The Catholic Defender: Actor Dick York and his family all devout Catholics

Dick York and his wife, Joan Alt, were devout Catholics and raised their five children in the faith. 

Dick York was raised in Chicago after his family moved from Fort Wayne, Indiana, where a Catholic nun first noticed his vocal and acting talent.

from a desperately poor Depression-era childhood in Chicago to becoming a child actor and singer in radio, then a TV star, and back to desperate poverty, but never without hope and purpose.

Joan Alt married Dick York on November 17, 1951, and the couple remained together until his death in 1992.

Dick never went anywhere without his beloved wife, they were inseparable. They truly adored each other and thoroughly enjoyed being around young people. Dick and his wife were devout Catholics and had five children. He always spoke with such reverence about the great blessing of his wife and children. Together he and Joey were one of the most upbeat, joyous couples I have ever known.

 Christopher, Matthew, Kim, Mandy, and Stacy comprised their large family, whom they raised as devout Catholics. 

Their faith remained an important pillar for the family through both his television success on Bewitched and his later health and financial struggles.

Dick York was not fired from Bewitched because of drugs, he didn’t end up a drunk or an addict. He didn’t die forgotten in an alcoholic haze or strung out on narcotics. He never stopped fighting, never gave up, and he left the world better than he found it. Even when confined to his house with an oxygen tank tethered to his face, he spent his last days trying to help people he’d never met.

Dick York (the funny Darrin) left Bewitched because of severe and increasing back pain that often incapacitated him, a souvenir of an accident while shooting They Came to Cordura with Gary Cooper and Rita Hayworth in 1959.

As York explained, “Gary Cooper and I were propelling a handcar carrying several ‘wounded’ men down the railroad track. I was on the bottom stroke of this sort of teeter-totter mechanism that made the handcar run. I was just lifting the handle up as the director yelled ‘cut!’ and one of the ‘wounded’ cast members reached up and grabbed the handle. Now, instead of lifting the expected weight, I was suddenly, jarringly, lifting his entire weight off the flatbed-180 pounds or so. The muscles along the right side of my back tore. They just snapped and let loose."