Bewitched fans know Erin Murphy as the beloved child star who played Tabitha Stephens on the classic TV sitcom, but there’s a surprising coincidence she shares with her onscreen family decades later.
Both Erin and her TV mom Samantha (played by late star Elizabeth Montgomery) married men with the same first name—and it’s not an especially common one.
Speaking with The Guardian Liberty Voice, Murphy, now 62, once shared, “Well, my husband’s name is Darren, and my TV dad was Darrin.”
Murphy married investment banker Darren Dunckel in 1998. In an interview with Bewitched.net, she admitted that it was funny to have a husband with the same name as her TV dad.
“It’s a weird coincidence, the name Darren,” she said. “My sister [Diane] teased me when I was a kid by calling me Durwood.”
On Bewitched, Darrin Stephens was played by Dick York for five seasons before he quit the show due to medical problems and was replaced by Dick Sargent. In a long-running gag on the hit sitcom, the character was often mistakenly called “Durwood” by his mother-in-law Endora (Agnes Moorehead).
Murphy joined Bewitched as a toddler in season 3 in 1966 and remained on the show until its end in 1972. She once noted that the role of Tabitha was created because Montgomery was pregnant in real life.
”She was pregnant with her second son,” Murphy shared in a 2026 appearance on Celebrity Drop. “And as a coincidence, I’m the same age as her first son, but she was pregnant with her son, Robert, and they decided it was the perfect time for Darrin and Samantha to have a baby as well.”
Murphy has long said she didn’t have a favorite Darrin on Bewitched.
“I worked equal time with Dick York and Dick Sargent, 3 years each, six total,” she told The Guardian. “I loved them both and definitely thought of all the cast members as extended family, not just co-workers.”
More recently, she admitted that York, who was a real-life family man, was more paternal on set.
“My entire life I have been so diplomatic because I loved them both,” she told People in 2024, “Watching the show, Dick York is a better Darrin. Dick York was a dad, and he had a lot of kids, and he was just more paternal. So he was more like a dad.”
While Bewitched’s Darrin and Samantha only had two kids, Tabitha and Adam (played by David and Greg Lawrence), Murphy, who was married to Terry Rogers and Eric Eden before she wed Dunckel, has six sons: Jason and Grant Rogers, Clark Eden, and Dylan, Carson and Parker Dunckel.
Related: ‘Bewitched’ Star Erin Murphy Reveals How Producers Tried to Trick Fans With Darrin Switch
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