The promotion of Dark Shadows expanded in 1968 to include merchandising. There had been trickles .of this as early as 1966 when Dan Ross, known as a “one-man Gothic romance industry,” began to write a series of Dark Shadows novels for Paperback Library. Ross, the “most prolific author of all time,” had written under a dozen names, including Marilyn Ross, the name used for the Dark Shadows books. Everyone who grew up waiting breathlessly for the latest to arrive at the bookstore (and they did arrive with gratifying regularity), had no idea that Marilyn Ross was actually a Canadian gentleman who had written everything from westerns to volumes on agnosticism and religion.
There were 32 Dark Shadows novels in all. The first four covers released had illustrations rather than photographs. These early books are especially valuable today as scarce memorabilia because they were replaced with editions of the same books featuring photographs of Jonathan Frid and Alexandra Moltke. The early books concentrated on Victoria and Barnabas; the later ones focused on Barnabas and Quentin Collins. The last several books in the series are among the hardest to find and bring even higher prices than the earlier ones at collector’s auctions because the print runs were reduced.
While the paperbacks were going strong with teenage and older Dark Shadows fans, Western Publishing Company (Gold Key/Whitman Comics) marketed a series of Dark Shadows comic books for the younger aficionados. There were 35 comic books in the series, featuring fair-to-good storylines and poor-to-mediocre artwork. Oddly enough, 26 of these were issued after the show’s cancellation. In addition to the comic books, there was a regular Dark Shadows comic strip syndicated to major dailies all over the U.S. This began, surprisingly, as the show was nearing cancellation and would run several months after the series had left the airwaves.
Dark Shadows is often credited with starting the still popular trend of magazines focused entirely on daytime fare. There are several such magazines on the news-stands today. Their precursor was Afternoon TV, which debuted with a color portrait of Barnabas and Vicki on its cover. While the show ran, the magazine faithfully carried biographies of almost every major actor to appear on Dark Shadows.
Merchandising was not limited to the print medium. There were Viewmaster reels, gum cards (the famed green and red sets), Quentin postcards, the Barnabas wrist watch, the Barnabas ring, the glow-in-the-dark Barnabas poster, magic slates, the Barnabas mask, plastic werewolf and Barnabas Collins models, jigsaw puzzles, and the more-than-simply-ugly Barnabas pillow (which thankfully didn’t glow-in-the-dark). There were two board games: “Dark Shadows” and “The Barnabas Collins Game.”
Probably the most sought-after Dark Shadows collectable is a four-inch plastic music box, a replica of the one Barnabas gave to Josette. When the “gold” lid is lifted, it plays Josette’s Theme. In 1970, the gadget was available by mail order from Paul Randolph Associates and was priced at a then-steep $3.95 (plus 25-cents postage and handling). As a collectible, it is now often sold for several hundred dollars at auctions.
Dark Shadows was also immortalized in wax. The Musée Conti, in New Orleans’ famed French Quarter, included an exhibit of Angélique about to stake Barnabas in his coffin as part of its horror waxworks show.
1968 was a year of growth and a time of profound change for Dark Shadows. As Dan Curtis began to have secret negotiations with bigwigs at MGM, his staff was also looking for a new monster, one with the drawing power of Barnabas Collins. The werewolf Chris Jennings had been popular—the werewolf special effects had been some of the best. Another werewolf, they decided, or maybe a ghost. Sam Hall and Gordon Russell began to flip leisurely through their Rolodex listing classic horror themes instead of addresses.
At the same time, Alexandra Moltke—three years into her five-year contract—was beginning to complain about her diminished role in the series. “Victoria is so dumb,” she protested. “All I do is stand around saying ‘I don’t understand what’s happening.’ Jonathan has hypnotized me into eloping with him, tried to cut off my boyfriend’s head to stick on that goofy monster they made, even sent me hundreds of years into the past during a seance. And I still haven’t figured out that he may not be quite normal.”
Always unhappy with the limitations of her role, Alexandra had requested many times to be given another character to play, a villainess, or at least someone with a dark side. That opportunity was never to arrive. Moltke, Curtis’ shy ingenue, had quietly married a young lawyer named Philip Isles, who was affiliated with his late grandfather’s company Lehman Brothers, and revealed that she was expecting.
Virginal heroine Victoria Winters is pregnant? That would never do!
She was released from her contract. And so the young lady whose soft voice had first entreated us to follow her on her journey left Collinwood for good. Even though Ron Sproat had slanted the plot to reveal Victoria as Elizabeth’s illegitimate daughter, this storyline was never used. Alexandra left Victoria as much a mystery as ever. There were two attempts to replace Moltke. Betsy Durkin filled the role for a few weeks, Carolyn Groves for a few days. They were never really accepted by the audience.
More than ever Dark Shadows needed new monster blood.
David Selby had just quit Southern Illinois University, barely shy of a PhD in Theatre. Having lost interest before in business college, he was about to abandon his second career goal—acting—to accept a secure teaching position at Brooklyn College. For seven years his wife “Chip,” an English teacher, had supported their lean times, allowing her husband to pursue his dream of being an actor. By 1968, the Selbys were about to start a family and needed a sane world with regular income. David had been raised in Morgantown, West Virginia, where every generation of his family had worked the in mines. He had learned what it took to survive from his grandfather: “You have to go where the coal is.” In 1968 the coal for the young Selby family seemed to be at Brooklyn College.
Jonathan Frid’s academic career had been interrupted by fate—in the form of Dark Shadows. Now it was Selby’s turn. When he heard about the cattle call for a new Dark Shadows character, he doubted that, with his soft West Virginia accent, there would be any place for him among the creatures inhabiting Collinwood.
“But I just naturally wandered over to the studio and met the casting director,” Selby reflects. “He immediately spotted me for a ghost type. I was tested right then and there and got the part. You read about those things happening to someone else, but somehow you never really believe them.”
On December 9, 1968, the handsome ghost was introduced to Dark Shadows. Though he was made up more menacing than sensual, it was the sensuality which would draw the most notice from the audience.
Dark Shadows had introduced the character whose immense appeal would come close to eclipsing that of Barnabas Collins—Dark Shadows had just introduced the ghost of Quentin Collins.
A Werewolf with a PhD, A Vampire in the Whitehouse& A Count Without His Unicorn: 1969
The Turn of the Screw is a classic Victorian ghost story, a subtle psychological study of the mind of a repressed governess. Her charges are two dreadful children - a brother and sister who have extrasensory abilities and may or may not be under the influence of ghosts. The governess is caught up in the children’s demi-world. Are the ghosts real or a product of their imagination?
Henry James never answers that question.
However, Dark Shadows did - in favor, naturally, of the supernatural.
Elizabeth Stoddard needs a new governess for David, after Victoria Winters disappears. Maggie Evans, despite her background as waitress at the local diner, is chosen. Maggie is transformed from her original, more hard-bitten persona, to that of ingenue-in-residence. Whenever a helpless victim is called for, Maggie Evans will now be front and center.
Two children were needed to fall under the malevolent spell of the ghosts. David Collins (David Henesy) fulfilled the role of the spoiled little boy. For the girl, the writers decided that Tom and Chris’ little sister Amy Jennings (Denise Nickerson) would be a house g
uest at Collinwood. Mrs Johnson’s character echoed the housekeeper in the James novel. And the ghosts?
The menacing male figure in that novel is named Quint, now modified to Quentin Collins. The female ghost, in a departure from the novel, is more sympathetic; the ghost of Beth Chavez tries to protect the children but is helpless against Quentin’s evil. Terry Crawford was cast as blonde, fair-skinned Beth Chavez.
“It’s either feast or famine,” Crawford recalls of her acting career. “You wait and wait and wait and audition and wait...” She was offered Dark Shadows, a commercial, and a movie (Sam’s Song with Robert DeNiro) at the same time. She took the movie. A few months later, the Dark Shadows casting office called again, with a different role, and she was cast as Beth. “Being a part of Dark Shadows has been a special part of my life. It has helped to shape my life, to lead me to places I never would have gone. It was a magical show in a magical time. Our particular story—David’s and mine and the children—was very complex but very powerful.”
The storyline was indeed powerful. While exploring the locked-off West Wing of Collinwood, David and Amy discover a disconnected, old-fashioned telephone, with which they start playing a deadly game - telephoning imaginary people. But one of those people turns out to be not so imaginary when a voice answers back. And their possession by the spirit of Quentin Collins begins.
Quentin’s spirit leads them to a blocked-off room. Inside, the cobweb-filled space is a slice of frozen Victoriana. Dominating the room is an ancient gramophone, which would play a ghostly Victorian waltz. This waltz became Quentin’s Theme (Shadows of the Night) and would be Number 13 on Billboard’s Hot 100 by August 1969.
The appearance of Quentin’s ghost was a much-anticipated event. Quentin, in his Edwardian frockcoat, mutton-chop sideburns and blue-eyed intensity, was an immediate success, despite the fact that neither David Selby nor Terry Crawford would speak a word for their first four months on the show.
When the time came for their silence to end, the prospect of dialogue caused David Selby concern over the remnants of his southern accent. “It was months before this guy ever said anything, and then I got so paranoid I thought, well once I finally speak, it’ll be like the silent film days; they’ll fire me.” But David Selby’s truckloads of fan mail would soon rival Jonathan Frid’s for space in the warehouse. And the fan magazines were quick to profit from Selby’s popularity by inventing and promoting a feud between Frid and Selby.In fact, for more than a year Frid had been appealing for a second male lead, to take some of the pressure off his workload. The strain of five ten-hour workdays, with weekends allocated to publicity appearances, was beginning to wear him down. To make matters worse, Dan Curtis was implementing another of his wild schemes - a major movie version of Dark Shadows.
“I said to Dan, you’ve got to get someone else on the show!” Frid recalls. “Another monster to help take some of the weight off me. Far from thoughts of competition, I was delighted when David was hired so I could have a personal life again.”
Selby took well to the production pace of the series, enjoying the peculiar security this particular soap opera gave to its actors. “Sometimes,” Selby said, “we’d kill off characters. But the actors who portrayed them kept right on working - playing other characters. And of course in a show like this nobody really has to stay dead. We can come back as an ancestor or a descendent or a ghost.”
Unaware of the danger in their midst, the people at Collinwood carry on with their own concerns. Chris Jennings continues to battle his werewolf curse, but with new allies—Barnabas and Julia. Barnabas, sympathetic to the similarity of Chris’ plight to his own, enlists Dr Hoffman in an attempted cure. And Elizabeth, under a curse, is believed to have died and is buried alive.
“Sometimes other commitments of the actors would change the story,” remembers writer Ron Sproat. “Once, when Joan Bennett was in the thick of the storyline, she was offered a play in Chicago that she really wanted to do. We had to find way to get rid of Liz for a while, but keep her alive and have people talk about her while she was gone. So Dan Curtis came up with the curse storyline for her, in which she seems to have died. Liz is buried alive in a coffin in a bell tower, and if the bell in the tower rings, she wants to get out. Naturally, it didn’t ring. Another time Louis Edmonds left to play Cyrano, so we wrote in some disaster that kept him out of several episodes. If all else failed, we sent characters to Portland, Maine, on business.”
Joel Crothers, another original cast member, decided to join the cast of Secret Storm. Crothers recalled, “Joe Haskell had been made into too colorless a character, so the writers created a more interesting character named Quentin.” Joel found the role of Quentin intriguing and would have preferred a similar role. “But I had such an honest face...”
The loss of two of Dark Shadows’ more popular performers—Alexandra Moltke and Joel Crothers—in such a short period of time called for a revision in the storyline. “Thank heavens we had Selby to take up the slack,” one of the directors commented years later. Curtis, Hall, Russell and the rest of the staff decided that—with Selby’s mail having reached 5,000 letters a week—it would be a good time to “try the time travel schtick again.” It was decided that, just as Victoria Winters traveled back into Barnabas’ past, Barnabas would be thrown into Quentin’s past.
But before the time travel sequence can begin, the 1969 mystery deepens. The children are completely enthralled by Quentin’s ghost. Quentin recognizes the werewolf Chris Jennings as his own great-great-grandson and attempts to kill him by poisoning his wine. Beth comes to Chris’ rescue and discloses a hidden burial site, complete with the coffin of a baby. Meanwhile, young David—under Quentin’s influence—tries to murder his father by stringing a wire across the staircase.
Barnabas, as always, suspects supernatural influences; and at his request Professor Stokes attempts the exorcism of Quentin. The ghost proves stronger, and instead drives the entire family from Collinwood. They seek refuge at the Old House. Fortunately Barnabas is free of the vampire curse at this time and won’t have to answer embarrassing questions about what occupies his days or why he keeps a coffin in the basement!
The storyline climaxes with a replica of the final moments of The Turn of the Screw. Maggie Evans confronts Quentin and begs David to resist the ghost and return with her to reality. The child drops dead at her feet. Killing a child, even for Dark Shadows, was a soap opera no-no. There was only one solution. Barnabas Collins would have to go into the past to change history and bring David back to life.
With Julia and Stokes watching, Barnabas decides to confront Quentin’s ghost via an I Ching trance. Instead of the hoped-for confrontation in 1969, Barnabas finds himself a vampire again, locked in a chained coffin - in the year 1897.
The 1795 sojourn had firmly entrenched Barnabas in the audience’s affections. The year 1897 would advance the plot by explaining the tragic past of Quentin Collins and by fleshing him out from a handsome sinister ghost to a three-dimensional character.
The 1897 sequence is one long, sustained, incredibly complex storyline. A horde of richly conceived and excellently portrayed characters would populate the small screen. For the most part, the story line was free of later inconsistencies. It was during this time that Dark Shadows reached the height of its popularity.
The 1897 sequence began in March, 1969. By the end of May, Dark Shadows was ABC’s most popular soap, and by late 1969 it was reaching nearly 20,000,000 viewers. Jonathan Frid was still receiving thousands of letters weekly; David Selby got almost as many, and the mail poured in for the rest of the cast as well.
Most of the actors played several different roles, usually including their own ancestors. Jonathan was Barnabas, as always, his 1969 spirit possessing his own 1897 body (which, in the unchanged history of Collinwood, was still firmly locked up in the casket in the mausoleum in Eagle Hill Cemetery).
In 1897, Joan Bennett played Judith Collins, stern spinster and mistress of the house. Louis Edmonds wa
s cast as her younger brother, Edward Collins, upright pillar of society and guardian of the family virtues. The role of Carl Collins, aficionado of practical jokes, was a tour de force for John Karlen. Grayson Hall and Thayer David had a romp portraying Magda and Sandor, two gypsies in residence at the Old House. David Henesy and Denise Nickerson would be Jamison and Nora Collins, Edward’s children.
“My favorite character was Magda,” Grayson remembered. “She was loud, flamboyant and dramatic, with this long black wig and this impossibly brown makeup. You know they say we used more makeup on Dark Shadows than on any other serial. I would not be surprised if it was Magda who made the difference. But I loved it, you see. Thayer and I spent hours trying to get our accents to match.”
Curtis & Co. brought back the phoenix Laura Collins (Diana Millay). In 1967 she was Roger Collins’ wife and the mother of his son David. In 1897, she is married to Edward Collins. And just as she had come back for David, she returns for her children of this time, Jamison and Nora. It falls to Barnabas to rescue them.
The Dark Shadows Companion: 25th Anniversary Collection Page 12
