The Dark Shadows Companion: 25th Anniversary Collection

by Kathryn Leigh Scott

  Born Mary Lamar Rickey in Knoxville, Tennessee, aspiring actress Lara Parker had worked for years to lose her Southern accent. Beautiful, talented, and eager to realize her dreams of a theatrical career, she had begged her husband Tom Parker for six weeks away from their home and two young sons to try to become an actress.

  “I’d been in New York for three weeks; I’d never worked professionally, and I came in to read for Dark Shadows. The only thing I remember about my camera test is that when I professed my love to Barnabas, I turned and looked into the the camera and did kind of a ’zing’ with my eyes that I thought a witch would do.”

  The next member of Dark Shadows supernatural ranks joined the cast: the witch Angélique. Rather fond of calling forth the powers of Darkness to get what she wants, Angélique Bouchard was in league with Satan.

  “The thing I hated most was casting those spells,” Parker recalls. “I never really knew how to cast a spell. They used to give me pages of spells. One involved a burning house of cards, which were meant to slowly smolder while I called on demons for help. The prop man was over enthusiastic with his lighter fluid. I had a page and a half of dialogue still to say and the cards went up like a bomb. There I was, invoking the devil over a pile of ash.”

  Extreme fundamentalist groups had taken a dim view of Dark Shadows from its inception, and the new storyline evoked even more negative reaction—the show earned the dubious distinction of being the only soap opera to have an entire religious tract written about it. This fearful warning was passed out during the Halloween season. It included a cartoon of a gleeful Mr Splitfoot watching TV (which must receive abysmal reception, unless of course there is cable in Hell). The caption beneath it: Satan’s Favorite TV Show. (The same pamphlet later would be used to protest Bewitched.)

  A further goad to the fundamentalists was the Reverend Trask, (Jerry Lacy). Trask was certain that there was a witch at Collinwood and that her name was Victoria. He was encouraged by Barnabas’ zealous aunt Abigail Collins, who had summoned him to Collinsport from his congregation in Salem. This storyline was one of the most ambitious projects attempted by daytime television. Far from the standard assemblage of conservative suits, women’s ready-to-wear and lab coats required by other daytime serials of the late 1960s, costume designer Ramse Mostoller had to coordinate 1795-period clothing for all the principal actors plus numerous day players.

  The new storyline had a simplicity and power that swept the characters through the following five months of the 1795 time period. Angélique, jealous because Barnabas has spurned her and still intends to marry Josette, casts a succession of spells. These lead Josette and Barnabas’ young uncle, Jeremiah, to a secret marriage. According to the 18th century code of honor, Barnabas challenges Jeremiah to a duel and kills him, leaving Josette a widow. Angélique determines never to use her occult powers on Barnabas; he must marry her of his own free will. After a series of dirty tricks, she achieves her goal. But Barnabas discovers the truth about his wife’s hellish hobby. In a rage, he shoots her. Angélique, convinced that she is dying, screams out the fateful words “I set a curse on you, Barnabas Collins. You will never rest...” She adds an even more fateful codicil “And you will never be able to love. Whoever loves you will die. That is my curse - and you will live with it through all eternity!”

  Evoked by her curse, a vampire bat swoops into the room and attaches itself to Barnabas’ throat. Later, Angélique is filled with remorse and attempts to reverse her malediction. She is unsuccessful. The love between Barnabas and Josette blooms again in a bittersweet scene as Barnabas dies.

  Barnabas is now a vampire and despairingly explores the dark dimensions of his new life. He learns of the ramifications of his bloodlust by attacking doxies on the Collinsport docks. When he learns he is condemned to suffer this curse for all eternity - and that he is capable, by draining the blood of another, of passing the curse along, he determines that his beloved Josette will join him in the twilight existence of the undead.

  At first, Josetteis delighted by the apparition of Barnabas and all too willingly follows his lead, never questioning the strangeness of his new existence. Barnabas slowly begins to drain her of her blood while planning their future together.

  Angélique has other ideas. She lures Josette to the heights of Widows’ Hill and shows her a ghastly apparition of her future. Horrified by this depiction of her future, Josette runs from Barnabas and, with nowhere else to go, falls off the cliff to die shattered on the rocks below. Barnabas, despairing, tries the impossible - to summon Josette back from the dead. And her ghost shows up on schedule - an apparition bearing all the scars and mutilations resulting from her fall to the rocky cliffs below Widows’ Hill.

  Barnabas’ father, Joshua, finally learns the truth about his son. Determined to cover up this blot on the good Collins name and unable to kill his own son, he makes a fateful decision. Barnabas is chained into his casket for all eternity, or so Joshua Collins believes.

  Victoria Winters, accused of Angélique’s witchcraft, is persecuted by Reverend Trask. She is tried, convicted and sentenced to hang. By a time paradox that occurs just as Victoria is literally at the end of her rope, she is returned to her own time.. And the Dark Shadows audience is returned to the present with her.

  When Every Day Was Opening Night: The Technical &Creative Conjuring of Shadows

  Below the second floor production offices, rehearsal rooms and dressing rooms lay the studio containing the Collinwood sets. In a space described by producer Robert Costello as “barely the width of a Saltine cracker box,” Dark Shadows’ production staff had to assemble the rambling Collinwood estate, the ornate Old House and the surrounding village of Collinsport.

  “The studio was narrower than any room,” recalls Ken McEwen, assistant director. “In many instances, we had to move crab-like from one end of the studio to the other. The camera operator had to move very quietly. All the time we had between one scene and the next was fade-to-black.

  “To shoot in inaccessible areas, we used mirrors to reflect scenes back to the camera. The camera would capture the scene in the mirror’s reflection, so we could get certain shots where we couldn’t maneuver the camera. This was an innovation that was thrilling to us.”

  Despite the close quarters, a creative backstage feeling prevailed. Grayson Hall recalled, “There was no deadweight on Dark Shadows. Everyone worked damned hard and gave a lot of creative juice to each show. I don’t know if it was D.C.’s careful selection or just good luck, but in my opinion, no one phoned in a performance or showed up just for the paycheck.”

  There were over 60 people who brought Dark Shadows to life every weekday—the producer and assistant, the director and assistant, the actors,the make-up artists Vincent Loscalzo and Dennis Eger, costume designers Ramse Mostoller and Mary McKinley, wardrobe mistress June Puleo, technical director, J.J. Lupatkin, stunt coordinator Alex Stevens, hairdressers Edith Tilles and Irene Hamalain, video engineers Ross Skipper, Rudy Piccarillo and Nicholas Besink, lighting directors Mel Handelsman and Everett Melosh, sound effects men Bernard Fambrough and Terry Ross, and many others.

  Dark Shadows had a shift of stagehands who labored through the night building the complex sets. Usually there were four or five sets for the different scenes in the episode. Among these were the foyer (complete with Barnabas’ portrait, the staircase and the grandfather clock), the drawing room and the Old House sets. The initial sets were designed with such intricate detail by Sy Tomashoff that when Dark Shadows changed from black and white to color, Sy was not sent into a cold panic. He’d been envisioning the program in color all along.

  “We just tried to make a set that would serve the purposes of the show,” Tomashoff explained. “We had no particular reason for incorporating a secret door into the living room, but it later turned out that Barnabas entered through there, and many other mysterious visitors.

  “The first two sets we put in were the foyer and the drawing Room. That took the majority of the time, a
lthough we designed all of the sets at one time. I had an assistant who would draw plans from my sketches. The shop had to start working within that six weeks and finish the entire batch of 15 sets by the time we wanted to shoot.” Later, other sets were constructed a month or so ahead of scheduled use and stored in a warehouse when not needed.

  Once the sets were assembled, the technicians would dress them with atmosphere, giving them an eerie ambiance with whatever headstones, peat moss, and cobwebs were appropriate for the day’s show. The cobwebs, as Kathryn Leigh Scott remembered, “spun out like a sticky glue and smelled like bubblegum.” They dried into a substance that could be balled up and bounced to great effect. Technicians had to be careful that young David Henesy or Grayson Hall’s young son Matt hadn’t peeled one off for a game of “Super Ball.”

  The actors and production staff arrived by 8 AM each day. Prior to rehearsal, the day’s director would meet with the technical and lighting directors and discuss the placement of the boom, cameras, and key lights. Each director had already drafted a camera shot board which mapped out the scenes for the day.

  At precisely 8 AM the cast assembled in the second floor rehearsal hall for the morning’s “dry” rehearsal. The sets for the show had been carefully diagrammed on the floor with different color tapes - i.e., yellow tape for the Old House and red tape for the Blue Whale. As with all rehearsals, common objects were used in place of the props which would later be used in taping. Metal folding chairs served as everything from a coffin to a couch. The director’s pencil might be a knife; a styrofoam cup might serve as Josette’s music box.

  During this session, actors would have their only quiet time of the day to concentrate on refining their performances. The actors and director would work together to clarify and perfect the emotional and dramatic content. For many actors simply moving through the script and associating words with action during the rehearsal process helped them to learn their lines.

  The hour breakfast break was at 10:30 AM. Some of the cast actually ate breakfast; others would use the time to study their lines. Some would have Vinnie Loscalzo apply their makeup to avoid the later rush.

  Whatever the activity, it would come to an end when a voice announced “blocking” over the loudspeaker.

  The blocking rehearsal took place at 11:30 AM. Although the cast could take the opportunity to further polish their performances, this blocking was largely for the benefit of the director and camera operators to establish the camera shots. Dark Shadows normally used three cameras, each framing a different shot: close-ups, a full-length, and a “transmitted” image—the latter used so that the director could see what the respective angles would look like over the actual television screen.

  For a program as highly technical as Dark Shadows, camera marks were essential. “When the werewolf comes through the wall, turn into camera two and scream” becomes an exacting necessity when the werewolf will be “coming through the wall” via Chromakey, which relies on precise camera marks for a successful incorporation of the merged shots. Stop-action was used often and called for equal precision. The camera shot was frozen while the set or the actor’s make-up was altered to suit the illusion; then the camera would resume taping. The effect would be one continuous scene, such as in the sequence during which Barnabas ages. The special effects were the only reasons the cameras were stopped after rolling for the final taping.

  After blocking, the cast’s time was largely their own. Sometime after blocking and dress rehearsal later in the day, each cast member would take his or her daily turn in Vinnie Loscalzo’s make-up chair. “Vinnie’s Room” was small and crowded with his collection of false beards, mustaches, wigs, fangs, masks, grease paints, and bottles of liquid latex.

  Unusual make-up jobs started as early as 4 AM. When Chris Jennings turned into a werewolf in 1968, veteran stuntman Alex Stevens (Frank Sinatra’s regular stunt double) did the strenuous part, tumbling through “glass” windows and rolling around in the stage dirt and peat moss. During the 1897 flashback, when Quentin Collins suffered the same affliction as his descendent Chris, Stevens once again took a turn as resident werewolf.

  Although the writers may have turned Chris Jennings into a werewolf in a matter of moments, the transformation for Vinnie and Alex was a long, demanding process. “Creating a monster is like painting a canvas,” Vinnie said. First a liquid latex base was applied, and over that a clay animal nose; yak hair and rubber werewolf ears were applied with spirit gum. Specially-made hairpieces were attached, followed by a final filling-in of color for the werewolf’s complexion.

  The only feature of Alex Stevens that Vinnie couldn’t disguise was his height, which was was somewhere under five-feet, eight- inches tall. Don Briscoe, the actor who played Chris Jennings, is well over six-feet tall. Actor David Selby easily clears six-feet as well. With all the special effects at their disposal, there was no way to disguise the simple fact that Dark Shadows was the only horror show with a shrinking werewolf.

  Even for the more standard make-up jobs, Vincent made a detailed chart of the make-up for each character. Loscalzo had been an actor as well as an artist, and this gave him a unique perspective for the visual creation of a character. He was also keenly considerate of the damaging effects of stage make-up on actors’ skin. “He took every possible precaution for safety,” recalls Kathryn Leigh Scott.

  At 1:15 PM was the the run-through. Jonathan Frid dubbed this the “stumble-through” and the rest of the cast adopted the term as their own. Most of the cast still wore sneakers and robes. “A good time was had by all,” remembers David Selby. “Rude notes were found in drawers,” Kathryn Scott remembers. “Silly things would be found hanging in closets or stuffed in coffins.” Even though there was a show to be recorded in two hours, the atmosphere was light, though the actors’ attitude toward the work was always serious. Afterward, the actors were given notes on their performances.

  After this time, the leisurely pace picked up. The cast broke for costuming, perhaps leaving wardrobe mistress June Puleo working with a “crooked this or that.” Props would be checked to make sure there were no fingerprints in the dust or that the cobwebs weren’t sagging.

  When the entire cast, in full costume and make-up, assembled for dress rehearsal, the casual atmosphere vanished. The rehearsal proceeded as if the cameras were actually running, since in a little over an hour the show would actually be taped. The cast then passed through Vinnie’s chair one more time for touch-ups.

  Taping commenced promptly at 3:15 and finished at 3:45 for a standard program. The scenes were taped in sequence from start to finish, allowing for commercial breaks and credit rolls. On rare occasions, the cameras had to be stopped for special effects.

  When taping finished, there was always an immediate sense of relief that another episode had been taped all the way through. On good days, this meant no fluffs or falling scenery. On bad days the cast would ask each other nervously if their own goofs had been noticeable. In television production today, mistakes that can’t be mended by another take are hidden on the cutting room floor. Each episode of Dark Shadows had the same risks involved in any live stage performance—except that Dark Shadows’ mistakes were broadcast across the country. As Lela Swift put it, for Dark Shadows, “every day was opening night.”

  Over the years, bloopers have become a favorite indoor sport for fans of Dark Shadows: finding the wonderful flubs that ran the gamut from the barely noticeable to the huge and humiliating. It might be a technical matter, such as the camera lens swinging into view or the boom microphones dropping into the shot. Or the wobbling trees and candles that refused to blow out on cue. As talented and careful as the production staff was, just as actors go up on lines, the crew occasionally missed the mark.

  One day Louis Edmonds forgot he still had one more scene to shoot. The actor had left the set for his dressing room to remove his costume.

  “I’d pulled down my britches,” Louis recalls, “and I was loosening my tie when Bob Costello
flew up the stairs in a rage and said, ‘You’re not through yet!’ and I said, ‘Hold the tape!’ I said that all the way down the stairs, ‘Hold the tape! Hold the tape! Hold the tape!’”

  And so the scene was taped with Roger standing at the mantel, a characteristic sherry glass held suavely in his hand. The camera framed him from the waist up, never disclosing that the only clothing Edmonds was wearing below his carefully-buttoned dress shirt was his underwear.

  There were collapsing sets, sinking gravestones—Roger Davis nearly kicked one over—and a stagehand trying to close a door while the audience watched Barnabas quarreling with Angelique.

  Often the final credits were taped using the Collinwood foyer as a backdrop. “The foyer set had a door that supposedly led to Mrs Johnson’s quarters,” Jonathan Frid recalls. “We used to have a little dressing room there if we had changes from one set to another and I used to use that room occasionally. Usually the crew had this area roped off when they were using the set as the background for the credits. But they didn’t think to rope off the little dressing room back there. I didn’t know, and as soon as I came through I heard them say ‘Get back!’.” But by then, it was too late. “The audience watches the credits pass by, and I’m seen walking out in street clothes, Barnabas’ suit in hand.”