Alexandra Moltke Isles (Victoria Winters, Dark Shadows)

[Scotty]

Does anyone ever watch 'Dominick Dunne's Power, Privilege, and Justice' on truTV? They take famous scandals and court cases and discuss them.

This afternoon, they were showing the one where Claus von Bulow was accused of causing his wife Sonny to fall into a coma. They should footage of his two attempted murder trials from the 1980s, including scenes where Alexandra Moltke Isles (Victoria Winters from ABC Daytime's Dark Shadows, 1966-1971) was on the stand talking about her affair with Mr. von Bulow.

I've always thought the woman was a little out there, and this just helped to confirm it.

[CSF]

Well, she had nothing to do with the supposed attempted murders.

My family always summered in New England, and I know exactly where the von Bulow summer "cottage" is on Belleve Avenue. I loved Power, Privilege and Justice. I didn't know it still came on. Dominick Dunne came from the same background, he was upper class and from a very privileged family. His daughter, Dominique was actually murdered, which is what inspired Dunne to go in this direction with his work.

Anyway, yeah, I agree, I think Alexandra Isles (or whatever she goes by today) was a little aloof. Although I've never met her, just the impression I get, but I'm sure anyone who was involved with Claus is a little odd. Then again, I never believed Claus was truly guilty, just an easy target. But that's another thread.

[DRW50]

Moltke was only on DS from 1966-1968. She left when she got pregnant, and she was also sick of Vicky having no storyline beyond "I don't understand." I really liked her work as Vicky, she had a real presence and she always gave Vicky backbone, especially in the earlier, pre-Barnabas episodes. They didn't really know what they had until she was gone, as none of the Vicky recasts or replacement Vickis (Maggie, Daphne) were ever quite the same.

She now makes documentaries.

[CSF]

Totally off topic, kinda... Coincidently, the Collin's Mansion, (Collinwood?) is an estate in Newport, RI (how ironic) called The Carey Mansion (originally names Seaview Terrace). It is now part of Salve Regina University, but the house is so cool. You can go and tour the first floor and the grounds if you want. It's on Ruggles Avenue between Ochre Point and Bellevue.

[Scotty]

True, but she a witness for the defense at both trials.

And from what I've read and heard, she never really went to a lot of the DS reunions and fan club events.......but then again neither did Jonahtan Frid. I've always gotten the same impression of him as I have of her....they both seemed rather aloof.

Dark Shadows aired before my time, but I loved watching reruns of it on Sci-Fi several summers ago.

[Scotty]

Yeah....I just listed the DS beginning/ending dates in my post. As for Dommick Dunne, I believe his show is still in production and airing new episodes on truTV. I know the von Bulow episode first aired last year.

BTW, how many Vicki recasts were there after she left the show? I can remember a couple or so from when I caught the reruns on Sci Fi.

[All My Shadows]

There were two recasts after AM left. The first was Betsy Durkin...I think she may have lasted 8 episodes or something like that. Then the second was Carolyn Groves, and she lasted, I think, 3.

ETA: Durkin was in 10, Groves was in 3. Durkin pretty much stuck to the stage in her career and has done interviews recently about her short stint on DS. Groves had a role on Edge of Night a few years before DS and also did some episodic work.

[CSF]

I think she was a wittiness for the prosecution. She carried on an affair with CvB for quite some time and she was called in to testify against him. At least that's what was in Alan Dershowitz's book. It's a very, very interesting high profile case. I just remembered, Sunny von Bulow actually died early December 2008. It would have been 28 year's she was in that coma.

This case just made me think about something related to the decline in soap viewership...

This case was the first televised case and I believe it took place in 1982 and then an appeal taking place around 1984/1985. Does anyone remember if it was preempting soaps back then and if it had any effect on them? O.J.'s case was a nightmare and I wonder if part of the declining viewership had to do with longtime viewers who were turned off because for the second time in 10 years, their soaps were being interrupted for extended periods of time.

[Sean]

Apparently she's chosen not to attend the conventions out of the fear that people would bring up the entire von Bulow business. She did do a lot of interviews for the DS videos and DVDs, and she attended the 35th anniversary celebration staged by the Museum of Television & Radio. I know several stars of the show have mentioned being very close to her to this day. She's apparently BFFs with Nancy Barrett, and she was very close to Louis Edmonds, Joan Bennett, and Grayson Hall before their deaths.

Jonathan Frid attended the conventions regularly until he got into some spat with the festival... apparently one of their videos in the early 90s featured a clip of him performing Shakespeare which he did not grant them permission to include. He finally appeared at one of the conventions a year or two ago. He's apparently pretty distant from most of the cast today, and he tried to distance himself the most from the show after its cancellation.

[Quent]

Wow, it's funny this topic came up. My sister just lent me two "Dark Shadows Reunion" DVDs. I haven't watched them yet, but Alexandra Moltke is not on the 30th Reunion, but she does appear at the 35th Reunion. I loved her as Victoria Winters, especially when she went into the past. Supposedly, the one actor everybody disliked was Roger Davis, who played Peter Bradford (and married Jaclyn Smith in real life). I have no idea why.

[All My Shadows]

Because he was/is creepy as [!@#$%^&*]. From what I understand, even when he appears at fan events, many fans are turned off by him. He's just weird.

[DRW50]

I don't know why either, but I couldn't stand watching him on the show. I read that movie book where KLS published her on-set diary for House of Dark Shadows and there was some hilarious trashing of him, like her saying she heard they were going to pair her with him on the show, and she planned to get fat just so she wouldn't be put oncamera.

They could have done much more with Vicky. I never really cared for any of her love interests (I still wonder what she could have been with Roger), or when she just became the village idiot, but even then she had some great moments of strength, like how willful she was after Barnabas bit her, or when she refused to tell Barnabas about the dream curse because if she did he would die. I also loved the story where Julia hypnotized her with the crystal from a chanelier, as the show had just moved to color and I thought she looked very pretty in color.

[Vee]

Kathryn Leigh Scott once read from her shooting diaries from House Of Dark Shadows, and mentions Curtis' abortive plans to bring Roger Davis back to the show yet again as KLS' love interest, much as he was in HODS. Her reaction was, "why am I being punished?" Almost all the female leads hated him, particularly Alex Moltke.

[Rhiannon]

If anyone gets the network Chiller they occasionally show episodes of the Dark Shadows primetime remake that aired briefly during the 90's. I haven't watched an episode on there yet because every time I've seen it listed on TVGuide it's been on a bit of time. I don't see it on Chiller's schedule as coming up anytime soon. I found out after googling that Hulu.com has episodes of it on their site though.

[Scotty]

I would love to see the 2004 WB Dark Shadows pilot.