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1922 – 1998
The tie, exactly: Irene Vernon was born Irene Vergauwen — a Flemish name, and a fitting one in the city the Religion section's Belgian parishes built — on January 16, 1922, in Mishawaka. The Post-Tribune's account gives her as born and raised in Mishawaka, and she was a Mishawaka High School graduate. The tie is at full strength.
The course: Vernon danced in nightclubs — Ben Marden's Riviera at Fort Lee among them — reached Broadway in Artists and Models (1943), and signed with MGM. Her film record runs Till the Clouds Roll By (1946), The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947), The Pirate (1948), The Sound of Fury (1950) — as Helen Stanton, her strongest film role — The Blue Veil (1951) and Deadline – U.S.A. (1952), with 1950s television guest work after. In 1964 she took the role she is remembered by: Louise Tate, the advertising executive's wife and Samantha's bemused friend, on Bewitched, thirteen episodes across 1964–66.
The departure — three accounts, all printed: Vernon left Bewitched in 1966, and the record carries three explanations that do not agree, each printed at its source's strength: the official account, that her husband's illness required it; Vernon's own account, as carried in Herbie J. Pilato's Bewitched Forever, that she was pressed to leave after her friend, the writer Danny Arnold, was forced out of the show; and the Post-Tribune's, that she was displeased the role was not larger. This section does not choose among them. She left acting, sold real estate in Los Angeles, and retired back to Indiana.
The end: She died April 21, 1998, at South Bend, under her married name, Irene Rosenberg, aged 76. Her burial stands in conflict: Wikipedia places her in Saint Joseph Catholic Cemetery at Mishawaka; the Post-Tribune places the cemetery in South Bend. Both stand.
Sources:
- Post-Tribune (Northwest Indiana), obituary/profile (born and raised at Mishawaka; the third departure account; burial at South Bend — conflict printed)
- Herbie J. Pilato, Bewitched Forever (Vernon's own departure account)
- Wikipedia, "Irene Vernon," read November 2026 (filmography; Bewitched episodes; burial at Mishawaka — conflict printed)