Dark Shadows Discussion Thread

[vetsoapfan]

 

I agree. AM was not necessarily the best actress ever to appear on the show, but she had a certain "something" that drew you in. Joan Bennett occasionally looked bored out of her mind, LOL, but she, too, had a certain charm and charisma, and I always enjoyed watching her.

[applcin]

I watched parts of it because I didn't want to be spoiled much with stories I haven't seen yet, although I did have a question. The actor that played the first Willie (James Hall?)...did he return to play another part? If not, he was on the show so briefly.

Mitchell Ryan looked so frail. I didn't even recognize him right away and I have seen him through the years. 

David Henesy was a pretty good child actor. The stuff they gave him to do was pretty out there and, when he was involved in story and not MIA, he had a ton of dialogue. He did better than some of the adults. Heck, I wondered what he and his family thought when David had to climb into a coffin, lol. Unless I missed it, which is possible, did he mention Louis Edmonds at all? Everybody seemed to really love Louis and they did play father and son.

I'm up to Oct. 67 now, Burke's plane crash. This show has so few younger men or romantic potentials anyway, age appropriate or otherwise, and they keep killing them or sending them away. And the way they play out time is funny. On the one hand, Maggie's "two week" disappearance (that made no sense at all even in their time frame) to me seemed like it took a couple of months, at least. (It may have, I didn't track start to end.) At other times, characters jump from one location and time of day to another in the next scene. I don't remember who it was (or even if it was about DS or The Doctors) who said on one of these interviews that there are only 5 of the main players on per day and I find myself sometimes counting them, lol.

I was researching a bit and read about the NABET strike that resulted in the departures of Robert Gerringer and the first actor playing the cemetery caretaker. The new caretaker looks like Larry Hagman in old man makeup. And why did they have him play Woodard's ghost instead of that actor?

I've been wondering, for anyone in the know, with some of these fairly long (by today's standards, at least) periodic absences from the screen of the various actors--Louis Edmonds, Joel Crothers, David Henesy, Nancy Barrett--was that more often because the actors were involved in other projects or because  they just weren't being written for at the time?

BTW, I love Julia showing Vicky Barnabas in his coffin while Vicky's hypnotized: "never forget and never remember." So, basically, be creeped out by the guy but have no idea why!

 

Edited November 3, 2020 by applcin

[BuckyB12]

Poor Joan thought she was going to be the star of the show, but once the character of Barnabas took off, and the mystery of Paul Stoddard was solved, she rarely had much to do. I think she generally had more fun in the other time periods, where she got to play other characters. My own favorite was Flora in 1840, the flighty lady novelist who didn't resemble Elizabeth at all.  Judith was fun too, particularly when she turned on Trask and was no longer a victim.

[DRW50]

 

He didn't, no.

[vetsoapfan]

 

Well, she was paid $1000.00 a week, a huge sum back then, so no matter how bored Bennett was, or whom she got to play, she was well compensated.

[Mona Kane Croft]

It's interesting that so many of the actors we assume were on-contact, spent so much time away from the show. Sometimes weeks and weeks. Were contacts different back then?  Do you think the contract actors were paid, whether or not they were appearing on the show?  Or maybe they were not on contract at all.  Does anyone know?

Edited November 3, 2020 by Neil Johnson

[Mitch]

She had the best of both worlds..hopefully she was already set from her past career and she could be part of this goofy, fun show popular with a new younger audience and get paid nicely to dress up and have fun..at least I hope she thought of it that way!

 

I always thought soaps today should do that. then we wouldnt get the repetitive desperate storylines to keep characters like Reva and Josh front and center..just let them do something else for a bit and let the show and the characters have time to breathe!

[Vee]

I met Louis Edmonds not long before his death at my one and only DS convention in the 90s; I was super into it when I was a kid. At that time I already watched AMC and knew he was supposed to be on it, but had yet to see him more than once onscreen because he was already quite elderly. He seemed very frail when we met so I made a point to tell him I thought he was the coolest. He gave his companion a droll look and said, "I'm the coolest."

[applcin]

I wish Robert Gerringer had gotten to play the final shows of Woodard's discoveries and death. It would have packed more of a dramatic and emotional punch. Instead, it just felt kind of hollow.

They had some weird cameramen on this show. Zooming in and out abruptly, panning the room when dialogue is going on. Sometimes it's like FUI...filming under the influence. Add it to all the cameras and mics in view and shadows of cameras and poles holding fake flying bats, guys coughing. And I particularly liked Anthony George coming out of the door at the top of the Collinwood stairs, only to be told to do it again, so back in he went and came out again. 

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[Vee]

Yeah, the Woodard recast was such a nebbish weirdo.

Edited November 4, 2020 by Vee

[DRW50]

 

He did deliver what is probably my all time favorite Dark Shadows line. 

 

"I saw your sister Sarah today."

 

<dramatic music and zoom in on Barnabas as he tries not to freak out> 

[amybrickwallace]

 

Awww, that's great.

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[danfling]

I have been thinking for a number of years about the absences of some of the Dark Shadows stars, and I wonder if some of the stars we think of as stars of Dark Shadows actually were working on the show without formal contracts.

 

These are the performers that I think were under contract:   Joan Bennett, Alexandra Moltke, Nancy Barrett, Joel Crothers, Mitchell Ryan, Thayer David (later in his run), Grayson Hall, Jonathan Frid, John Karlen (after he was cast as Carl Collins), Katheryn Leigh Scott, Kate Jackson, Donald Briscoe, Christopher Pennock, Craig Slocum

 

 

I am speculating that these performers did not have contracts:  Clarice Blackburn, Dennis Patrick, Jerry Lacy, Conard Fowlkes, Hugh Franklin, Diana Millay (or maybe she had one for a short time), Donna Wandrey,,Terry Crawford Humbert Allen Astredo, Elizabeth Eis, Dennis Patrick, Christpher Berneau, Virginia Vestoff, Gene Lindsey, James Storm, Addison Powell

 

Diana Millay, John LaSalle, and Robert Gerringer may have had shorter contracts.

 

These are performers that I am not sure about:  Louis Edmonds, Michael Stroka, Marie Wallace, Keith Prentiss, David Ford (probably had one, but I am not sure), Denise Nickerson

 

I know that Dennis Patrick said that he did not have one on any of the soap operas he appeared (Dark Shadows, Somerset, The Secret Storm).   I could also tell from some of Lara Parker's comments on The Tonight Show that she did not know when she was being broght back to the show.   (I think that she must have signed a contract around the time that she and Sky Rumson married.)  Michael Stroka's contract may have expired.  Clarice Blackburn and Jerry Lacy kept appearing on other shows but returning to Dark Shadows, so I do not think that they had contracts.

 

I may be all wrong about this, but I think that many of the performers had only verbal agreements to appear.

[Mona Kane Croft]

 

I believe you are correct.  I would even go further to suggest some of the actors you list as having contracts, likely did not.  I doubt Briscoe, Karlen, or Pennock had contracts.  And although Joan Bennett almost certainly was on contract, her guarantees of episodes must have been extremely low, considering she was often gone for weeks at a time.  Maybe Edmonds also had a contract with very low guarantees. 

As you speculated, perhaps some of the other actors had short-term contracts -- maybe 4-months or 6-months.  But I think many/most of the actors on DS probably had no contracts at all.  Maybe they just had a verbal agreement not to work on any other shows, while they were appearing on DS.  I don't remember any other soap operas of the era that had such a merry-go-round of actors, some of whom were gone for weeks or months before returning.    

[DRW50]

 

I guess we'll never know, but I get the feeling Edmonds left in the show's last 6 months or year. He mostly just makes a handful of appearances from then on - not many in the Daphne/Gerard story, only in 1840 long enough to be killed off after a few weeks, and then only in one or two flashbacks for 1841PT.