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The Dark Shadows Almanac: Millennium Edition

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by David Selby




  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Acknowledgements

  Foreword

  Maggie Comes Home

  Program History

  Dark Shadows Through the Years

  Broadcast History

  Dark Shadows Origine

  Lara’s Descent Into Gothic Romance - by Lara Parker

  My Shadomy Past - by Chris Pennock

  Shooting Shadows - by Stuart Goodman

  A Profile of Dan Curtis

  Characters

  Actors

  CREDITS TRIVIA

  CHARACTERS PLAYED BY DIFFERENT ACTORS

  CHARACTER REPLACEMENTS

  CHARACTER RENAMINGS

  Dark Shadobus Storylines

  VICTORIA’S ARRIVAL (EPISODES 1-6)

  THE REVENGE OF BURKE DEVLIN (EPISODES 1-201)

  MATTHEW MORGAN KILLS BILL MALLOY AND KIDNAPS VICTORIA (EPISODES 46-126)

  LAURA THE PHOENIX (EPISODES 123-191)

  THE BLACKMAILING OF ELIZABETH (EPISODES 193-275)

  THE INTRODUCTION OF BARNABAS (EPISODES 202-220)

  THE KIDNAPPING OF MAGGIE (EPISODES 221-261)

  THE INTRODUCTION OF JULIA (EPISODES 265-365)

  1795 (EPISODES 365-461)

  THE DREAM CURSE (EPISODES 461-536)

  THE CREATION OF ADAM AND EVE (EPISODES 486-626)

  RETURN TO 1796 (EPISODES 657-667)

  THE WEREWOLF AND THE GHOST OF QUENTIN (EPISODES 627-700)

  1897 (EPISODES 700-884)

  THE LEVIATHANS (EPISODES 885-980)

  QUENTIN AND AMANDA (EPISODES 904-934)

  1970 PARALLEL TIME (EPISODES 980-1060)

  1995 (EPISODES 1061-1070)

  THE GHOSTS OF DAPHNE AND GERARD (EPISODES 1070-1109)

  1840 (EPISODES 1110-1198)

  1841 PARALLELTIME (EPISODES 1198-1245)

  Dark Shadows Timeline

  Who’s Who

  A description of Dark Shadows characters.

  Dark Shadows Milestones

  TV SERIES PRODUCTION CREDITS

  Episode Callies

  Ratings

  NATIONAL VIEWERSHIP

  TV-Q RANKINGS

  Syndication

  BROADCAST SYNDICATION CYCLES

  OUT OF SYNC SHADOWS

  CABLE TV RERUNS VS BROADCAST SYNDICATION

  KINESCOPED SHADOWS

  MISSING SHADOWS

  THE LOST EPISODE

  The Episodes That Never Here

  INTERNATIONAL SHADOWS

  Studio History

  REVISED SCHEDULES

  GOING TO COLOR

  Shadows Sources

  The Writers of Dark Shadows

  Shadows Influences

  Shadow Spin-offs

  Theatrical Motion Pictures

  Newspaper Comic Strip

  Off-Off-Broadway Play

  Primetime Revival

  Shadows Satires

  Bloopers

  EPISODE 242

  EPISODE 252

  EPISODE 276

  EPISODE 291

  EPISODE 343

  EPISODE 411

  EPISODE 448

  EPISODE 451

  EPISODE 477

  EPISODE 486

  EPISODE 495

  EPISODE 522

  EPISODE 585

  EPISODE 635

  EPISODE 703

  EPISODE 779

  EPISODE 852

  EPISODE 863

  EPISODE 915

  EPISODE 935

  EPISODE 964

  EPISODE 1010

  EPISODE 1028

  EPISODE 1064

  EPISODE 1190

  Outside the Shadows

  Dark Shadows Music

  The MGM Dark Shadows Mobies

  HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS

  NIGHT OF DARK SHADOWS

  Shedding Light on Night of Dark Shadows - by Darren Gross

  DARK SHADOWS MOVIES FOREIGN TITLES

  FILM PROMOTIONS

  Dark Shadows on Home Video

  MPI Dark Shadows Episode Volumes

  Special Notes

  Special Notes

  Compilations & Special Programs

  Laserdisc

  DVD

  DARK SHADOWS MOVIES

  Shadows Promotions

  A PARTIAL LISTING OF PROMOTIONAL ACTIVIITES

  CONTESTS

  TV & RADIO APPEARANCES

  Local Programs

  DARK SHADOWS SPECIALS

  Awards & Nominations

  Fan Conventions

  A HISTORY OF THE DARK SHADOWS FESTIVALS

  FESTIVAL EVENTS

  Dark Shadows In Locations

  The Real Collinwood

  FILM FOOTAGE

  Selected Bibliography

  Actor Birthdays & Birthplaces

  ACTOR’S REAL NAMES

  Building Shadows - by Sy Tomashoff

  Studio Kid - by Richard Levantino

  Child of the Shadows - by Denise Nickerson

  Tribia

  Dedication

  Dark Shadows Information

  Other Books by Pomegranate Press

  Copyright Page

  Acknowledgments

  Nancy Barrett, Leigh Beery, Dave Brown, Tim Choate, Dale Clark, Melody Clark, Robert Cobert, Dan Curtis, Dan Damiano, Yvonne David, Roger Davis, George DiCenzo, Yvette Dilworth, Louis Edmonds, Dennis Eger, Charles Ellis, Richard Estep, Robert Finocchio, Jonathan Frid, Stuart Goodman, Darren Gross, Mary McKinley-Haas, Guy Haines, Craig Hamrick, Philip Hansen, Pam Jarman, Nina Johnson, John Karlen, David Kennedy, Nancy Kersey, Barbara Keyes, Richard Levantino, Michael Lipowski, Stuart Manning, Cary Mansfield, Dan Markell, Malcolm Marmorstein, Ben Martin, Todd McIntosh, Mary McKinley-Haas, Paul Michael, Diana Millay, Geoff Miller, Walter Miller, Alexandra Moltke, MPI Home Video, Jay Nass, Kristi Nelson, Denise Nickerson, Chris Nokes, Mary Overstreet, Lara Parker, Dennis Patrick, Chris Pennock, Lilo Raymond, Kathy Resch, Kathleen Reynolds, Richard Photo, Lisa Richards, Marcy Robin, Helen Samaras, Michael Seggie, David Selby, Michael Sheridan, Dick Smith, Mary Spooner, Jeff Thompson, Sy Tomashoff, Kelly Wade, Marie Wallace, Donna Wandrey, Thomas Weisser, Dean Wilson

  A Foreword

  by David Selby

  DURING THE SUMMER OF 1965, WHILE THE LOS ANGELES RIOTS WERE raging, I was a graduate student at Southern Illinois University, performing the role of Abraham Lincoln in Prologue To Glory in a New Salem, Illinois summer stock company production.

  By the summer of 1966, the Vietnam War was going strong. I was an apprentice at the Barter Theatre in Abingdon, Virginia. I passed my physical for the army that summer but was told I could not join the 300,000 troops in Vietnam because I had too much education and because I was married. So it was off to the Cleveland Playhouse, where I was instructed not to leave my hotel because of the riots. Violence was dominating the stage again in the world of human affairs.

  The Civil Rights Movement was in full force as was the Free Speech Movement, with its upheavals at Berkeley and Columbia. I was reading Robert Lowell, Ezra Pound, Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath, and Sam Shepard, as well as Eldridge Cleaver. Like so many others, I listened to Dylan and Joplin. But unlike so many others, I was not aware of a particular television show that premiered in June 1966, the same month and year that Stokeley Carmichael used the slogan “Black Power” for the first time.

  Dark Shadows was a Gothic romance that took on other dimensions and higher ratings when a character named Barnabas Collins appeared. How could I have missed it? Did it have something to do with my being caught up in the riots of Detroit, the worst of this century? Or being stunned on a subway where I heard that Martin Luther King had been assassinated? Or being shock
ed a couple of months later at the killing of Robert Kennedy, which brought back an earlier nightmare? Were these events more overwhelming to me than to others who were horrified by them?

  In the Sixties there were many wars going on, including the War on Poverty. The one thing I never considered when deciding to become an actor was money. The idea of making money, of being paid to act, had never occurred to me. I was very innocent and foolish. Fortunately, my wife was more grounded, and it was she who kept us out of poverty while I went merrily on finding my way as an actor in an increasingly violent world.

  It was my good fortune that an agent saw me in a scene from Tennessee Williams’ Summer and Smoke. That agent sent me to see New York casting director Marion Dougherty, who put me in a cab and accompanied me to see a producer named Dan Curtis. After he removed a few golf balls from his plush carpet, I performed a scene from Dark Shadows, auditioning for the role of Quentin Collins. A few days later, Dan tested me on camera, and a few days after that my saga with Dark Shadows began. It continues today, some twenty-seven years later.

  Dark Shadows was a creative product of Dan Curtis. Even someone in a Sixties’ drug-induced trance would not have been immune to the vibrations of Dan’s energy. I liked it and I liked Dan, although I was never sure where I stood with him. Perhaps it was the Sixties. I was never certain where I stood with the Sixties either, although I knew I was lucky just to be alive in the decade, when things were happening.

  Andy Warhol was shot and almost killed in 1968. It was he who said, “In the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes.” Those of us on Dark Shadows have had our fifteen minutes—plus. For this hill child from West Virginia, it was all a little overwhelming. I’m sure Andy Warhol was a fan. Goodness, Joanne Woodward’s mother was even a fan! It seemed fitting that Dark Shadows was part of the Sixties, when there was a certain craziness in the air. Dark Shadows was not low-keyed drama; it didn’t reflect the ordinary man’s conception of the world. Although its style of acting could be indulgent and downright hammy, Dark Shadows was true to life—true to its life, its universe. Dark Shadows created its own world, a world that millions of television viewers decided to enter. And once they did, they would not let it go. The Sixties would end, but Dark Shadows would endure.

  My mind is still haunted by the newspaper photograph of the Kent State slaughter. We were of that time. Each of us was moved, numbed, angered, and heartbroken by man’s inhumanity to man. But those of us in the Dark Shadows family were lucky, all of us—cast, crew, writers, directors, producers, makeup, hair, reception, and, of course, the viewers, the fans. We were lucky because we had a place we could escape to, the world of Dark Shadows. Those of you who joined us in that world must know we worked hard, we played, we touched each other, we became close. I see your faces, hear your voices—you are in my heart.

  My son was born in 1969. We named him Jamison. He is now a young actor in New York. Take care of him; he is one of yours. And if he is lucky, he too will get to have a bubblegum card with his name on it.

  Maggie Comes Home

  by Kathryn Leigh Scott

  ON A SPARKLING, UNSEASONABLY WARM LATE OCTOBER AFTERNOON, I stood on the bluffs in front of the Carey Mansion, as it’s known by locals in Newport, Rhode Island, and looked at waves crashing against a rocky shore. Yes, those waves, the ones that made their debut more than 33 years ago under the opening credits of the premiere episode of Dark Shadows. I couldn’t stop myself from humming the opening bars of Robert Cobert’s famous theme music and recalling those wistful words spoken by the young governess, Victoria Winters ... My journey is beginning ... a journey to link my past with my future ... on her way to the mysterious Collins Mansion.

  But what I was experiencing in nature’s glorious technicolor, we in early 1966 viewed in grainy shades of gray, lending even more ghostly shadows to the mansion on the hill with the haunting glow of light in a single upstairs window. And therein lies a story I was to discover in October 1999 as a guest author attending Haunted Newport Hallowe’en celebrations.

  Seaview Terrace, as the Carey mansion was originally known, had been built in the 1920s for a wealthy Washington D.C. distiller (producer of Old Crow Whisky) who requested that his architect, Howard Greenley, pattern the summer home after a particular chateau in France. The family stayed in their vacation house with the ocean view only about three times. As often happened, after the Great Depression and the introduction of federal income taxes during the 1930s, the wealthy owners could no longer afford the luxury of the huge household staffs necessary to the upkeep of these lavish summer homes that were not built for year-round living. Seaview Terrace had not been inhabited for a decade prior to World War II, when it was used as barracks for naval personnel. Windows were broken, the lawns overgrown when the mansion was purchased for back taxes in 1949 and converted for use as a summer school, Burnham-by-the-Sea.

  In early May of 1966, Dan Curtis arrived in Newport with his set designer, Sy Tomashoff, to scout exterior locations for ABC’s new afternoon soap, Dark Shadows. The Gothic architecture of Seaview Terrace had caught Tomashoff’s discerning eye as a suitably brooding facade for the Collins mansion which was set in the mythical town of Collinsport, Maine. Curtis negotiated to film the opening credits at Seaview Terrace for the sum of $500, with the owner’s stipulation that filming would have to be completed before school opened in late June. However, to the consternation of the school’s staff, Dan Curtis arrived unannounced with a film crew at noon the day before the summer term was to begin. The crew set up their cameras and spent the afternoon filming on the grounds of Burnham-by the-Sea. By late afternoon, the weary headmaster asked if they were finally finished shooting. No, Curtis told him, they would also be shooting that night and would need to have the entire mansion dark except for one light shining in a window. The headmaster protested that with school beginning in the morning, he had a lot of work to do and needed the lights on. After considerable persuasion (Curtis, after all, had a television series to launch!) the school master was relegated to a room in the turret where he worked by candlelight with a blanket covering the window.

  Curtis later returned to film exterior scenes on the grounds of the school with Alexandra Moltke, Louis Edmonds, Thayer David and David Henesy. Since 1976, the mansion has housed Salve Regina College.

  That October evening in 1999, after a lecture and book signing, my hosts introduced me to The Black Pearl on Bannister’s Wharf. Not only is the charming restaurant and tavern famous for its New England chowder, but, with its rustic black lacquer interior and red-checkered tablecloths, it’s easily recognizable to any Dark Shadows fan as the prototype for the Blue Whale. The very long, very narrow building is about 100 years old and was originally used as a rigging shop in the days when the only way to get off the island was by ship. During the winter months, the ships would dock at Bannister’s Wharf and the masts would be hauled into the shop for repairs. The rigging shop was converted into a restaurant in the early 1960s. The wharf area was once known as Blood Alley, a rough neighborhood with colorful strip joints and bars that catered to sailors and fisherman—and certainly would have lured “Pop,” Maggie’s dear old dad, Sam Evans. I can picture him, sketchpad in hand, roaming the waterfront and then nipping into the Blue Whale for a convivial whisky with Bob the bartender.

  Today the wharf is a quaint promenade with restaurants, shops and galleries. As we strolled the moonlit wharf after a wonderful meal at the Black Pearl, I couldn’t help but imagine myself as the young Maggie Evans walking hand-in-hand with Joe Haskell after a hamburger and a dance or two at the Blue Whale. Once again, as I looked out over the water at the bobbing sailboats, I found myself humming a few bars of Robert Cobert’s nostalgic Blue Whale music and remembering my good friend Joel Crothers.

 

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