribune critic Walter Kerr wasn't overly impressed by the Night of the Auk's wordy script, in general, but he did like the "superb" cast, giving the future Darren Stevens extra praise: "Dick York grins his pumpkin grin and ferrets out a dozen successful ways of dodging this wireless operator's more troublesome flights of verse."

A TV movie adaptation of Night of the Auk aired in 1960. Neither Rains nor York were in the TV cast — but future Star Trek captain William Shatner was. York's part was played by James MacArthur, later a star of Hawaii Five-O.

York went on to find his greatest fame on Bewitched, as the very patient mortal married to a beautiful witch. He played Darren Stephens for five seasons, until an old back injury from a Western he'd filmed made it impossible to do the day-to-day work, and he was forced into early retirement.

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Craig Hamrick has written several books about the TV classic Dark Shadows as well as the biography of Louis Edmonds, star of DS and All My Children. Click here for more information about his books.