- Born
- Died
- Birth nameRichard Stanford Cox
- Height6′ 2″ (1.88 m)
- Sargent was a trim, handsome man with a longish chin. He played a variety of gawky businessmen roles in feature films before finding a niche in tv history as the second Darrin on "Bewitched". Shortly before his death, Sargent publicly proclaimed he was gay, and became what he called "a retroactive role model" in the battle for gay rights.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Ray Hamel
- Congenial, mild-mannered Dick Sargent was a reliably bemused foil on film and TV for nearly four decades. He was born Richard Cox on April 19, 1930 in Carmel, California. His mother, Ruth McNaughton, was a minor actress who went by the stage name of "Ruth Powell"; his father, Colonel Elmer Cox, served in WWI and later became a business manager to such Hollywood alumni as Douglas Fairbanks and Erich von Stroheim. Dick attended the San Rafael Military Academy in Menlo Park, California before majoring in drama at Stanford University.
He finally got his career rolling debuting in an uncredited role in the movie Prisoner of War (1954) starring Ronald Reagan. Using the stage moniker "Richard Sargent", he would build up a reliable resume over the years on TV both in drama and comedy including work on Gunsmoke (1955), Wagon Train (1957), I Dream of Jeannie (1965) and Adam-12 (1968). Regular co-starring roles in the series One Happy Family (1961) and Broadside (1964) kept him busy if not memorably busy. Now known as "Dick Sargent", the actor was a friendly, dependable and well-admired performer but his work was often deemed ordinary and achromatic. On occasion, he would find more redeeming support work in such hit movie comedies as Operation Petticoat (1959) and That Touch of Mink (1962) both with Cary Grant, but ultimately mixed in would be a lot of forgettable nonsense such as Fluffy (1965) with Tony Randall, Billie (1965) starring Patty Duke, the Don Knotts vehicle The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966), the Elvis Presley misfire Live a Little, Love a Little (1968), and the totally unfunny The Private Navy of Sgt. O'Farrell (1968) with Bob Hope and Phyllis Diller at their career nadir.
Too many of Dick's films fell into the fair to abysmal category. As a result, he never advanced into the upper echelon of star players. A big chance for stardom dissipated after being paired promisingly with Tammy Grimes on her TV show in 1966. There was no magic and it lasted just four weeks. Magic did occur, literally, a few years later. In 1969, Dick, who actually had been the original choice to play "Darrin Stephens" on the hit show Bewitched (1964), was given a second chance to play the bemused mortal husband of Elizabeth Montgomery. A chronic back pain finally necessitated the replacing of ailing Dick York. Sargent came in without a hitch and the switching of Darrins was done without any explanation at all. Dick's three seasons on the popular show made him a household face, if not a household name.
Dick continued on TV throughout the 1970s and 1980s with guest parts on Taxi (1978), Alice (1976), Fantasy Island (1977) and Three's Company (1976), and without a lot of fanfare. One of his better roles came in the form of George C. Scott's dramatic film Hardcore (1979). In the perpetually gloomy urban tale, which takes place in the seamy world of prostitution and pornography, Dick stands out as one of the film's not-so-reputable characters. He also played a role in another witch-themed story line called Teen Witch (1989). In between, he did voice work for commercials and performed occasionally on stage. In 1989, "the second Darrin" was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He later revealed to the world he was homosexual after tabloid papers began to refer to his serious illness as AIDS-related. Sargent died in 1994, having lived out his last few years openly and contentedly.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net
- ParentsElmer CoxRuth McNaughton
- Thick nasally, commanding voice.
- The role of Darrin Stephens #2 on Bewitched (1964).
- Towering height.
- His role on Bewitched (1964) was first offered to him in 1964, but he was under a contract with Universal Studios, so Dick York was hired instead. By the time an illness caused York to discontinue the role, Sargent was free enough to take over.
- His father, Elmer Cox, was a World War I hero and a Hollywood business manager. His mother, Ruth McNaughton, was a film actress.
- Sargent and fellow Darrin-portrayer, Dick York, were once the subject of a "Jeopardy!" category called "Sargent/York", focusing on their non-Bewitched (1964) roles.
- Lived in Mexico and ran and import/export business in his early years. His love for Mexican art and culture stayed with him for the rest of his life.
- He was never married, but had a long-time companion whom he was with for 20 years before the man's death from a cerebral hemorrhage in 1979. He had "manufactured" a wife to the press in the early productive days, to protect his career.
- Occasionally, I wonder about Bewitched (1964). But I guess we all wonder about something or other. Most working actors don't get a role where they become household faces. They may not know my name, I may be Darrin to people out there, but if people see you and smile at you and act like you're an old friend, I think that's a pretty swell accomplishment.
- You've hit it on the head. It's all double-standards. So if you're gay and dating a young man, they want it to be the dirty-old-man type of affair. Then they wrote it like it was unheard of or exotic--it was a young black guy. And the word they used, in the Star that I was "besotted" with this young man, it was so judgmental! It's another word for drunk'
- [About his difficult relationship he had with his father] I wanted him to love me, and I'm quite sure that he didn't.
- [Of Connie Francis] We looked passionately at each other, but that was the only time I ever saw her.
- If X or Y is gay, and you say so and they're in the closet, then that can...it can possibly hurt them. That sort of reticence I understand, as an actor, or an ex-actor. But if the personality is deceased, and some co-star will still not say, then you can chalk that down to homophobia.
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