(Note: On July 12, 1987, The Aiken Standard published a series of features on Dark Shadows. This is the lead story from that feature package.)
"Dark Shadows" is far from dead
in the hearts of many devoted fans
Aiken Standard. Aiken. S. C., Sunday. July 12, 1987
By LARRY WOOD
Staff Writer
"Dark Shadows" may prove to have as many lives as
the vampires, witches and werewolves who stalked the centuries during the
gothic soap opera's five-year run. The notion that the series was laid to rest
when it went off the air on April 2,1971, is a grave error. Like one of its
early characters, the
Phoenix, "Dark Shadows" has risen from the ashes of
cancellation, and its many supporters are keeping its flame alive and as bright
as ever.
To commemorate last summer's 20th anniversary of the show's
premier, a former Aiken resident put together a second long-play album of
"Dark Shadows" music. Another Aikenite has brushed off her old
scrapbooks crammed with pictures, magazine articles and memorabilia from the
series.
Emiel Berrie and Deirdre Tice were students at Aiken Junior
High when "Dark Shadows" premiered June 27 1966, on ABC television.
Every afternoon, they would race home from school to watch the show at 4 p.m.
on WJBF Channel 6 in Augusta.
"Lord help the person who tried to talk to me between 4
and 4:30," said Ms. Tice, remembering her devotion to the show and its
actors. While Ms. Tice, who has since appeared in a number of plays at USCAiken and the Aiken Community Playhouse, watched the acting, Berrie loved the
music. He was so interested in the music that he sent its composer,
Robert Cobert, a tape he compiled of the show's eerie themes and began corresponding
with him. In the early 1970s, Berrie flew to Los Angeles to visit the composer.
Cobert has written many television themes and recently wrote
the music for the ABC mini-series, "
The Winds of War." He is
currently working on the music for its sequel, "
War and Remembrance."
After "Dark Shadows" was cancelled, Berne's
interests shifted, and he lost touch with Cobert. Berrie completed his degree
in music at the
University of South Carolina and eventually became a banker in
Columbia.
In 1981, Berrie, a son of Mr. and Mrs. Marvin E. Berrie,
moved to Los Angeles where he continued his banking career. He said he never
thought about "Dark Shadows" until he received a call last year from
Jim Pierson, chairman of the Dark Shadows Festival, a national fan group.
Pierson knew that Berrie had once corresponded with Cobert
and asked him if he would be interested in putting together
a second album of music from "Dark Shadows."
The first album, featuring "Josette's
Theme" and monologues by Barnabas and Quentin, was a hit at the height of
the show's popularity in 1970.
Berne learned that Cobert lived only 20 minutes away from
him and gave him a call. After thinking about the album project for just a
short time, Cobert turned all of his music from "Dark Shadows" over
to Berrie, who spent last summer listening to more than 400 music cues.
"There were a number of outstanding pieces, lots of
nice pieces," said Berrie recently during a telephone interview from his
home in Los Angeles. "The first album focused on the ambiance of the show.
For the second album, I deliberately chose character themes. All the characters
had their own themes.
"Cobert gave me complete creative control as to what to
put on the album."
The album premiered appropriately at a
Dark Shadows Festival convention in Newark, N.J., last Halloween, and, in a few weeks, fans bought
almost 2,500 copies. Cassette recordings are selling well, too, although
they've received little national exposure.
"Everyone in the cast (at the convention) loved it.
They loved the idea and were flattered that people were interested 20 years
later — that a sound track album came out 14 years after the show had gone off
the air," Berrie said.
The new "Dark Shadows" album is music to the ears
of the soap opera's fans, but the melody may get sweeter. Berrie has enough
music to put together a third album, and a reunion movie featuring original cast
members is possible. During its four-and-a-half year run, "Dark
Shadows" spawned two feature films, "
House of Dark Shadows" and
"
Night of Dark Shadows."
"They are thinking of a possible reunion movie. Dan
Curtis, the producer of the show, is tied up with 'War and Remembrance.' Maybe
he'll do it after that. Most of the cast is still around," Berne said.
If the movie is produced, Berrie said there is a 100 percent
chance that he will be directly involved with the music.
To produce the album, Berrie and executive producer, Debbie
Kruder, formed Media Sound Records in Beverly Hills, Calif., in July, 1986. Three
months later, the company's first full-length record was completed.
The company's next project is to produce the soundtrack for
"Winds of War" and "War and Remembrance." Because Cobert is
busy with his other projects, Berrie handles any requests the composer receives
to use the music.
"There are people who call Cobert and want the sheet music
to themes on the show, many of them who are seeing the show (in syndication)
for the first time. Cobert now refers them to me," Berrie said.
"People from all walks of life — bankers, lawyers,
dentists, a priest — are interested. It's incredible. The interest is spread
out all over.
"Cobert can't believe it. There are still people, young
people, who are interested in the show."
Ms. Tice agreed, saying she couldn't believe that so many people
are still interested in a television show that should have died almost 20 years
ago. The Dark Shadows Festival she attended in Dallas last summer attracted
about 1,200 fans.
"It floored me," she said. "I had long ago
put away those memories."
Ms. Tice said she never missed "Dark Shadows"
during its original run.
"It was an obsession. I lived and breathed 'Dark
Shadows.' I had to run home to watch it every day," she said. "I even
taped it on the old reel-to-reels. That was before VCRs."
One of those tapes was for a skit Ms. Tice and Berrie
performed at Aiken Junior High. Ms. Tice played Angelique, a witch whose curse
turned Barnabas into a vampire. Berrie recorded the background
music. The skit proved to be very popular with their
classmates.
"They loved it. Emiel has a wonderful feel for creating
moods with music," Ms. Tice said. "I was hounded on the playground by
everyone saying, 'Do your Angelique imitation. Do your Angelique imitation."
Ms. Tice recently rediscovered the two scrapbooks of
articles about and pictures of Angelique and other cast members from Sixteen
magazine. She also found the goldcolored paperback books and rare comic books
that the series inspired. She still has a replica of Josette's music box that
her mother gave her as a birthday gift.
Today, those books that originally sold for 50 and 60 cents
cost $4 and $5. A vintage Josette music box sells for about $25, five times its
original price, Ms. Tice said.
Other items available at the festivals include T-shirts,
vintage "Dark Shadows" board games, tapes from the series and blooper
tapes, showing cardboard tombstones that sway in the breeze and bats suspended
by thin wires. Fangs and Barnabas rings made by Sarah Coventry jewelry in the
late '60s are also for sale.
Ms. Tice said it is the fans that make the festivals interesting.
Many of them dress as their favorite characters, and the Collinsport Players, a
group of fans from different states, present skits and one-act plays based on
the series.
Their ages range from as young as her son, Victor, 10, who
has also become a fan, to people in their 60s.
"I would love to write a play about the people who come
to the festivals," she said.
Meeting the "Dark Shadows" actors, many with whom
she had corresponded 20 years ago, is also a highlight of the festivals, Ms.
Tice said.
"To me it was a lot of fun to get to meet the people I
grew up with, especially to meet them as people, not actors," she said.
Ms. Tice will get a chance to meet many of those actors at
the fall festival in Los Angeles. Last fall, she attended the festival in
Newark and plans to attend another festival in Newark this summer. Ms. Tice and
Berrie agreed that those actors and the way they played their parts have kept
the show alive and made it a classic.
"Dark Shadows was supposed to have died a normal death.
To have it resurrected 20 years later is certainly a compliment," Ms. Tice
said.
"It had the correct formula for interest," Berrie
added. "The characters were like a troupe. They played three or four
different characters. It had the spirit of a company of performing
actors."
It shouldn't take one of "Dark Shadows's" famous seances
to keep that spirit alive another 20 years or longer.
