INTERVIEW: David Selby's LIFE AS LINCOLN

(NOTE: This interview with David Selby was first published on Feb. 25, 2013. Seeing how today is Presidents Day, it seemed like a good time to nudge this feature back to the top of the website. This conversation was taken from one of our podcasts, which you can listen to in its entirety HERE.) 

If you’re visiting a website called THE COLLINSPORT HISTORICAL SOCIETY, odds are you’re pretty familiar with David Selby. The actor got his first taste of professional success when he was cast on DARK SHADOWS, and has had a lengthy career on stage, television and movies, most recently trying his hand (or voice, as it were) in the animated feature films THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS as Commissioner Jim Gordon.

But it’s Abraham Lincoln who has beckoned to Selby since the earliest days of his acting career. He first played Lincoln on stage in 1965 in the plays THE LAST DAYS OF LINCOLN and PROLOGUE TO GLORY during his college years. Lincoln would go on to be his last stage role before signing on to DARK SHADOWS a few months later in 1968. Even though movies and television offered him high-profile work, Selby continued to stay active on the stage, returning occasionally to reprise Lincoln whenever the opportunity presented itself. His most recent turn was in 2009, in the play THE HEAVENS WERE HUNG IN BLACK at Ford’s Theater. Barack Obama, who had just be elected president, was among those in attendance when the theater re-opened after a lengthy renovation. 

With President’s Day looming a few weeks ago, I thought it might be interesting to step away from Collinsport and speak with him about his interest in Honest Abe.  Here’s what happened.

David Selby, center, in the outdoor play PROLOGUE TO GLORY at Kelso Hollow Theatre, Ill., in 1965. Photo courtesy of Selby's book, MY SHADOWED PAST.

I think it’s interesting that we’ve moved away from the romantic aspects of Abraham Lincoln during the last 20 or 30 years, and are starting to focus on him as a human being.

DAVID SELBY: You had all of the mythology, and the myth became bigger than the man. And you had to dig down deeper to get to the man. And Lincoln was quite a politician, very ambitious. I have no doubt that he’d hold his own in debates with any politician today.

About four year years ago … I was in D.C. rehearsing a new play about Lincoln. They were re-opening Ford’s Theater at that time. It had been closed for a couple of years for renovation. They had never done a play about Lincoln and I loved the piece. Then I went back last year, exactly this time last year, doing a play called NECESSARY SACRIFICES. It was a play about the relationship between Lincoln and (Frederick) Douglass, the black leader.

How do you approach Lincoln as a character? There’s not much archival material about the man, and there are no recordings of his voice. It seems that actors playing Lincoln tend to play against other actors. How do you bring something new to Lincoln as a character?

DAVID SELBY: I don’t think I approached it any different than Daniel Day Lewis did in the movie. You try and scrape away the myth. There are various newspaper records … that comment on the timber of his voice and all those kind of things. His law partner, William Hearnond, you read his recollections … and I put a lot of stock in Hearndon’s notions. And then you read all of Lincoln’s writing. There’s a ten-volume collection that I have, recollections of his secretaries, (John G.) Nicolay and (John) Hay, his young secretaries.

As an actor, there’s just a wealth of material, there’s almost too much material. Plus, I had all of the background that I had when I was in school in Illinois. Then my family, my own family, came over the Allegheny Mountains approximately the same time as Lincoln’s family. My family moved further north into the northern part of what was then Virginia. So I tended to trust all of the family pictures that I had in my collection. I tended to trust my own gait, my own accent that I recalled from those days. I had loads of personal material.

David Selby, Katie Couric and James Earl Jones greet President Barack Obama at the Ford’s Theatre Reopening Celebration, February 11, 2009. Photo by Reflections Photography, Washington, D.C.

With all of those years of experience between MR.HIGHPOCKETS in the 1960s and NECESSARY SACRIFICES just a few years ago, how has your approach to the character changed?

DAVID SELBY: Well, just your experience in life. You’re a little more savvy, you know what I mean? One of the things about HIGHPOCKETS and PROLOGUE TO GLORY was that they (were set in Lincoln's) young years, so I had that advantage. I wasn’t any more sophisticated than Lincoln was at that particular age.

By the time you do NECESSARY SACRIFICES, you’ve got years of looking at the world, living in the world and forming values about right and wrong … about fairness, injustice and all of those things. You’ve lived through the civil (rights movement) era with (Martin Luther King) being assassinated, when I was on the A Train in New York City, reading about it, seeing the headline in the Post. I was part of the protests when I was doing DARK SHADOWS, the (Students for a Democratic Society) movement, which was run by a guy named MARK RUDD in those days.

Then you had Bobby Kennedy’s assignation, and my friend, RAFER JOHNSON. I don’t know if you know who he is, but Rafer was a gold medalist in the 1960s in the Olympics, and Rafer was with Bobby Kennedy when he was assassinated at the Ambassador Hotel. Rafer actually grabbed the gun from Sirhan Sirhan and forgot he had it in his hand.

I had all of that kind of history, very deeply personal history, going into THE HEAVENS WERE HUNG IN BLACK.

Let’s skip forward a few decades. After seeing the unrest and anger in the ‘60s over casual injustices, what were your feelings while standing on stage at Ford’s Theater, dressed as Lincoln and speaking to the nation’s first African American president?

DAVID SELBY: Well, first of all, you’re standing before the president of the United States. The office, itself, carries weight and respect. There was a sense of history and the journey that had been traveled. But I’m not one of those who feels racial injustices has been settled, by any means. I think Lincoln would have loved pulling the voting handle for Obama.

You mentioned in an interview in 1968 that you were interested in doing a one-man show about Lincoln. How long did it take before that came to pass?

DAVID SELBY: I never did do a one-man show. I was asked to do a one-man show, and then decided I’d write my own. I was in Houston working on a play there. I worked on it there, rehearsed it there. (I did) rehearsals in L.A. and took the play to a couple of trials in West Virginia, Morgantown being one of them.

The play was called, at the time, LINCOLN AND JAMES, and was about a caretaker who oversaw the Lincoln Memorial. It was his job to make sure the statue was clean and in good condition all of the time. What happened, in this situation, is he’d worked a double shift on a July 4th weekend and the humidity got to him and he had a heat stroke. I don’t quite follow that in the play, but that was the germ of the idea: To write my own play about a man who works at the Lincoln Memorial. In the process of the play, Lincoln comes to life in the man’s imagination.

Selby as Lincoln on TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL.

You also played Lincoln on an episode of TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL. How did that happen?

DAVID SELBY: It came about because they had a part about Lincoln, and the gal who created (TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL) became aware that I had done (the character.) Also, a friend of mine knew her also. Ernie Wallengren. Ernie had written on a television show I did, FALCON CREST. He also wrote a show called PROMISED LAND that I believe she had a hand in, and I did an episode of that. It was a great role, a cowboy … wonderful. Anyway, what happened on TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL, before I started … my mother passed away, and I told them I couldn’t do it. They told me they would wait for me. So they did, and I could hear my mother saying, “Go do it, David. Go do it.”

That’s a courtesy you don’t hear about too often in Hollywood.

DAVID SELBY: Yeah, television waits for nobody. But she’s a pretty special gal.

David Selby, left, as Abraham Lincoln and Craig Wallace as Frederick Douglass. Photo by Ford's Theatre/Laura Keane.

Which of your performances as Lincoln has been your favorite?

DAVID SELBY: THE HEAVENS ARE HUNG IN BLACK, simply because I like the piece. And because it was at the reopening of Ford’s Theatre and it was very special to stand in Ford’s Theatre and look up at Lincoln’s box, where the president sat. Everything came together there. Obama was elected president … I mean, the gods smiled upon us. Everything lined up. I can’t explain how it felt … it was just very, very wonderful. And every time I go through a bad spot or something, all I have to do is flash back to that ... because everything was promising. It was a wonderful time, and HEAVENS was a dream play that took place during, I think, about a seven or eight month period of Lincoln’s life.

What was the dramatic hook for that story?

DAVID SELBY: All of the things that were going on … Lincoln lost his son, and that was devastating for him, and certainly for Mary. And, also during that time, things weren’t going well, battle-wise. He wanted the issue to be emancipation ...  he read a preliminary to his cabinet. He wasn’t asking for their advice, he just was telling them what it was going to be. Then it was decided they needed a victory on the battlefield, so that it wouldn’t seem like a man with a desperate need.

Antietam while so … many soldiers were killed, Lincoln took it as a victory. And then announced the preliminary emancipation right after that, the first week of January that year. It came up and he signed it. So he must have felt very good knowing what he was about to do. While it only had a certain amount of effect, it only freed the slaves in states where they were already basically free, (but) it also spread the word … if the plantations couldn’t keep a hold of their slaves to plant the crops and make the meals, it would destroy the infrastructure.

But, at the same time, Lincoln was convinced he would lose the election, of course. But then Sherman marched to the sea … and handed Lincoln the election and turned it around. John Wilkes was supposedly in the audience when Lincoln made his last speech.

I’d never heard that.

DAVID SELBY: Yeah, in Washington. He made a comment to somebody that (emancipation) wasn’t going to happen. Then came the assassination and all of the things that (led) up to that day and evening. But THE HEAVENS ARE HUNG IN BLACK was the price that was paid. Lincoln has scenes with an old friend of his back in Illinois, and he has an imaginative scene with John Brown, the abolitionist. It’s a wonderful piece. It was, I believe, nominated for a Pulitzer. It’s now much shortened. It was more than three hours when we did it at Ford’s. It’s now in two acts, I believe, and much shorter, today.

Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln.

What did you think about Steven Spielberg’s recent movie about Lincoln?

DAVID SELBY: I haven’t seen it. But I’m a great fan of Daniel Day Lewis, so I can’t imagine that I would not like it. Can you?

No, my wife and I were actually talking about going to see it  last night and … you know how things happen.

DAVID SELBY: Wallace, listen, trust me, we haven’t even gotten to the James Bond film. I hadn't seen the George Clooney film, the one that takes place in Hawaii … we just watched that the other night. I get behind all of these things. Warners just sent me … THE DARK KNIGHT (RETURNS,) it’s an animation thing. I’ve got a new edition Gene Kelly’s SINGING IN THE RAIN. We have so many things to watch and are so far behind. So no, we have not seen LINCOLN yet. We’ll probably get it on Netflix. 

(Note: The interview above was abridged for space. For the full audio of the interview, visit our podcast page.)

Kathryn Leigh Scott returns to Collinwood: Part 2

Note: Read part one of Kathryn Leigh Scott returns to Collinwood HERE.


Dark Passages is a work of fiction.

While that ought to be enough to distinguish itself from Kathryn Leigh Scott’s other books, more than a few readers have drawn parallels between the novel’s characters and their possible counterparts on Dark Shadows. It’s an easy mistake to make: the book’s protagonist is a young actress working at the Playboy Club in the 1960s hired to play a waitress on a new soap opera.

Scott  worked as a Playboy bunny prior to landing her first acting role on Dark Shadows, but the similarities end there, she said. If you want reality you can find it in the pages of The Bunny Years or her other Dark Shadows books, but Dark Passages is pure fantasy.

“I’ve always thought that I’d like to use those experiences as a backdrop for a fiction piece,” she said. “This novel came out of that. It’s got a sly wink to the Playboy Club and Dark Shadows, but there’s absolutely nothing that happens in Dark Passages that happened to me in my own life. Some of the settings are familiar but otherwise, no … it really is fiction.”

Scott said another character in the novel has raised a few eyebrows among Dark Shadows fans: the British actor cast to play a vampire on the fictional soap.

“The character of Ian, who plays the vampire on the series, is so different from Jonathan Frid,” she said. “It’s a very, very different character.”

Scott and Jonathan Frid in House of Dark Shadows.

More to the point, the romance that takes place between the book’s heroine and the British actor is also fantasy.

“Jonathan Frid and I did not have a love affair,” she laughs. “It was very much a love affair on the air and I love Jonathan Frid. We had such a good time working together, but believe me … we weren’t romantic outside the studio. And in Dark Passages there is a romance between Meg Harrison, the young ingénue, and the vampire.”

There’s another significant difference between the novel’s protagonist and Scott: Meg Harrison is a vampire.
Scott’s book treads lightly into Neil Gaiman territory, sometimes reading like a freakshow memoir. Harrison is born a “vampire” but her powers are more fanciful than sinister.  Left with no other choice Harrison has accepted her situation as a fact of life, and the book’s more disturbing elements (such as being groped by men at work and being powerless to raise any objection) are grounded in reality.

Loneliness is almost the real antagonist of the book's first act.

Early in the story Harrison befriends an older patron of The Bunny Club, a man slowly ruined by despair after the loss of his wife. Harrison gets herself into trouble at work while consoling him (physical contact with customers at the Playboy Club was a no-no) and he gives her a vintage cigarette lighter before leaving the club. The next morning police visit her apartment and inform Harrison that he’d fallen to his death during the night.

Harrison is among the few people to attend his funeral.

“It’s very, very poignant,” she said. “I actually wept when I wrote that … but it was complete fiction. Absolute fiction. There’s nothing even remotely like that that happened in my own life.”

As an actress, Scott has had to accept that fantasy guides a certain amount of her life. Audiences know her through the roles she plays and those roles frequently take on lives of their own. Scott said she learned a long time ago that she’d have to make room in her life for Maggie Evans, Josette Du Pres and her other Dark Shadows characters.

“When you play a role early in your career and you become known for it, there’s a point of reconciliation,” she said. It was common for her to appear on mainstream television shows like Magnum P.I. one evening, only to bump into a fan at the post office the next morning that knew her only from Dark Shadows.

“You just reconcile the fact that a singular role is going to be what you’re remembered for,” she said. “There are a lot of people that have not handled that very well. I suppose the most famous example is George Reeves, who played Superman. There’s a point, as an actor, where you recognize that it is going to happen, you’ve got your signature role. But then you get on with your career.”

Even though Jonathan Frid is seen as a sort of Patron Saint of Typecasting, Scott said he’s never come to resent his association with Dark Shadows.

“I don’t think anyone on Dark Shadows felt that way,” she said. “Even Jonathan Frid. I’m very proud of Dark Shadows. It was my first job and, as Lara Parker says, ‘My first job was my best job.’ You make peace with that. This is life.”

Her 45-year relationship with Dark Shadows has continued into the development of the new Johnny Depp film. While fans are still waiting on a trailer for the film, Scott has read the script and says fans needn’t worry about the movie turning into gothic slapstick.

 “They’ve taken it off into a new direction, which they needed to do,” she said. “Many of the characters are the same but each of these new actors are going to bring something new to the role. Michelle Pfeiffer is going to bring her own talents to a role that Joan Bennett created, just as Jean Simmons did in the 1991 television series. I don’t think the fans need to worry.”

She said there is humor in the film but didn’t think it qualifies as a “comedy.”

“We’ll see,” she said. “I haven’t seen a trailer, I haven’t seen anything. Tim Burton and Johnny Depp are making this their own and they’ve got every right to do so. I think it’s going to have a sly humor. I think there are some parts of this film that are going to be incredibly funny and I don’t think there was anything in House of Dark Shadows that was funny.  It was a different kind of film.”

“I’d say embrace it for what it is, enjoy it for what it is,” she said. “We’ll always have House of Dark Shadows and Night of Dark Shadows.”

 Get Dark Passages at Amazon HERE. 
Get The Bunny Years at Amazon HERE.
Pre-order Dark Shadows: Return to Collinwood HERE.

Kathryn Leigh Scott returns to Collinwood: Part 1

Kathryn Leigh Scott

Kathryn Leigh Scott returns to Collinwood in her latest book about the cult phenomenon Dark Shadows, but in many ways she’s never left.

Scott played Maggie Evans and other characters during the show’s 1,225 episode run. She also appeared in the show's first episode, which puts her in a very select club of actors. And it's a club that's been steadily expanding over the years, giving her frequent opportunities to explore the world of Dark Shadows in print. Her latest book, Dark Shadows: Return to Collinwood, might be her last on the subject, though.

Her first book, My Scrapbook Memories of Dark Shadows was published in 1986, prompted by the death of friends and Dark Shadows cast members Grayson Hall and Joel Crothers.  

“I thought it would be my only book on Dark Shadows,” she said. “Since then I’ve found there are always new stories to tell and I’ve published a new Dark Shadows book every six years. I think this one will be the last one. What more is there to say? And yet never say never.”

Return to Collinwood, due in stores March 27, will be the first of her publications to be full color. It will also connect the television show’s debut in 1966 to the filming of the new Warner Bros. feature film, to be released this May. The film stars Johnny Depp and is directed by long-time collaborator Tim Burton, with England standing in for the fictional Collinsport, Maine.

“Return to Collinwood is really about what it felt like 45 years after we originated these roles, to go back and play cameos in this entirely new production,” she said. “But the book also contains information about all of the other incarnations of Dark Shadows. And that includes the pilot for the WB series that wasn’t picked up, the 1991 series, the new dramas we’re doing (for Big Finish,) and both of the original films.”

Scott and Dark Shadows alumni Jonathan Frid, David Selby and Lara Parker also filmed cameos in the film, something that was documented for Return to Collinwood.

“We were the kids on the show when we first started,” she said. “Now we’re the senior members. Tim Burton and Johnny Depp could not have been more welcoming. They’ve been very supportive of the book, as has Richard Zanuck, the producer.” 

Even though it's been off the air since 1970, Dark Shadows has still managed to accumulate new talent as it has expanded into other media. London-based Big Finish Production has produced almost two dozen original "audio dramas" starring original members of the cast. They also managed to coax Jonathan Frid out of retirement to play Barnabas Collins for the first time since 1970, as well as luring Alec Newman further into the fold. Newman played Barnabas Collins in a pilot for The WB that was not picked up as a series.

“I loved working with him," Scott said of Newman. "Once you’re part of the Dark Shadows family you're part of Dark Shadows forever. We’re like this huge family. We never lose track of anybody.”

With Return to Collinwood Scott said she fought to produce a book of original material that represented every branch of the Dark Shadows family tree. Ultimately, she had to rely very little on material from previous books.

“A number of people, in various blogs and fan mail that I’ve gotten, have said they were disappointed that there were certain books that were out of print,” she said. “So I thought ‘Do I really want to put a couple of pieces (from earlier) books in this one?’”

She decided the new movie would likely bring Dark Shadows to a new audience this summer, many of who won’t have the benefit of a lengthy relationship with the show that other fans enjoy.

“Just like this film is reaching a whole new audience, the book is reaching a whole new audience of Dark Shadows fans, as well.” she said. “I think there are two pieces that have already appeared in print, but they’ve been re-edited. Everything else is new.”

Hollywood isn’t known for being sentimental, and Scott said the inclusion of the original cast in the new movie is a fortunate exception to the rule. None of the surviving cast members were invited to appear in the Mission Impossible films, for example, but Scott said the new Dark Shadows production has gone out of its way to include the original cast.
“Very often people don’t want to acknowledge who invented the wheel. This film is very much Tim Burton and Johnny Depp’s film, but the idea that they should be so inclusive is very remarkable. And we’re thrilled about it"

(Come back later this week for the second part of this interview HERE, in which Kathryn Leigh Scott discusses her novel Dark Passages and shares her thoughts on the new Dark Shadows movie.)