Darrin did good

At every agency I’ve ever worked at, someone somewhere has a picture in their office of Dick York as bumbling adman Darrin Stephens from the 1960's television show Bewitched. I suppose it’s always around because they can point to it and say that character is nothing like what they - real life advertising people - are like (in most cases).

The funny thing is, the character is also a million miles removed from what Dick York was really like.

By the time he was hired for Bewitched, he was an accomplished actor with several prestige projects on his resume, including a co-starring role with Spencer Tracy in Inherit The Wind. Unknown to Bewitched producers, he also was an addict, hooked on painkillers as a result of a back injury he got filming 1959’s They Came To Cordura, starring Gary Cooper. Eventually his injury forced him to leave the series after the fifth season.

He never regained his career after that, and along with his wife was forced into homelessness for years due to his inability to work. Eventually, when her mother died, they stayed in her house, with Dick as a shut-in now having been diagnosed with emphysema.

But from that house, he found a way to give to others and bring meaning to his life which he knew was coming to an end.

Their residence became a clearing house for organizations nationwide that helped the homeless and needy. Thanks to Dick York, people who would’ve had to go without food, clothing and shelter didn't.

It’s easy to get caught up in the knit-cap, tattoo, hipster attitude of agency life. It's even easier to laugh at a character from a time long past that’s nothing like you are.

Well, for all the people with the picture of Darrin Stephens hanging in their office, here’s another way you're not like him.

He did something that mattered and made a difference in people’s lives.