There are ghosts in Hollywood. Some walk studio lots in the echo of long-forgotten sitcom applause, others sleepwalk through fan conventions with sunburned faces and autographs still wet from 1972. Then there’s Erin Murphy—who didn’t just survive the industry’s child-star curse—she broke it, body-slammed it, fed it frozen vodka martinis, and laughed while knitting sweaters for her alpacas in Bell Canyon.
Born June 17, 1964, in Encino, California, Murphy hit the jackpot early—or maybe it hit her. She was only a toddler when she and her fraternal twin sister, Diane, landed the role of Tabitha Stephens on Bewitched. At first, they shared the role like two magicians splitting a deck, but as they grew, the differences widened—Erin’s spark, Erin’s face, Erin’s magic. By the third season, it was all her. She was the twitch in America’s nose, the precocious little witch who conjured up smiles before she could spell “syndication.”
She didn’t ask for fame, but it arrived in Technicolor, barefoot and bold. While other kids were cutting paper dolls, she was casting spells beside Elizabeth Montgomery and dodging network executives who thought they owned childhood. From 1966 to 1972, Erin Murphy was America’s sweetheart—a living doll in a bewitched dollhouse.
But that’s the thing about childhood stardom in Tinseltown. It’s a velvet-lined cage with a smile-shaped lock.
When Bewitched ended, the applause didn’t. But the roles dried up faster than the gin in Darrin Stephens’ cocktail glass. Murphy floated into commercial work—over 100 of them—and later turned up on Lassie. But even in her prime, Hollywood has a sick habit of turning girls into ghosts by the time they can drive.
She didn’t fall off the radar. She ran from it. In high school, she was a cheerleader, a homecoming queen—small-town royalty in a borrowed tiara. By 1981, she graduated from El Toro High School, and if there was an identity crisis, she never let the cameras see it.
Murphy could’ve unraveled like so many others—ripped apart by drugs, desperation, or the gravitational pull of nostalgia. But instead, she morphed. Like a chameleon with glitter under its scales, she became a casting director, a fashion stylist, a makeup artist, a motivational speaker, and for good measure, a stunt double for Virginia Madsen.
And then came the frozen vodka martinis.
In 2014, she became the co-owner of Slim Chillers—a low-calorie booze popsicle company that sounds like it was invented in a fever dream at a Malibu yoga retreat. But that’s Murphy: part glam, part grit. She made her money in a way that would’ve made Tabitha proud—no spells, just hustle.
By the time reality television rolled around, Erin Murphy didn’t need reinvention. She was the reinvention. She judged bratty kids with Danny Bonaduce, hosted infomercials for contraptions with names like Ab Shark and Bun Shaper, and even swung a wrestling chair in Hulk Hogan’s Celebrity Championship Wrestling, where she wrestled under the name “Mistress of Mayhem.”
Mistress. Of. Mayhem.
Try explaining that to the syndication crowd still clinging to black-and-white reruns.
Hollywood tried to stuff her in a box—a nostalgic puppet in a child-sized costume—but Murphy ripped the box open, painted it teal, turned it into a chicken coop, and raised alpacas on top of it.
She never went away, she just kept moving.
There were charity causes—especially autism awareness, which hit close to home. One of her sons is on the spectrum, and Murphy never shied away from speaking about it. She wasn’t a “Celebrity With a Cause” in the performative way. She lived it, funded it, fought for it. She stood on stages without makeup and told the truth about what motherhood really looks like. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t come with cue cards.
As a writer, she turned her energy to fashion, beauty, and lifestyle writing—columns that weren’t fluff but reflections of someone who’d seen both the mascara-smudged backlots of Hollywood and the muddy joy of raising animals in the canyon. Somewhere in between, she found peace on a Malibu beach, purchasing her dream home for $2.3 million. Not bad for a girl who once pulled rabbits from hats for 1960s network execs.
Erin Murphy was married three times. Terry Rogers, Eric Eden, Darren Dunckel. Six kids in total. And while her love life may look like a storyboard from a soap opera, there’s no tragedy in it. Just chapters. She speaks kindly of it all, because like the rest of her life, it was never about the perfect ending. It was about staying in the damn ring.
And make no mistake—Murphy was always in the ring.
When she appeared on To Tell the Truth in 2021, she wasn’t just answering questions—she was flexing her survival muscles. She’s not interested in soft-focus memory lane montages. She wants real stories, weird adventures, freeze-dried vodka, and honesty that hits like a stiff forearm shiver.
Somewhere out there, a washed-up agent probably still calls her “Tabitha” at Trader Joe’s. But that’s not who she is. Erin Murphy is a woman who escaped the Hollywood meat grinder with her sanity, her humor, and her middle finger intact. She didn’t get caught in the undertow of fame—she rode it like a jet ski through a tsunami, crashed it into a tiki bar, and sold everyone alpaca scarves afterward.
She’s a motivational speaker for the broken, the aging, and the dreamers. A vodka-slinging wrestling queen in yoga pants and designer boots. A living reminder that you can survive the studio system, six seasons of network television, and three marriages—and still look damn good doing it.
Erin Murphy didn’t fade into the sunset. She lit it on fire, poured it into a martini mold, froze it, and handed it to you with a wink.
Cheers, Mistress of Mayhem. Tabitha grew up. And she’s just getting started.
