Decades before she was a star on “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” Kim Richards was one of the most beloved child stars of the 1970s. As a child actress, Richards was a regular on the series “Nanny and the Professor” before moving to the big screen as a popular Disney star.
One of her biggest roles was in the 1975 movie ‘Escape to Witch Mountain,” where at age nine she played Tia, a little girl with telekinetic powers, alongside Ike Eisenmann, then 11, who played her character’s brother Tony.
During a July 2026 appearance on the Pop Culture Retro podcast, Eisenmann, 63, explained things he shared about working with Richards in his memoir, “You’ll’ Never Be a Star.” The actor admitted that he felt Richards had a one-sided competition with him under the pressures of childhood stardom.
“That was the hard part about writing this,” Eisenmann told podcast hosts Jonathan Rosen and Moosie Drier. “I needed to include it because it happened and it caused me problems that I had to address as an 11-year-old child. She’s nine, I’m 11. And I still look back on that to this day and think… I don’t know how we did it, first of all. I don’t know how Kim did it. And the pressure is immense. The pressure is huge and we’re kids.“
Eisenmann also described Richards’ mother, Kathleen Dugan as “the driven stage mom” who vowed to make her kids stars, which may have put added pressure on his childhood co-star.
Eisenmann Couldn’t Figure Out Richards’ Behavior on Set
Eisenmann also appeared on the Media Path podcast, where he recalled some awkward on-set moments with Richards that he didn’t know how to handle as a child.
“I have never quite been able to figure it out,” he said. “There were a few instances where, unbeknownst to anyone else on set, she was trying to distract me, like during a dinner scene, kicking me under the table during a take to screw me up. “
“And I just couldn’t understand what was going on,” he continued. “And I didn’t want to say anything about it because I was too shy, too scared. I didn’t think it was any of my business, necessarily, to talk to her. And the hard part was I couldn’t talk to my father about it because I don’t even know what he would have done. It would have been disastrous. So I kept it from him. But when it finally happened a couple more times, it started to affect my work.”
Eisenmann said he wondered if Richards simply wanted to outshine him as a child actor.
“But she was only 9 years old and half of me thought, well, maybe she’s just, you know, being a little unruly and that’s all there is,” he said.
Eisenmann ultimately confided in the film’s director, John Hough, who publicly reprimanded Richards the next time she bothered Eisenmann.
Moosie Drier Shared His Own Story About Kim Richards
Kim Richards/Getty
As an adult, Richards had personal struggles, some of which were documented when she was a cast member on the Bravo reality show.
Drier, who was a prolific child actor at the same time as Richards, admitted on his podcast that he witnessed the pressure Richards was under firsthand.
“Kim Richards, so I knew her prior to ‘Escape from Witch Mountain,” he shared on “Pop Culture Retro.” “And when I was reading the part [in Eisenmann’s book] about like, why is she doing that? Like certain behavior and whatever. And she was nine years old. I mean, I went to her eighth birthday party.”
Drier prefaced the story by saying he had “a lot of love” for Kim Richards and her sisters, Kyle Richards and Kathy Hilton.
“But at her eighth birthday party, her parents had a huge shouting fight in the kitchen in front of all us kids,” Drier recalled. “It could be indicative of like something a kid’s going through in their life, and it kind of explains like some roads she may have veered off of. Like, I want to give a little understanding to that. I think there’s an explanation there as to what some of the things are, and I just, I hope the very, very best for Kim Richards at all times, you know.”
Eisenmann chimed in to agree, noting that his childhood co-star had “unfair pressure put on her to be thinking about things that an eight or nine-year-old child shouldn’t be thinking about.”
Eisenmann also said he felt bad that Richards once told him she had no memories of making “Escape to Witch Mountain.”
“So, she didn’t even have the good memories of having fun and doing all that stuff. And it broke my heart,” he said. “Absolutely broke my heart.”
Decades later, all is good between the former child stars.
“I love Kim to death,” Eisenmann said on “Pop Culture Retro.” “And it’s like I love seeing her whenever I get a chance. And you know, she’s been through her stuff. We’ve all been through our stuff, and she’s come out the other side, and I’m proud of her.”
