Talk:Richard Michaels
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Montgomery relationship — sourcing adjustmen
[edit]I have adjusted the "Relationship with Elizabeth Montgomery" subsection to match the cited source. Pilato, Twitch Upon a Star (2012), states the affair "contributed" to the end of both marriages (pp. 23, 61) rather than that it ended them outright, and attributes the end of Bewitched to Montgomery declining ABC's ninth-season renewal (pp. 320–322: she "had chosen not to continue with the series, even though ABC had opted to renew it"), not to the affair via Ashmont. I also added Michaels' own public acknowledgment of the relationship on Entertainment Tonight in 2006 (p. 310), which is the strongest sourcing available for the affair on a BLP, and removed the uncited "2½ years" duration (the book, p. 15, says two years). This parallels sourced adjustments recently made at Talk:Elizabeth Montgomery. Gsk777 (talk) 14:43, 16 July 2026 (UTC)
- On further review, Pilato also writes on page 15 that Asher had been unfaithful during the marriage and connects that history to Montgomery’s subsequent relationship with Michaels. The present wording gives the relationship and its consequences without that context. I propose adding the information with explicit attribution to Pilato, rather than presenting his causal interpretation in Wikipedia’s own voice. Gsk777 (talk) 00:34, 18 July 2026 (UTC)
Reported death (2022) — reliable source needed:
[edit]The article describes Michaels in the present tense as retired and residing in Hawaii. Fan sources, including the Bewitched fan wiki and several fan community pages, report that Michaels died on September 30, 2022, of acute myeloid leukemia, citing a Facebook announcement by his wife, Judith Penrod Michaels. I have not been able to locate a reliable published source (trade obituary, newspaper) reporting his death, which is presumably why the article still treats him as living per WP:BLP/WP:BDP. A Facebook post is not a citable source, so I am not adding this to the article. Flagging it here in case another editor can locate a citable obituary or death record; if one exists, the article's tense, marriage information, and biography should be updated accordingly. Gsk777 (talk) 15:23, 16 July 2026 (UTC)