Lara Parker: In Memoriam

God, we were lucky.

Dan Curtis had the Dream. Art Wallace made it one given form. The cast made it real. Jonathan Frid made it wholly unique. Lara Parker made it true. 

Every unbelievable thing, she made true. 

Poised? Yes. Precise? Yes. All are traits of the Vassar debutante aristocracy. All of those things. And Savage. Certainly, savagely intelligent. Political fashion had yet to drive a wedge between the beauty pageant and the college boards, and so before the 21st century dictated otherwise, some extraordinary women really did do it all.

Would you want to be the one to tell Lara Parker she couldn’t? Or shouldn’t? Be my guest. Tell me how that works out for you. I’m gonna be in the concrete bunker murmuring something about “I am Shiva, destroyer of worlds.”

“Destroyer of Worlds.” Yes. Lara Parker. Destruction and creation are aftermaths of each other. She destroyed worlds that had it coming. Or was that Angelique? Like Nimoy’s Spock, just don’t even bother to separate actor from role. No, she’s not Angelique. And yet Angelique is nothing without her. 

“Destroyer of Worlds.” She would’ve found that the most embarrassing praise possible. Humiliating beyond words. I’m sorry. Honestly. Not done with that intent. I’m just trying to tell the truth.  The only minutely positive thing to come from her passing is that we can finally and openly complement her to a proper extent, one which my experience tells me she would have found embarrassing. Well, art is embarrassing. Sometimes, our only defense against sorrow is to remind ourselves of joy. Indulgently. And Angelique was all about indulgence.

Let’s unite Lara Parker and Angelique for just a few minutes. Just as an exercise. We all do it, anyway. Now, I’m giving you permission. Because I said so.

“Goddess of Destruction.” The good kind. And why not? 

Destroyer of expectations. Of orthodoxy. Of preconceptions. Of assumptions. Of what a witch was supposed to be. Of what love was supposed to be.  And what a debutante was supposed to be. What a philosopher was supposed to be. What an author was supposed to be. What a celebrity was supposed to be. 

Destroyer of a show with too many humans. It was a show that needed angry gods to give it humanity. And Barnabas is just one side of that equation. When Angelique entered Collinwood back around this time in the fall of ‘95, it had to be obvious that the program that had everything finally had the one final thing.. that no one was aware… that everyone had found to be missing. But never knew it. If you follow me.  

To see her in action with those lines in those situations is to see something for the first time. To name drop within the family for a moment, one of Sy Tomashoff’s protégés once told me about Mozart’s most endearing quality; his music always has the freshness of hearing it for the first time, every time.  Yes. Like that. But blonde and choking a toy soldier. Adorably! Yes, doing that. Or melting at the sight of Barnabas, the way we all knew he deserved. Someone who loved him as beautifully and inexplicably as he loved Josette. 

And in the years after, she destroyed our sad little worlds, bereft of our friends — our real friends, in Collinsport — by bringing them to life again. In a bizarre act of unnatural love for a series that had given her and us so much. Has anyone ever given back that much? When Angelique’s Descent hit the bookstores, didn’t you think you were in the middle of the craziest dream? My God, how lucky. And then to do it three more times? Has anyone, since April of 1971, sacrificed more hours and given us more creativity, authenticity, integrity, and art, genuine, lush, literary art, in the name of Dark Shadows? No. Have you read those books? Of course, the answer is yes. You know what I’m talking about. Those are books with a depth and a freedom that this strange dream should not have yielded.  Those books are undeniable truth that there is something of deep worth and resonance within this story. They are written with an eloquence and inspired élan that forever dispel the illusion that Dark Shadows is just some campy, nostalgic fad. 

I have lamented that Dark Shadows has yet to find its Nicholas Meyer, (although a preemptive box of cigars is on its way to the marvelous Mark B. Perry).  But I was wrong. Just as Meyer proved with the Star Trek mythos, Lara Parker did with the mythos of Dark Shadows. 

A film recording is just a thin recollection of a moment of flickering, ephemeral art captured at the moment of its birth and vaporization. It’s not the experience of acting. It’s an echo of the experience of acting trapped in two dimensions. 

But writing is a physical thing. It lives in a book. In defined symbols. On a shelf. In your hands. Exactly the way it was intended. The words are what the author saw when they appeared from keystrokes and pen strokes. It is the art that is always the same in the decades-later reading as it was when it was created.  Lara Parker gave us Dark Shadows as much as anyone, and then she gave it to us again. In a way that will never die. And in that way, she will never die.

It’s all so unlikely. A guy puts golf on TV, and since golf is played during the day, he winds up running some daytime programming. And one Mrs. O’Leary’s cow later, fate Rube Goldbergs us to this point now. Together. If you’re reading this, I am lucky. Someone else out there gets it. What a strange, microthin streak of fortune brought us together. Lara Parker is gone. I hate those words bitterly. And that is a pain as deep and embarrassing as I ever want to feel. And, I suspect, as you ever want to feel. But think of how lucky we are to have such a reason to feel it. 

And that we are together.

PATRICK McCRAY

Mitchell Ryan 1934-2022

Mitch Ryan has died. 

Normally we use euphemisms for these sorts of things. “We lost so and so.” Or, “such and such went too soon,” as if there is some more appropriate time.  But of all of the Dark Shadows cast members, none projected honest and uncompromising integrity like Mitch Ryan. It feels fundamentally disrespectful to dress it up with something other than a plain and honest fact when referring to his death.  The word is as straightforward as the character he played. And as pained.

Burke Devlin was the show’s first “troubled hero.” We absolutely wanted to get behind him, but his extremity held us back. And besides, we’re sort of trying to root for the Collins family. But there he is. Episode after episode. He’s there for Vicki. He’s there for David. He’s there for us. He was a menace. He was a friend. And in every phase, he was believable.

I can think of few other actors who could project that kind of tortured ambiguity.  It was a human mystery, and it compelled Victoria’s imagination as much as any ghost or phantom parent. He welcomed us to Collinsport in every sense, and alongside the writers, Mitch Ryan set the Escherseque moral landscape that defined the series and drove it forward. 

Mitch Ryan and Jonathan Frid shared the same, most important quality. In their performances, they were able to embody two diametrically opposed states of mind without creating a contradiction. The fascination generated by that strange and unique ability compelled viewers to keep watching, unable to guess where those men might ultimately go.

Ryan was no stranger to conflict. His exit from the show was driven by a poignant battle with alcoholism, and the evidence becomes increasingly obvious as his time on the series goes on. The struggle led to a break from acting. For most, that break would be a permanent one. It is to Ryan’s credit that he took the recovery process seriously and rebuilt his career within a few years. Soon, he was co-starring in the Dirty Harry sequel, Magnum Force, almost nabbed the role of Picard, essayed the villain in Lethal Weapon, took a memorable and recurring role on the hit series, Dharma and Greg, and played a pivotal part in the Halloween franchise. 

Easing into retirement, Ryan found continued opportunities to explore art in painting and writing, publishing his autobiography quite recently. He revived the Burke Devlin character for Big Finish Audio and framed the recent Dark Shadows rep production of A Christmas Carol with a fine narration of alternating warmth and gravitas.

I interviewed him on Christmas day seven years ago and found him to be exactly as warm and accessible as you would imagine.  He was a fellow Louisville native, having grown up just a few blocks from where I grew up, myself. We are a strange and unique breed, in the company of Tod Browning, Muhammad Ali, and Hunter S Thompson. Mitch Ryan was a fine addition to the list. A Korean war veteran, he began his career on the stage at the Barter Theater and remained loyal to live performance, even appearing in A Long Day’s Journey into Night at the Pasadena Playhouse in 1993 with fellow Dark Shadows alum, Alan Feinstein. He was a lifetime member of the Actors Studio, appearing in Wait Until Dark and The Price on Broadway. Smoothly transitioning to film, his judgment and leadership won him the presidency of the Screen Actors Guild Foundation.

Few performers have rebuilt their careers with such dignity and range. It would be a cliché to point out that his self-generated revival made him somewhat of a phoenix, but considering that he battled a Phoenix on the program, we’d be remiss not to make a note of it. He built the very definition of a worthy life, and that’s exactly the kind of personal character necessary to give Collinwood its true foundation. He welcomed Vicki and the viewers to the beginning and the end of the world.  Thanks to his work, though, that salutation may always be in the wrong order.  

Patrick McCray

In memoriam: Ron Popeil (1935-2021)

By Patrick McCray

We lost him a few hours ago, and in losing him, we lost one of the last, great American originals from the silent generation. Although the news will provide others with the fodder for lazy punchlines, American innovator Ron Popeil is worth far more. The medium of television in the era of Dark Shadows was more than just a chain of 23 minute episodes squeezed into a half hour. It was a ritual that streaming, physical media, and convenience have robbed us of. And thus, whether we hear the pitchmen from in front of the television or from behind the bathroom door, TV commercials are as much of the text experience as the intended programming.

He belongs to Collinwood as much as anyone else. And although he was neither actor nor character nor Dan Curtis Productions employee, he was nevertheless a presence in hundreds of episodes. And like the literal characters who inhabit the Dark Shadows universe, he was part sorcerer and part comforting friend. He trafficked in pure imagination and the art of the unexpected, but with a sincere flair that reminded you that he was uniquely postwar, all American, And every bit on your side. 

Ron Popeil was, above all, an innovator and, if either had the time to bother with the other, was Howard Rorke to Wendell Berry’s Ellsworth Toohey. The latter sold those of us with good manners and letters after our names on the myth that labor saving technology was lazy, suspect, and responsible for divorcing us from an authentic human existence. And that’s why very few parents ever hired Wendell Berry to appear at kids’ birthday parties.

A college dropout, Popeil joined his inventor-father in the family business responsible for the Veg-o-Magic and Chop-o-Matic kitchen utensils. There is only so much romance to mincing vegetables, and beyond chasing the almighty dollar by convincing the American public that they desperately needed something they had no idea existed, Popeil and son were also domestic innovators. Just those two inventions alone saved postwar Americans countless hours to spend on other things. As someone who is missing a healthy section of the pad of his thumb due to an expertly crafted kitchen knife, I can attest that they are far safer. 

They not only changed how Americans interacted with their domestic lives; the Popeils changed our relationship with technology and the very process of learning about it. Carrying on in his father‘s footsteps, Popeil was a tireless inventor who had the necessary creativity to look beyond good taste and provide the workin’ Joe and Jane with tools to elevate the ordinary. Or just bring a goofy grin to families that needed it. There was a sense of excitement and wonder that Popeil brought to to his inventions, turning the mundane into something almost countercultural. By preparing his demonstrations on videotape, Popeil was a key visionary in the field of retail communication. That’s the technical side of his second art: sales. But what truly made Popeil such a pop pioneer was the infectious excitement for his inventions… and his sincere affection for the consumers. Beyond his well-tuned mantras reassuring us that the gadgets “really, really work,” was the subtext that we deserved better. To listen to Ronco ads is to hear a voice suggesting that those who came before him in domestic engineering were content for us to settle for less. Why must the future start with billion  dollar space vehicles out of our reach? Why can’t it inhabit our homes, as well?

Yes, anyone who creates so many varied products will be an object lesson in Sturgeon’s Law. 90% of everything will be crap. A mechanical mug froster, spray-on-hair, and a machine to scramble eggs in the shell are bizarre must-haven’ts. But there is a giddy audacity to them that keeps them memorable. In reviewing Ronco products just now, I was struck by how much Popeil lived in the future. I saw many Ronco innovations that respectable manufacturers simply allowed him to beta test. Before they took half the risk for twice the price. 

Go to a Williams Sonoma or surf the Internet for high priced life tools, and Ron Popeil will be staring back at you, having gotten there first. Oxo has nothing on the man, and it owes him a moral fortune. Veg-o-Matic-like food choppers can now be had respectably in the most chic of boutiques. The same can be said for the “innovation“ of lumbar support in motor vehicles.  Air purifiers. Spill-proof commuter mugs. Teeth cleaning equipment modeled on dental  tools. His final claim to fame and fortune, the countertop rotisserie oven, may seem dubious in the era of air fryers and pressure cookers. That’s until you think of the comparatively exotic and healthy recipes suddenly in reach of the renters of tiny, joyless studio apartments or denizens of dorm rooms. Suddenly, life has a lot more possibilities, even if in three easy installments.

Of course he would accompany Dark Shadows. After all, what was that program but the reinvention of time-honored story elements from bold, new perspectives to delight modern audiences? Helpful then. Helpful now.  That’s a shared tradition of American vision that we can all get behind.  Both are symbiotic and endearing legacies as seen on tv.

Robert Rodan's Frankenstein

By PATRICK McCRAY

I wish I could thank Robert Rodan. 

It was a thankless part. The next big thing after Barnabas. Grand expectations that could never be fulfilled because of the intrinsic differences. But, if you have done Dracula, then you have to do Frankenstein, and someone is going to have to play the creature. I'm not sure if Frankenstein is scary or sexy so much as sad. And sad only goes so far without other, continuing factors to propel it. My hope is that fans look beyond that... and beyond the fact that this lonely and  desperate character was the focus of a storyline that began with great momentum, but, as with most Frankenstein stories, went nowhere. Then again, unless you are a keen student of literature, it can be hard to remember how most Frankenstein stories end. Something about torches and pitchforks. In that sense, the non-ending is as true to the legends as everything else on the show. 

On Dark Shadows, the journey is what matters far more than the destination, and in lauding his contribution to the show, this is essential to remember.  With his death, we have an opportunity to stop and remember that contribution with fresh eyes. It's ultimately inappropriate to compare Barnabas with Dracula. Yes, both are smooth and aristocratic vampires, but that's where the similarity stops. With Robert Rodan and Frankenstein’s monster, we have a much closer analog. 

It's a strange mix of both representing these literary inspirations  and moving beyond them. Few of the show's riffs, though, came as close to the source material as did Adam. So, it's safe to take a moment of license and admit that no other actor was ever given the chance to explore the world of Frankenstein's creation as Rodan.

It was a gift he did not squander. The irony is that a part so broad could be charted with such sensitivity and intricacy. The thing that fascinates me about the creature is that he is, in every sense, us. Few of us feel entirely as in command and knowledgeable of our abilities and circumstances as we like to appear. We are always learning. We're always making mistakes. We are always making dangerous things out of little knowledge. Often before it's even out of the box. Rodan captured the full breadth of that exploration with deftness and commitment. And in one part, he played a variety of them. From pantomime to smug, intellectualized chess mastery, Rodan showed brave command of each phase and of the many gray areas of his evolution between them.  As anything based on Frankenstein would necessitate, it's a philosophical evolution. Humans grow until they die, assembled from the dead and lost parts of life experiences that are constantly forced into new service, just like Adam with his awkward limbs drafted into new battles. Few of us are graceful at it. Less so than any of us will admit.

In his attempt to grow up as quickly as he can, Adam is equally endearing and embarrassing. Rodan embodied that with the right kind of shamelessness. At a certain point, you can't worry about shame. Most compelling characters are beyond it. And most soap villains start out at dizzying heights of power that are then toppled by love. Adam started out as an endearing, oversized infant and was manipulated into abusing that heightened power as it developed. It is a painful reflection gifted to us with joy by this multifaceted actor.  In a show where monsters are used to explore the learning curve of becoming Us, few did so with the forgivable kindness and heart of Robert Rodan. He was our sad friend and most disturbingly accurate reflection. So much of that was in the writing, but so much of it was in him. 

Robert Rodan, 1938-2021

 

Robert Rodan died of heart failure March 25. The actor had an outsized presence on Dark Shadows, appearing in just 82 episodes in 1968 on the controversial "Dream Curse" storyline. For me, Rodan, and his interaction with cast members Humbert Allen Astredo and Thayer David are the saving grace of that storyline. "The Dream Curse" was never meant to be binge watched and is a bit of a repetitive slog for 21st century viewers. Rodan's petulant man-monster "Adam" and his struggles with living up to the impossible standards of his sketchy "fathers" make his episodes a joy, though. And I'll fight anyone who says otherwise.

It's always bothered me that Rodan never got the second chance on Dark Shadows that other, less interesting performers received. Perhaps he just didn't click with viewers. Most likely he just didn't click with show runner Dan Curtis. But it would have been nice to see him in fancy dress during one of the show's many historical flashbacks, perhaps playing the ancestor of one of Adam's "donors." And it would have been great to have seen Adam return to Collinsport older, wiser and more calculating. 

Sadly. Rodan's only other big credits were as a Spock-like alien in a 1969 commercial for Cheer laundry detergent, and a lead in 1969 feature film The Minx, which makes drafting any eulogy a challenge. Rodan returned to Collinsport momentarily in 2006 for the Big Finish audiodrama Dark Shadows: The House of Despair as "Man on Train," and again in 2006 for The Rage Beneath as "Oswald Gravenor." 

None of this leaves me with a lot to say about a man I never met. But you know what they say about the perspicacity of pictures ... so enjoy the images below. The first is a drawing I commissioned from Darth Vader & Son and Unlikely creator Jeffrey Brown a few years back. The rest should speak for themselves. 

RIP, big guy.

- Wallace

Diana Millay (1935-2021)

 

By PATRICK McCRAY

The passing of Diana Millay has a poignance to it on many levels. For many fans, Dark Shadows was a part of their lives since its first episodes went on the air. It was a contemporary show rather than a piece of another generation’s nostalgia. As one of the first cast members, only 31 when she took the part, it is a wistful reminder that the show is on a steady course to becoming an animal that lives completely in memory. 

As Laura Collins, she followed Burke Devlin as a feared and much-talked-about piece of the recent past that refuses to be done with the Collins family. Is she a reminder of past sins? Given Roger’s cold and distant nature, it’s easy to assume that she is the victim of some sort, there to rescue David from a parental love so vacant that Liz is compelled to order carry-out in the form of Victoria Winters. Instead, she adds to Roger’s complexity when we find that she is the show’s first real female villain, causing us to think twice about who he was. Not only that, but she sets the stage as the first, real “outsider” female, creating a motif that balances Vicki. Vicki is also an outsider, but one who seeks only meaning and identity. Like Angelique after her, she represents the danger of women from the larger world. Laura allows us to appreciate the positive nature of the women on the show we’ve so far met. A primarily female audience was given a band of surrogate sisters, and now they and we have to close ranks against the interloper.

As that, her greatest legacy was as the first supernatural villain on the show. Ghosts are fine, but can they truly stack up against a living creature with an agenda? Not in the drama department. The introduction of Laura is the program’s first, longrunning risk into the personified paranormal. Yes, there was the ghost of Josette, but she’s expected in a spooky house, and exists at this point as a special-effect more than a truly interactive character. For all of the credit given to Jonathan Frid as the show’s first great supernatural foe, Laura has him beat. Not only that, but as a type of monster with no heritage nor blueprint. I’m still not sure what a Phoenix is, but Millay certainly was. The cool confidence of her performance successfully charted that new frontier for the show and made safe every choice they tried afterwards. 

Interview after interview gave Millay the platform to describe the joy of helping to create that character. She identified strongly with the mystical, alluring creature, both lustfully of this earth and empowered by primal forces beyond time. In her hands, the novel nature of the threat was an invitation for ownership and creativity. That self-assuredness cemented a character that is as credible as it as fantastic, and Millay gives Laura a set of missions that should contradict each other, but don’t. She is ancient-but-contemporary, tied to the past of Roger, his ancestors, and countless fathers before. But she is decidedly contemporary, also, existing on her own with no need for the Collins material resources or status. Yes, she needs something, but it’s the most unjustly ignored element of the Collins wealth: David. 

Millay relishes her performance like few on the show, and like the concept of the Phoenix itself, is a study in contradiction and balance. She convinces us that she is a loving mother and a ruthless force of hellish consumption. Few performers can maintain both of those impressions, but Millay had to and did. She was impossible to pigeonhole as someone with only one dimension. Thanks to the delicate nature of her acting, we experienced David’s twin senses of total fear and total need. She had to bring both of those elements out in David Henesy so that we could experience genuine sympathy toward his plight from her first moments until the end. I’m still undecided about the fate he faced beyond the flame. It’s a totally irrational curiosity, but Millay’s dedicated sincerity is impossible to ignore.  

The adage in performance is that every character is the hero in their own eyes. With Diana Millay, we never doubt it. When she returns as the character, it’s a harder sale to pitch, but she manages to do so again… with a twist. Now, undeniably a villain, Millay repeats her mission, but with a more colorful bent for unapologetic evil. She’s no longer an unopposed god among mortals. The presence of Angelique, Barnabas, and even seasoned occultist Quentin gives her a reason to revel in her plans rather than coyly allude to them. It’s yet another dimension to a character of teasingly allusive possibilities.  

Millay delighted in her identification with the role, often insisting that she had worlds in common with her. As a cast member dedicated to mysticism, going so far as to write several books on the subject, she was both an ensemble member and a committed fan of the show’s subject matter. She was an actor, reveler, and even thematic ambassador. Of course, she wrote about the supernatural.  Of course, she wrote and performed motivational lectures. Put the two together and you have Laura, and the Phoenix, and Millay and the ebullient sense of mischief that made us believe that Collinsport was a world of possibility for everything that followed. 

In Memoriam: John Karlen (1933-2020)

Anyone familiar with show business, Dark Shadows, or the laws of physics knew this was coming. It had been coming for a long time. But it took so long, and John Karlen was so perpetually in medical trouble, it became shamefully unreal. Just painful details. It’s like he was refusing to go anywhere that didn't have good, hot, Polish food at the ready. From the outside, the situation became beyond fatalistic. He just became eternal, like one of the characters that he played.

I think this is a tougher death in the family to contend with because of that. We were always waiting for the other shoe to fall, and the other shoe was always falling, and yet nothing had hit our heads. It’s that strange and unique relationship and non-relationship that we have with celebrities who feel closer than family, and yet most of us have never met.

He was the greatest example of the Tao on Dark Shadows. Unspeakably brave and yet impossibly cowardly, to an extent that would shame the most cautious old biddy or fussiest mama's boy in the south. He was beyond an everyman. As Willie Loomis, he brought us the best and worst in all of us, and always with the most inconvenient timing. There comes a point that the hipster John Karlen fades away behind fabulous sunglasses, and all that is left is Willie Loomis. Maybe that’s because all that’s left of any of us is, ultimately, Willie Loomis.

On a show about death, he was the antithesis — fighting for life, fighting for a fair chance, fighting to be heard. Most of all, fighting himself and his own base impulses. Barnabas had no sidekicks with whom we would really want to identify. Instead, he had us, whether we liked it or not.

But beyond the character of Willie Loomis, there was a gladiatorial spirit in Karlen that represented the ultimate zest for living, cranky and tempestuous and impatient at the end, because that man still had a lot of living to do. As to his passing, there are details. And it is in the spirit of true irresponsible journalism that I write this in absolute dread of looking at them. The man died. Time and fate and reality are taking him from us. And I think that's bad enough for tonight.

The details are out there to be found. And if you want to gaze upon them, I understand why. Having written a number of obituaries for the Collinsport Historical Society, this one is different. I don’t want the details of his death. As someone who faces celebrity deaths with a fair degree of resigned, Buddhist inevitability, in this case, Buddha can take a powder. More than I imagined, I find myself just wanting him back. And I want him back as he was and as we were 30 or 40 years ago. He was the man who gave us Barnabas Collins, whether he liked it or not. And he was Quentin’s pal, proceeding to the chopping block like he was striding down Las Vegas Blvd. alongside Frank Sinatra. And he was also the guy who wasted no time shooting Fib and pining for Pansy Faye in a voice that truly made us want to punch Carl in the mouth, but with love. Always. And then there’s the chicken with Adam. And that tie that all good reformed hoods wore, because Willie Loomis was every neighborhood thug from Bridgeport that Dan Curtis could save through art. And he did.

Ultimately, Dark Shadows is about aristocracy. Of course, the Collins family. But beyond that, the actors. The stars are our aristocrats. But was he?  Perhaps he was beyond. He had a rude, strange, and crusty nobility. Ultimately, Falstaff to Frid’s Hamlet and Scott’s Miranda. But unlike the gracious luminaries, he was A Guy. He was OUR guy.

When one of the stars passes away, you can see the actors tighten up and close ranks, as well they should. And as well they will for John Karlen, because he was a guy... because he was their guy in a way we can never understand. Let us praise the bumbler he brought us, who, like us, had no business at Collinwood, and who had the misfortune of putting his throat in the way of the hand thrusting up from the coffin. We would’ve done the same thing. Yes, for the stars, he is their own. But he was also one of us. He is ours. This one is going to leave a mark. And we will wear it proudly. There are biographical articles. Read them. He deserves it.

Long live Willie Loomis, and you’ll forgive me if I just can’t write the words that should precede that sentiment. Long live the spirit of the man who brought Loomis and company into our lives.

Right now, he is the finest man whoever breathed.

- Patrick McCray

Humbert Allen Astredo (1929-2016)

By PATRICK McCRAY

Humbert Allen Astredo appeared in CYRANO on stage, and that play's forceful, biting, and eloquent world seems made for him. Mr. Astredo died on Feb. 19, and his panache is his legacy. When he first appeared on DARK SHADOWS as Nicholas Blair, viewers were treated to a wholly unique figure. He reveled in his mirthfully menacing sense of style and nimble command of the language. Soap operas are the domain of characters who are intentionally slow-witted. It's the only way to stretch out the stories. With the introduction of figures like Nicholas Blair (and Professor Stokes around the same time), DARK SHADOWS would defy this cliche. Nicholas was almost always one step ahead, and the piercing sense of awareness mustered by Mr. Astredo gave that total authenticity. His singular contribution to the show was his ability to believably fuse HP Lovecraft with Noel Coward. Critics of the show inevitably missed the kind of elan that he brought to it, but without that sense of wit, DARK SHADOWS is incomplete. In his time, Humbert Allen Astredo was a soldier, comedian, and actor. It took all three to make Nicholas Blair.

Astredo and Elizabeth Taylor in THE LITTLE FOXES, 1981.

Jim Pierson remembers, “After Frid during the portions of the show when Barnabas was behaving badly, I think Humbert had the most commanding presence of the male villains on DS. Of course he was always dapper, and he added a unique style of wicked humor to Nicholas Blair that was so different from anything else on the show.”

As Nicholas Blair in DARK SHADOWS.

In 2014, with more than a little help from the endlessly gracious Lara Parker, the notoriously reclusive Mr. Astredo granted us an interview. It was the DARK SHADOWS equivalent to an audience with J.D. Salinger. He was brighter, sharper, and more intense than I expected. The email correspondence leading up to our talk was extensive. I suspected that DARK SHADOWS was only marginally interesting to him, and so I focused on the craft of acting. The dialogue became as much an interview with me as anything, and it was clear that his time and attention were precious things not to be meted out carelessly.

Was it intimidating? Absolutely, and I would have been a bit disappointed if it hadn't been. This was, after all, Nicholas Blair. Acting was very much behind him. His reasons were private, and I sensed well enough not to question his decision. He was firm in it, but there was plentiful evidence that his love of performance and language was nevertheless alive. He ripped into Shakespeare several times when we spoke, and it was a joy to witness. He claimed that his beloved Kindle often grew unreadable from the spray he projected as he would read aloud. Even if he were his only audience, it was clear that Humbert Allen Astredo never stopped performing.

(Note: Listen to McCray's 2014 interview with Humbert Allen Astredo below.)

DARK SHADOWS director Lela Swift has died

Actor Louis Edmonds, Louis Edmonds, assistant Harriet Rohr and director Lela Swift on the set of DARK SHADOWS.

News reports are circulating that trailblazing director Lela Swift died yesterday at her home in Santa Monica, Calif. She was 96 years old.

Swift directed 588 episodes of DARK SHADOWS. To put that into perspective, that's more than twice as many episodes as directors Henry Kaplan and John Sedwick combined, and represents about half of the show's 1,225-episode run.

I don't have especially strong opinions about the quality of Swift's work. It's not the job of a television director to distinguish themselves, but to deliver the expected look and feel of the established series. Even someone with the (let's call it) flair of Quentin Tarantino managed to disappear entirely when directing episodes of E.R. and C.S.I. And I'd challenge anybody to try to find the signature style of Steven Spielberg in those early episodes of COLUMBO and MARCUS WELBY, M.D. that he directed. When television directors do their jobs well, it's as if they did nothing at all.

"To succeed as a TV director these days you either have to be very sound of mind, or else a little bit crazy," she wrote in a 1953 editorial for The Brooklyn Eagle. "Because then everything that happens just seems normal to you."

During the same interview, Swift told aspiring artists what they might expect from a life in entertainment. Her advice pretty well  describes her years working on DARK SHADOWS.

"When you go into the business of television, expect the exhilaration of a difficult job well done, the agony of a carefully planned effect ruined by an on-the-air accident, the happiness and the heartache that goes with the show business everywhere," she said. "Expect to care about everything a great deal. Expect to live it. I do."

Source: deadline.com

OBITUARY: Betsy Palmer, 1926-2015

As difficult as it might be to believe, we've managed to publish three MONSTER SERIAL books without once touching on any of the films in the FRIDAY THE 13TH series.

Betsy Palmer's association with those films was part of a short-lived trend in slasher movies of securing an established actor to lend some credibility to films that were otherwise considered illegitimate. The original HALLOWEEN nabbed Donald Pleasance (but only after Christoper Lee turned down the part). PROM NIGHT had Leslie Nielsen, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME had Glenn Ford, A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET had John Saxon, etc.

Palmer famously accepted the role of "Pamela Voorhees" for two reasons: It required only a few days of her time, and she needed some quick cash to to buy a car (a Volkswagen Scirocco, in case you were wondering).

Born Pamela Betsy Hrunek in East Chicago, Indiana, Palmer started out in classic TV shows of the 1950s such as "Playhouse 90" and "Studio One." She had a lengthy stage career that occasional had her crossing paths with cast members of DARK SHADOWS. In 1976, she appeared opposite David Selby in the Tennessee Williams play, THE ECCENTRICITIES OF A NIGHTINGALE. More than a decade earlier, Palmer was in ROAR LIKE A DOVE, a play that included one Jonathan Frid as both stage manager and understudy.

Palmer died Friday of natural causes at a hospice care center in Connecticut, her longtime manager, Brad Lemack, told The Associated Press on Sunday.

David Selby and Betsy Palmer in The Eccentricities of a Nightingale.

Obituary: Elizabeth Wilson

Elizabeth Wilson on DARK SHADOWS, 1966.

While you might not recognize her name, Elizabeth Wilson had the kind of career that would make any actor envious.

Wilson's earliest credits date back to the 1950s with the production of PICNIC, a play that also doubled as Paul Newman's Broadway debut. Her final role was 2012's HYDE PARK ON HUDSON opposite Bill Murray. In between those years, Wilson stayed quite active, working with a diverse roster of directors that included Mike Nichols, Alfred Hitchcock, Barry Sonnenfeld and Joel Schumacher.

THE ADDAMS FAMILY, 1991.

Among her many roles was that of the administrator at Victoria Winters' oft mentioned "foundling home" on DARK SHADOWS. She appeared twice on the series during its first month in 1966, including its pilot episode. Her connection with the show's cast doesn't end there, though.

You could play Six Degrees of Separation with Wilson and DARK SHADOWS and have several degrees left over. In 1972, she won a Tony Award for her work in STICKS AND BONES, in which she played David Selby's mother. She played the wife of Barnard Hughes in the short-lived sitcom DOC (Hughes played one of Burke Devlin's cronies in an early episode of DARK SHADOWS). Wilson also appeared opposite Lara Parker's college roommate, Jane Fonda, in 9 TO 5.

Tippi Hedren and Wilson in THE BIRDS, 1963.

Wilson also appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's THE BIRDS. In 2012, she told Connecticut Magazine that the experience was a dangerous example of life imitating art:

I flew from New York City to California— towards the end of the flight, some birds smashed the co-pilot's side of the windshield; we had to land before we were scheduled to. A few weeks later, I was walking down the hill from my hotel in LA, looked up and I was being circled by a bird, which plunged into my back. I went to the set the next day and told "Mr. Hitchcock." He said, "I'm not at all surprised." He was a star director.

For more on Wilson’s life, head to the New York Times.

Conrad Bain, 1923-2013

TMZ (ugh) is reporting that Conrad Bain, star of DIFF'RENT STROKES, has passed away. Fans of DARK SHADOWS will remember that Bain had an occasionally reoccurring role as Collinsport Inn manager Mr. Wells, who ultimately died at the hands of werewolf Chris Jennings.

From TMZ:

Bain family sources tell TMZ, Bain died Monday night in Livermore, CA. So far, details surrounding his death are unclear.

We spoke with Bain's daughter Jennifer who tells us, "He was an amazing person. He was a lot like Mr. Drummond, but much more interesting in real life. He was an amazing father."

Bain -- who became a household name starring opposite Gary Coleman and Todd Bridges on the iconic 80s series -- is survived by his three sons and one daughter. He also has a surviving twin brother Bonar Bain.

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