Copyright Parade
Erin Murphy was just a baby when she began playing the role of Tabitha Stephens on Bewitched. In 1966, the adorable blonde toddler made her debut in the Season 3 episode “Nobody’s Perfect,” and went on to appear in 102 more episodes of the ABC fantasy sitcom through its eight-season run, per IMDb. Due to child labor laws, Murphy’s twin sister, Diane, shared the role with her—at first. Diane appeared in 21 episodes of Bewitched, but she stopped playing Tabitha in Season 5. In an interview with Pop Entertainment, Erin Murphy explained that Diane wasn’t as happy on set as she was. “The business really isn’t for everyone, even for really young children,” she said. “If we would bring Diane on set, she would start to cry. But for me, they would turn on the lights and I was in heaven. I was happy to be there.” While she stopped playing Tabitha, Diane appeared in several Bewitched episodes as other characters. She played Raggedy Ann in the season seven episode “Samantha and the Troll,” and she played a party guest in a Season 8 episode. And in an uncredited appearance on the show, Diane also made a rare appearance right alongside Erin when they were five years old. The episode was titled “To Trick-or-Treat or Not to Trick-or-Treat,” and it aired on Oct. 30, 1969. At around the 17-minute mark in the episode, Diane is part of a group of children trick-or-treating with Samantha (Elizabeth Montgomery) and Tabitha. At one point, Montgomery pulls Diane forward to stand right next to Erin, but it’s hard to tell they are real-life twin sisters, given that Diane is wearing a ball gown, eye mask, and a big hat that is pulled down to cover part of her face. In 2024, Erin Murphy shared a behind-the-scenes photo from the episode to Facebook. In the photo, Diane is seen in her ball gown while Erin is wearing a princess costume and glittery crown as they hold hands. “On set at the Warner Brothers Ranch for a Halloween episode of Bewitched,” Erin captioned the post. “My sister Diane played a trick-or-treater. They let me wear my princess costume to school on the real Halloween. I won the costume contest at Pinecrest Elementary School.” Erin Murphy once explained that she and Diane are fraternal twins and that Bewitched producers only cast the role for twins because “the hours were so crazy.” “We don’t look enough alike to really be interchangeable,” she explained to Pop Entertainment. “They would shoot my sister from the back or from a distance. They got to a point where they really couldn’t even do that because we looked so different.”
