Downloaded from YTS.MX
[knocking]
- Yes?
- I'd like to see Mrs. Stoddard, if you'd be so kind.
Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX
- Mrs. Stoddard.
- This is Collinwood, isn't it?
- Yes.
- And the mistress here is Mrs. Elizabeth Collins Stoddard,
is she not?
- Yes.
- Then perhaps you'd do me the courtesy
to inform Mrs. Stoddard that her cousin is calling
and wishes to pay his respects.
- Her... her cousin?
- Yes, her cousin from England.
- From England. Oh, please come in.
- I'd be delighted, thank you.
[doors click shut]
- Oh, would you like to wait in the drawing room?
- Here will be fine, thank you.
Oh, madam...
if you would, you may tell her that it's
Barnabas Collins.
[eerie music] ♪♪
[uptempo stringed music] ♪♪
Go.
You also allowed your friend Jason
to follow you to the cemetery.
♪♪
You're were cold. - No.
No! - You deserve to die!
[woman screaming]
- No!
[woman screaming]
[light piano music] ♪♪
- [V/O] Actors never know what role
might make them famous.
One of the great ironies of 20th century pop culture
is that a classically trained Canadian actor
took America by storm,
with his portrayal of a 175 year old vampire.
The show was Dark Shadows.
Saved from cancellation in 1967
when it introduced Shakespearean actor Jonathan Frid
into the story line as Barnabas Collins.
Multimedia's first sympathetic vampire.
The iconic image of Frid as Barnabas Collins,
adorned comic books and paperback gothic novels,
bubble gun cards and even a board game
complete with coffin.
- He plays Barnabas Collins. Here's Jonathan Frid.
[audience applause]
- [V/O] He appeared on Merv Griffin, Mike Douglas,
Dick Cavett and The Tonight Show.
No television show seemed safe from the vampire's shadow.
[audience cheering]
- And might I remind you, it's one question at a time.
I'll give you two minutes to try and establish the identity
of our mystery guest.
[audience cheering]
And we're begging the questioning with Arlene Francis.
- I never heard such a happy audience.
Uh... and it sounded like a lot of young voices.
Are you particularly appealing to the young?
- Yes.
[audience cheers]
- [V/O] Overnight, Frid became rock star famous
with screaming teenagers thronging
to his personal appearances like he was one of the Beatles.
Today, five decades after Dark Shadows went off the air,
in April 1971,
the show is still a pop culture touchstone.
But what was the appeal of Barnabas Collins,
and who's the man behind the vampire's cloak?
- Night is drawing nearer and nearer to Collinwood.
And the man who disappeared into another night
has not been found.
But out of the falling dusk another man has come.
A stranger who is not a stranger.
A man with a face who is long familiar
to those who live at Collinwood.
A man who has come a great distance.
But who still bears deep within him
a soul shaped by the far country from country from which he came.
- Where's your home, Jonathan? Originally?
- I'm from Hamilton, Ontario Canada.
[audience applauds]
I didn't know you had so many Canadian's.
- [V/O] John Herbert Frid was born on December 2nd, 1924.
The third and youngest son of Flora McGregor
and Herbert Percival Frid.
The family owned and operated Frid Construction.
One of the leading construction firms in Hamilton.
The Frid family also supported the development of parks
and green spaces throughout the city
and neighboring communities.
- I knew H.P. a little bit
as he passed away when I was about seven years old,
but I do remember him.
Very quiet, laid-back, very gentle man.
- My grandfather and then my father
who took over the construction company,
were the business men,
and my grandmother was the P.R. person.
She would entertain all of the clients.
She was the life of the party.
The belle of the ball.
- [V/O] Jonathan and his brothers spent summers
at his maternal grandparent's sprawling estate in Waterdale.
It was called the Clunes.
Named after his grandmother's childhood home in Scotland.
The property included a pond, and seven cottages.
While his mother Flora hosted garden parties,
Jonathan enjoyed recreational time with his cousins,
away from his rigorous studies at school.
- The first time I was ever nervous of acting
was simply getting up in the aisle in school
and having to recite a poem in class,
and I would shake with... shiver, fear.
- [V/O] Jonathan's early education took place at
Hillfield School.
An all boys preparatory school.
Jonathan struggled academically at Hillfield,
which caused lingering feelings of low self esteem.
Both Jonathan and his brother Ken suffered from dyslexia,
which was not properly understood at the time.
- I was sixteen.
I begged to be in the senior play,
because usually the only people that were in it
were drafted into it.
Because they were in the top six smart students in the class.
The top-- The top two classes.
And of course, I was never in the top six.
However, they tested me and gave me the roll
as Sir Anthony Absolute in Sheridan's The Rivals.
We used to rehearse those things for six to eight weeks.
And I don't think I did any studying at all for those weeks.
All I did was to perfect--
To get that roll down to such perfection.
- [V/O] Jonathan spent so much time working on The Rivals,
he failed two subjects.
Which meant he would have to repeat his Junior year
at Hillfield.
Instead, he moved to Westdale Collegiate
for his Senior year of high school.
There he was cast as King Charles II
in a comedy entitled, So To Bed,
but he also began to look for other opportunities
to be on stage.
- We're at The Players' Guild of Hamilton.
And I, at this point in time, run the costume department
in this theater.
Jonathan enjoyed a wonderful few years here.
He was seventeen years old when he first came to the Guild.
Gladys Gillian was the director that really caught
Jonathan Frid's imagination, and helped him
to further hone his abilities on the stage.
She was an American.
Her stories about New York probably planted the seeds
for Jonathan's decision a little later in life
to go to the States.
Jonathan went to McMaster University.
He belonged to the drama club, of course.
He decided to call Gladys,
because he had such a good experience with her
at The Players' Guild.
And he invited her to direct a couple of plays at McMaster.
The Royal Family and The Barrett's of Wimpole Street.
- [V/O] Jonathan's years at McMaster were interrupted
by World War II.
All three Frid brothers entered the armed forces.
Jonathan insisted in the Royal Canadian Navy 1944,
where he was assigned to the H.M.C.S Algonquin.
Fortunately, the Japanese surrendered
before Jonathan would see combat.
Jonathan returned to McMaster where he would become
drama club president
and graduated with the university's
Honor Society Award for drama.
- Then I went to England
and I studied at the Royal Academy.
I didn't complete my course there.
You know how people are when they're young,
they can't wait to start working.
And I went into repertoire down in Kent,
and another repertoire company in Cornwall.
And I finally did a national tour of a West End success
called The Third Visitor,
in which I played an American gangster.
- [V/O] While in England following a performance of
Venus Observed in the West End,
Jonathan met the actor he admired most,
Laurence Olivier.
Olivier counseled the young actor to correct
any technical flaws in his diction.
An essential accomplishment
for an actor serious about the classics.
Jonathan took Olivier's advice to heart.
Jonathan returned to Canada and ventured to Toronto
looking to start his theatrical career in earnest.
He made his Shakespearean debut during the summer of 1951
at the Toronto Shakespeare festival,
directed and produced by Earl Gray.
Eager to enhance his vocal strength
for the great Shakespearean roles,
he attended voices classes at Lorne Greene's
Academy of Radio Arts.
Practice sessions included tongue twister poetry.
- The teeny tine woman opened the teeny tiny gate,
and went into a teeny tiny church yard,
and when this tiny tiny woman had gotten into
the tiny tiny church yard
she saw a teeny tiny bone
on a teeny tiny grave.
There once were two cats at Kilkenny.
Each thought there was one cat too many,
so they fought, and they fit, and thy scratched, and they bit,
till, excepting their nails, and the tips of their tails,
instead of two cats, there weren't any.
- Jonathan came back to the area.
He was part of a production called Asleep of Prisoners.
The production fascinated him because it was held in a church.
Centenary United Church right down town,
in the middle of all the hustle and bustle of Hamilton.
1954 saw Jonathan involved in the Dominion Drama Festival.
The Dominion Drama Festival was actually an organization
made up of a number of other smaller festivals.
The one that Hamilton belonged in was
the Western Ontario Drama League. WODL.
And he was in Rebecca
and they went to the WODL level, and performed very well.
Were called "Best Play",
and Jonathan Frid got a mention for his portrayal.
And they went from there as the best of that festival
to the Dominion Drama Festival.
They found themselves in a 2000 seat theater.
The Palace Theater in downtown Hamilton.
It was unfortunate in many respects
because a number of actors
finding themselves in this huge house,
with this great expanse of stage
started shouting their lines.
The critics were not amused.
Jonathan was mortified that Rebecca was not received better
after its performance at the Palace Theater.
It's a shame because it's probably one of the last
times that he actually performed up here
before he made the decision to go to the States.
- I wanted to be a director at one point in my life,
so I went down to the Yale drama school
and took directing there.
And uh...
But I've never directed yet professionally,
but I want to do it someday.
- I met Jonathan Frid at the Yale School of Drama,
where we were all students there together.
And he was kinda awesome in the sense of a presence
that he had.
It was like meeting an actor
from the Royal Shakespeare Company in terms
of the kind of quality he had of dignity and class, basically.
- When I was at Yale there was a guy
whose name I'd heard before I ever met him.
Uh, John Frid.
And actors... some of them had funny stories
about him and...
I think everybody liked John Frid.
And Jonathan was kind of a classical actor, really,
when I first knew him.
He would be in Shakespeare and so on.
Excellent, versatile actor.
- You had to act.
If you were going to be a director, you have to know
what the emotional and psychological process
of an actor is.
To be able to communicate with them and help them.
- [V/O] After completing the first year
of his Masters program,
Jonathan was chosen to be a leading actor
for the inaugural season
of the Williamstown Theatre Festival,
in Williamstown Massachusetts.
Jonathan would appear in eight of the ten plays,
presented in just ten weeks.
It was a grueling schedule,
but he never the less found it exhilarating.
When the summer season ended,
he headed back to New Haven for his second year at Yale.
- Directors had to cover all fields
from acting to knowing the physics of lighting.
And we had to do ground plans, elevations for stage design,
we had to do all these things.
And so it was really kinda of a marvelous three years for me.
And I'll always be grateful for Yale.
- [V/O] After receiving high praise for his portrayal
of Tulus Ophedius in Shakespeare's Coriolanus
at Yale.
Jonathan was invited to join the acting company
of the American Shakespeare Festival
at Stratford Connecticut.
For two consecutive summer seasons,
Jonathan was thrilled to have the opportunity to work
with a number of distinguished actors,
such as Alfred Drake and Katharine Hepburn.
- I was in a production of Othello with him
at the Stratford Connecticut Shakespeare festival,
and Jonathan came on as a vigorous soldier,
sword at his side,
got to the center of the stage,
and delivered the first three lines
from The Merchant of Venice.
He realized he was in the wrong play,
made a sharp right, stumbled a little,
went to the edge of the stage to leave.
And the set in those days, if you can picture this,
was called the Venetian Blinds,
they went all the way up to the ceiling.
Jonathan in his turn to exit, crashed [laughing]
into the nearest Venetian blind and tried to get away from it,
but his sword had gone in between
the two close together slats there,
and he couldn't jerk it loose.
So I think he finally let it pull out and hang there,
and went off stage.
Somehow, they got on with the rest of the play.
[laughing] Later he said, "I just don't know what happens
with me."
- [V/O] Jonathan joined Hepburn and other members
of the American Shakespeare Festival
following his graduation from Yale.
On a national tour of Much Ado About Nothing.
When the tour concluded, Jonathan settled into
an apartment near Washington Square Park
in New York City.
Despite his interest in directing and teaching,
Jonathan's passion was to act.
- George Rufhogan and I co-produced The Goal
in which Jonathan Frid was in.
It was our first show off Broadway.
Jonathan played the antagonist, though he had that
esthetic weight.
He had a gravitas, you know.
Which was electrifying on stage.
He drew you in.
- "Dear Mother and Dad,
"while the press have been most favorable
"for Moon in the Yellow River,
"the public response has not.
"In fact, it has gone from bad to worse.
"Last week our closing notice went up.
"And so the unemployment situation throughout
the nation will be worsened come next Sunday.?"
"Dear Mother and Dad,
"last week I was called to read for the roll of Ronny
"in the Broadway production of A Passage to India.
"While the audition went brilliantly,
"I think I gave the most flawless reading of my career.
"The producers showed great interest in me
"after it was over.
"I answered their questions precisely
and for once in my life, I didn't talk too much."
"Today the readings were transferred to
"the Winter Garden Theatre.
"What a difference this always makes
"from the comfortable circumstances of a private room.
"Each of us read very briefly.
"One is cut off all too soon.
"No chance to get going,
"only sound quality they want to see.
"And so you walk offstage,
"the half smile to the stage manager.
"And a feeble, 'Thank you'.
"And then a stupid, insincere, 'Good luck',
"to the others you would rather see dead
"as you grab your coat and loose yourself
in the crowded street."
"Well the roll in Passage to India
"finally went to well known actor about town
"called Louis Edmonds.
"It was a sad miss.
I think the biggest disappointment to date."
- Why did he become an actor? Why did he become a director?
It's obviously something that dare possess
to share with the world.
Why would you put up with all the stuff
that you have to put up with?
Unless there's something that obsess you,
that you want to say and share
and that you have to do.
And uh...
You know, being an actor,
you have to share your soul.
- "I took my first Broadway bow last Thursday night
"after going on for an actor I was covering.
"After four performances I feel like a veteran.
"By then I was getting solid laughs precisely timed.
"As I came off the stage Saturday night,
"Betsy Palmer said,
"'You were just plain brilliant tonight. '
"Naturally, I felt glorious.
A moment in which a life long dream was achieved."
"Dear Mother and Dad,
"after a month or two,
"which seem to be stage hard times,
"I'm back in business with contracts signed
"for what could be a comfortably long stay
"at the Phoenix Theatre in Henry iv, Part 2,
"which I am now rehearsing.
"I've only two scenes, but they are good ones.
"I'm playing Scroop, Archbishop of York.
"Also, in May I will be taking over the roll
"of the Earl of Worcester, in Henry IV, Part 1.
"A somewhat larger part, Worcester is the leader
of the apposing forces to the king."
[horn music] ♪♪
- Oh no, my nephew must not know Sir Richard
the liberal and kind author of the king.
- For best you did! - Then have we all undone?
It is not possible. It cannot be that king
should keep his word in loving us.
He will suspect us still.
And find a time to punish his offense and other folds.
Therefore, good cousin,
let knot Harry know in any case the offer of the king.
- Deliver what you will, I will take the fall.
- My uncle has returned. Uncle, what news?
- The king will big you battle presently.
- Defy him! - There's no seeming mercy in the king.
- Did you beg, God forbid.
- The Prince of Wales stepped forth before the king,
and nephew, challenged you to single fight.
- Oh, what the quarrel lay upon our heads,
and that no man might draw short breath today.
But I and Harry Monmouth.
- [V/O] Following the broadcast of Henry IV, Part 1,
Jonathan took his agent's advice,
and changed his stage name from simple John Frid,
to the more imposing Jonathan Frid.
- "Dear Mother and Dad,
"good news this morning, I was called to appear
"on a couple of installments on As The World Turns.
"A soap opera.
"I'm to play a psychiatrist.
"The heroine is apparently in a bad way.
"Not unusual, I guess.
I hope she gets worse, and needs me often."
- Now, I was sitting at home while I was watching this.
I'd never been on a soap before at this point.
The wife has been very ill, and the husband said to her,
"Look, I've called this doctor to come and see you,
he's a psychiatrist."
"I don't want to see any psychiatrist!"
So, he said, "Oh, but he's on his way over here right now."
Good God, I'm supposed to be down at the studio!
He's coming right now.
That's how naive I was. [chuckles]
So finally, when I got that settled,
I think I called them and they said,
"You're not on for a while. Relax."
- We're on the verge of this period,
going into the Kennedy administration,
where culture was like the hula hoop
for a moment of the times.
And the Ford Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation,
and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Then eventually state government started funding
non-profit theaters throughout the country,
so that cities would have their own theater companies
doing the great works instead of just getting Broadway shows
that were touring in or out of New York.
That changed things in the American theater.
- They gave audiences around the country
a chance to come and see professional actors
doing these plays
and that helped spread theater around the country.
- The regional theaters began to pick me up,
and ask me to come out, and offer me nice spots.
Out there in the field I had a wonderful time
playing things out there.
- I met Jonathan in the 60s,
and he was an actor that had been brought in
to play the roll of Oberon Tiresias,
and I played Philostrate Puck.
So my major scenes were with Jonathan.
The production was Front Street Theater
which was a regional theater in the day,
and it was in Memphis.
- So I'm a young actor.
I was about 28, I think. In Philadelphia.
I did two years at Arena Stage in Washington D. C.
Anyway, this company that we assembled,
there was this guy with a great voice,
and he can handle classical material.
He can handle words.
So we did a play by Allen Wi called Poor Bitos,
and he was also in the Sheridan that we did, The Critic.
- [V/O] March, 1965.
"Dear Mother and Dad,
"I'm getting more convinced than ever
"that I'll probably make my mark in this kind of theater.
"Regional theater, Universities,
"rather than in commercial television.
"I feel that I have a flare for one and not the other.
"The encouraging thing is,
that there is so very much work around the country these days."
- The summer before that I had played Coriolanus in San Diego.
So they wanted me to come back, and I thought that was great.
I just said to John, "Do you want to go to San Diego?"
"Why not? Who wouldn't want to?"
So I called him, I said,
"There's a guy here you gotta see."
"You gotta get him. He's good.
Get him before someone else gets him."
Jonathan Frid.
So we did Romeo and Juliet.
And then we went into rehearsal for The Tempest.
They had offered me Caliban.
We had a read through, and I pulled Jonathan aside,
I said, "Jonathan, you want to play Caliban?"
He just lit up. He said, "Yeah!"
And so I told the head of the theater,
Craig Knoll at the time,
I said, you know, "I don't want to do Caliban,
but I'll do Jonathan's Part, and let Jonathan do Caliban."
So everyone was okay with that.
- I was a young actor, want to be actor in San Diego,
and I went to see a production of The Tempest,
and I was taken by this character.
By Caliban.
This guy was passionate, and just very theatrical,
and you can understand him.
And I still remember to this day the performance.
- He had a wonderful season cuz he played Caliban,
and he played the hell out of him.
So then, they asked me to come back and do Iago.
Which I definitely wanted to do,
and I thought I'd see Jonathan there, and that's it.
"What happened?" "Where's Jonathan?"
They said, "Oh, he's doing this TV thing."
I said, "Jonathan gave up Shakespeare
to do some piece of TV?"
"You gotta be kidding."
And it was something called Dark Shadows.
And then the rest is history.
- The plan was to cast a guy that we were going to kill off
in a very short period of time,
but just try and make it as scary as possible.
- And I had just arrived home from a national tour
of Hostile Witness with Ray Moran.
I hadn't even dropped my bags when the phone rang,
and my agent said, "They're looking for a vampire
for a soap opera called Dark Shadows."
And I thought, "Well that's one for the books."
We'll go and read for it and see what happens.
- I was going to London and I left it up to my people
to send me pictures of actors that came in to read
for the character of Barnabas.
And there was one photograph.
There was a guy on a stage, he was wearing a cape.
And so [laughing] even though
I could barely see what he looked like,
I called my casting guy,
a guy by the name of Allen Shane,
and I said, "Who is this guy?"
And he said, "His name is Jonathan Frid,
he's a very fine Shakespearean actor."
"He's a Canadian."
And I said, "He can really act, right?"
And he says, "Oh, yes. He's wonderful."
And I said, "Alright, cast him."
- And one day, this coffin was opened
by Willie Loomis,
who turned into a grave robber,
and he found the secret tomb quite by accident.
He was fascinated by the fact that he saw this coffin
with chains around it.
When he opened the coffin, a hand lunged out,
and got him by the throat.
A day or two later, I made my first real appearance.
- This is no way to great a relative.
Welcome to Collinwood.
- Thank you, cousin.
[eerie music] ♪♪
- And when we put the vampire on,
forget it.
I mean, the ratings went through the roof.
I have never seen anything like this in my life.
- What brought the audience was Jonathan Frid,
who played the vampire Barnabas.
He chose to play him not like a monster,
but like a romantic hero
who has been cursed to have to be someone
who drinks blood to stay alive.
He was always tortured when he had to look for a victim.
You go through the throws of just heart wrenching desolation.
- Well then he became a tragic figure.
And then the women. He--
It just got crazier and crazier.
We had to put on special people to process the mail
that used to come in gigantic truck loads.
- Meanwhile, I wasn't at all satisfied
with what I was doing on the show.
I was very nervous at first, but...
...somehow that played into the roll.
[eerie music] ♪♪
I was a Collins.
Why didn't you protect me?
Where were you when I was turned into something
that even my own father loathed.
If his ghost is here with yours, tell him I've come home.
I claim this house as mine.
And whatever power you or he may have is ended.
I'm free now and alive.
Chains with which he bound me are broken,
and I've returned to live the life I never had.
Whatever that may turn out to be.
[eerie music] ♪♪
Then, when we went back into the past,
I played my pre-vampire days when I was a hero.
A good guy.
- Is the price too high?
- No price is too high for Sara's life.
- Then, if she lives you will marry me.
You will make me your wife.
- I told you, I'd do anything for you
as long as you cure Sara.
I've had many, many situations, and many emotions,
and many moods, and many compulsions to play.
- I'm right where I very much want to be,
in your arms.
- I love you, Josette. - And I love you,
very much.
- What we felt for each other, we could not fight.
- Then you will fight me.
- No.
- No!
- You have your choice of weapon.
- You will not fight.
- The course has made you one of the living dead.
- Then according to the curse, you must die!
- Barnabas, please!
- Yes, my dear, Angelique. - No! No!
- All your powers of witchcraft will not save you now.
Sara, no.
No.
I mean, I played everything.
In this one roll. I've played a dozen rolls.
I mean, it's been a marvelous thing,
because he has so many facets to it.
- Jonathan Frid had the kind of personality
that you don't find in actors,
and that is he was concerned with the other person.
Actors out of necessity are concerned about themselves.
You know, they have to be.
But when you meet someone like Jonathan,
who's just good.
Which is a terrible thing to say about a vampire, [laughing]
but he was.
It's a pleasure.
- You are under my influence. You cannot resist me.
Do you understand?
- I understand.
- And you will never tell anyone about me.
- I will tell no one.
I will never fail you.
Never.
- I think a decade went by and I suddenly realized,
John Frid, Dark Shadows,
he's the king vampire of the show.
Somebody said, "Wouldn't you have John on your show?'
That was my morning show, and I was fairly new to it all.
He came on the show,
and I was looking forward to seeing him again,
but I was out there, in front of the audience,
and he came on with a surprise.
He was fully dressed as Barnabas Collins the vampire,
And his fans went crazy.
Jonathan, I think you've created a monster.
This is Jonathan Frid.
I know you don't want to believe that,
because you want to think it's Barnabas.
Jonathan, welcome. - Thank you, Dick.
- What's the latest development now in Barnabas' life?
- Well... - I know you can speak for him.
- Well all I know at this point really, I'm not a vampire.
- It could be temporary though, couldn't it?
I mean, the spell isn't necessarily, totally--
- Well you see, it all depends on the monster Adam.
As long as he lives, I will be alive.
Somehow or another, don't ask me why,
or how it happens, but some of my life force
is in him, and I think this show
has more medical quackery than any other soap opera.
[audience laughs]
- The first roll I played on Dark Shadows,
I played three different characters,
I played Eve, the most evil lady who ever lived,
and I was created on the operating table by Barnabas,
and Doctor Hoffman.
And the first thing I realized, when I worked with them,
and I was silent, because I was not yet alive,
but I could see them,
was that I was with really talented people.
These were really great actors.
The second thing was,
I noticed Jonathan's cheek bones.
I loved them. They were so high.
I'd never seen cheek bones so high.
And then the third thing,
which was the best part of Jonathan Frid,
the voice.
He had a marvelous voice, and it was fitting.
He was a Shakespearean actor.
- I used my background in Shakespeare.
You know, I've played Macbeth, played Richard III,
who indeed has a conscious himself at the end,
and all these things fed into Barnabas.
Barnabas turned out to be really a very rich,
and satisfying experience.
The only thing I felt frustrated about doing it
was the format of soap opera in those days.
When you did a show every day without stopping.
There were no retakes.
- You need ice water in your veins to do a soap opera,
because you have so little rehearsal.
- I mean, I could learn a script just by reading through it.
And I'd go...
And I knew it.
Some of the veteran actors had more difficulty.
- It was a tough going for me for a long while,
because anything I'd done before that was on the stage,
you have lots of time to learn plays.
And beginning way back when I was a kind in school,
but some of those kids in school where very smart.
They'd know there lines in a week or two weeks,
before I knew mine.
I had a very definite problem with it.
I remember Joan Bennet, that she had trouble
with lines too,
because she was used to having six months instead of a week
to learn that amount of dialog.
I was always looking for someone to help me with my lines,
and she was doing the same thing.
- When we got into the supernatural
and when back into the various periods,
the technical people had a field day.
It was like making a MGM movie every day.
And the only drawback about that was,
that very often we actors felt that we were being slighted
with rehearsal time.
The technical aspect got first priority.
- Oh, we had a camera blocking around 10 o'clock,
and that was after doing the blocking
up in the rehearsal room.
And then we had what we call a "stumble through",
and then we had a dress rehearsal.
- Jonathan would finish a long, long endless speech,
you know, dress rehearsal, and then he would say,
"Or words to that effect." [laughing]
I mean, I knew exactly what he meant.
- So I started off, I was just a nervous wreck,
but I finally got into the rhythm of doing this.
And I was looking at scenes, and it's amazing how
cool I was later on.
I was able to manage those scenes.
- There was never a time, never.
He never made light of what he was going to do.
- Played it completely for real,
and invested in every single moment.
A complete sense of believability,
and we did not camp it up at all.
- You must leave Collinwood tonight.
Please.
You've got to leave Collinwood before it's too late.
Before you get caught. Before...
Before something happens to you.
- No, Quentin,
nothing will make me leave Collinwood now.
Nothing.
You're very kind to worry about me, Quentin.
Well don't.
I'll take care of myself.
- He approached that as if he was doing King Lear.
And that set the tone, I think,
for the company as a whole.
[eerie music] ♪♪
- [grunting] [thud]
- [groaning]
[screaming in agony]
[dramatic music] ♪♪
- [V/O] While some viewers cried,
and others rushed to call ABC TV,
Jonathan was spending his four week hiatus
Playing the roll of Tony Wendice
in the crime mystery play Dial M for Murder.
The production ran for two weeks to sold out crowds
at The Little Theater On The Square
in Sullivan, Illinois.
- He came back and he did say to me,
"Thank you for carrying the load here while I was gone."
[laughing]
But of course I was, I was delighted
to be able to do that.
[coffin creaking]
[ominous music] ♪♪
- It's him.
- Oh God, what's going on here?
What's going on?!
- We welcome to our microphones
Jonathan Frid, ladies and gentlemen.
Have you worked with Olivier? - No.
I wish I had, but no, I haven't.
I mean, he has been my idol all my life.
- What was it like to work with Kate Hepburn?
- I've worked with many stars,
but Hepburn stands out, of course.
She's fabulous off-stage and on-stage.
And I was like any other fan of anybody else.
I mean, I know what a fan feels like
because I had been a fan myself.
- One day I remember going out the front door of the studio,
and there was some school kids there.
A week later it was double the size,
and then quadruple the size,
and suddenly we had a whole street full of kids
who had come to the studio after school to see us.
- So I got to go to the studio,
and on April 17, 1969, I got to meet him,
and my little red scrap book was the catalyst,
because he was fascinated that I had all these magazine articles,
and he wanted to see it.
- I like to say that I am a first generation
Dark Shadows fan,
having discovered it in it's initial run,
and becoming completely obsessed with the show
as a fourth grader.
- It was biggest with kids.
I remember that at one point we moved the show
from 4 o'clock to 3:30.
We got reams of mail saying, "No, no.
My kid can't get home from school to watch it."
And we went back to 4 o'clock.
- My fan loyalty was definitely divided between
Jonathan Frid as Barnabas.
He carried so much tragedy with that character,
and history, and there were so many layers.
And even as a kid, I was just riveted by that.
My other favorite character is the inevitable Grayson Hall
as Doctor Julia Hoffman.
And the two of them together, as the kind of paranormal
ghost busters that they were,
Working together, and time traveling,
and all the adventures that they had.
With the unrequited love angle, I was just completely hooked.
- She won't always be angry, Barnabas,
if you listen to her,
if you don't want what you shouldn't.
- And what is that?
- You think I'm jealous of Vicky, don't you?
Well I'm not. Not at all.
- Jonathan would ask Valerie and I to do
a variety of different things.
We'd go to Grand Central and we would pick out
all the magazines that came out that week,
so he could look at them,
and see what they wrote about him.
- Is your fan mail still unusual?
- Yes, some of it.
Uh, as a matter of fact, I've been very bad
about answering it lately,
so I got a little club together about two weekends ago,
in a studio, and we took over the rehearsal hall
during the weekend, and it was like the post office
during Christmas time.
- And when we walked into that rehearsal hall,
You couldn't even believe what you saw.
There were boxes A to Z,
and then mail bags that were piled high
about five feet in the air.
We never thought that we would get through this mail, ever.
- Jonathan, someone handed me the Grand Rapids Times.
The headline is, "TV Vampire Causes
Grand Rapids Airport Riot."
What-- What have you done?
[audience laughter]
- I took a ten city tour in five days.
Which was kind of rough going.
But the thing about it was, no one really expected
a turnout that we would get in all these airports,
and shopping centers, and things like that.
So there was no kind of organized control of crowds.
We were late getting into Grand Rapids,
and they had a crowd where our plane landed,
and everything got so out of hand that we got kinda nervous.
There was so much uncontrolled chaos,
and so we got the hearse.
My line was getting on top of this hearse.
I was rather... if you pardon the expression, mortified.
[audience laughs]
And, uh...
So anyway, instead of circling around in front of these
thousands of teenagers and so forth,
and a regular commercial airliner
was unloading at that point,
and I was trying to think of their point of view.
Here they were, these thousands of kids,
and this idiot on top of this hearse, with fangs.
[audience laughs]
And what was going on, you know?
What has happened to America?
- And they asked us to come in to this studio,
and record an album.
It was Bob Cobert's music.
- We went over to the studio,
there was never more than two takes.
Most were down to one take.
[eerie music] ♪♪
Midnight,
a hush falls through the melancholy halls of Collinwood.
A solemn moon cast dark shadows over the placid stillness
of the old mansion.
- And the album went on to be a big seller.
It was a hit.
- [V/O] Jonathan was invited by Trisha Nixon
to be the special guest at the White House Halloween Party
for local underprivileged children on Halloween in 1969.
Jonathan always made himself available to support charities,
including the United Cerebral Palsy telethon
in Oklahoma City, Birmingham, Alabama,
and Monroe, Louisiana.
He also appeared on the Jerry Lewis Labor Day
Muscular Dystrophy Telethon.
For Jonathan, it was always about helping the children,
and making them smile.
- When you went to the West Coast, he was at Marine Land,
and appeared with all these different animals.
I don't know why a vampire would be appearing with animals,
but they did that.
And then the pièce de résistance
was him crowning Miss American Vampire
at Palisades Amusement Park.
That was the most hilarious thing you ever saw.
He was there-- It must have been 100 degrees out,
and he's wearing a suit,
and he has to crown this girl that's dressed like Elvira.
That's what she looked like.
- I decided I would try and make a Dark Shadows movie.
I mean, no one's ever done that before.
Lets see if that's gonna work.
Sam Hall and Gordon Russell and myself sat down,
and worked out an outline
where we could do whatever we wanted to do
We did have to worry about perpetuating him,
we could make him a real marauder,
because we could kill him.
- The movie, I thought were too violent,
and did have the charm or the never-never world
of the television show.
- Julia, do you believe in the existence of vampires?
- You're not really serious.
- But he is, Julia.
[man yelling]
- I command you to come to me!
- Barnabas Collins, vampire.
- [V/O] MGM offered Dan Curtis the opportunity
to do a second Dark Shadows film
following the success of House of Dark Shadows.
However, Jonathan was not happy with the depiction
of the character in the first film,
and feared being type-cast.
An insistent Curtis informed his star
that if he had no interest in portraying Barnabas in the film,
he no longer had to play Barnabas on television.
In December 1970,
Jonathan was notified that his contract would be cancelled
at the end of the next production cycle.
Ironically, a few weeks later, ABC cancelled the series.
- There was an ABC executive, very well know Brandon Stoddard,
and I remember he told me years later
that when the show was cancelled,
he asked the guard at ABC to find him an alternate route
out of the building because Dark Shadows fans
came and beseeched him to put it back on the air.
- It's hard to describe the success of that show,
isn't it, John?
- I've really never been able to figure it out
but I'm enjoying it immensely,
but never been able to figure it out.
- I find it a little irritating sometimes
when people talk about Ann Rice creating
the vampire with a conscious.
That is not true.
It was definitely the combination of the writing
of the character of Barnabas Collins,
and Jonathan Frid's absolutely inevitable performance
of that character.
That-- I think that when we thing of monsters,
we think of them as monsters.
That's what we're trained to think of them as,
but Dark Shadows had a human side to the monster.
You got to see what made the monster tick.
And it had been explored in movies before,
like Frankenstein and so forth,
but you really never got to indulge the story telling
the way you do in the format of an on-going daytime serial,
where they're telling five half hour plays a week,
for five years.
Just the way the show blended all of those elements.
Bring in The Turn of the Screw
and Wuthering Heights, and Jane Eyre.
The gothic romance and the gothic horror,
it was an incredible alchemy
that has not been duplicate since, as far as I concerned.
- They brought a very gothic, romantic quality to this roll.
That I guess, will live forever.
- How can I destroy you?
- I am destroyed already.
What you will do is save me.
Free me from this endless torment.
- I can't do it.
- If you are my friend, - I am.
- Then do it. - No.
- Free me.
Give me peace, at last.
Let me return to those at rest.
Do not condemn me to wonder forever in endless agony.
End my torment.
Please, I beg you.
I beg you.
Let me hear you say the words.
"Yes."
Say the words.
- Yes. - Yes.
Yes.
[ominous music] ♪♪
- [V/O] As Dark Shadows drew to a close
in early spring of 1971,
Jonathan was ready for a new artistic adventure.
He found it on the stage portraying Thomas Becket
in TS Elliot's Murder in the Cathedral.
It was a sold out, limited engagement
at the Central Presbyterian Church
on Manhattan's upper East Side.
Jonathan was delighted that several of his
Dark Shadows co-stars attended the show.
Including Joan Bennett, and Louis Edmonds.
New York critics praised his forceful, insightful,
and splendid performance.
He next took on the roll of pathological killer
Harry Roat Jr. in Wait Until Dark
at the Windmill Dinner Theater in Texas.
When Jonathan returned to New York City,
he signed a contract with a management group
that convinced him they could find him quality rolls
in prime time television, and movies.
- And then I did a picture in Hollywood
an ABC movie of the week with Shelly Winters,
The Devil's Daughter.
And I was in Oliver Stone's very first picture.
A group of friends come to this house for the weekend,
and three strangers appear.
I don't know who they are or where they come from,
but they're frightening.
- My first impression of Jonathan was,
"What a lucky thing he's playing my husband",
because he was so gentle and kind,
and good to work with.
He presented himself as a person who you knew you could trust.
You wouldn't let anything happen to Jason.
- No, darling.
Never.
- Oliver decided to have all of us stay in the house
that we were using.
- We were using our own bedrooms for the bedrooms of the movie.
And I got up in the morning, I was to stay in bed
until the cameras came in... [laughing]
I did that one time. Of course, we were all laughing.
But I hadn't-- There was no time for breakfast
or anything anyway so...
The cameras came into my bedroom and started shooting.
[chuckles]
- When we filmed at night
I just remember it being very cold and it was sort of weird.
- [V/O] You'll never run from it.
You can never hide from it.
The breath stopping panic of...
Seizure.
- I think physical horror is boring.
It just bores me to death.
I don't get scared ever. I just get bored.
When I was a kid, I was bored of it.
Horror is people lying to each other.
This inner evil.
Somebody telling a lie to me is more villainous
than anything I can think of.
More horrific.
- [V/O] With the filming of Seizure completed.
Jonathan returned home to New York
when he received an unexpected call.
Dark Shadows, which had been dubbed in Spanish
was now a tremendous success in Latin America.
Jonathan was asked to do a promotional tour in Paraguay.
- And I said, "Well now look,
I will do down there just as an actor."
"I will not go down there, and do any Barnabas numbers."
Because people were always asking me to do that.
And he said, "It's okay."
He hesitated at first, "Well we won't worry about that."
So I went down there,
and I think it was sponsored by the dictator himself.
As a matter of fact, his wife was a great fan of it.
She had a reception for me and everything else
when I got down there.
It was the biggest show in Paraguay.
They even moved football schedules around
to accommodate the Dark Shadows.
They're absolutely crazy about it.
Down there it's Barrrnabas.
And everything was that kind of heavy,
kind of strong, melodramatic thing.
Which sometimes is a good thing.
[actors speaking Spanish]
They did it with such pizazz and strength.
[voice over in Spanish] - Sombras Tenebrosas.
The title has a grander...
Las Sombras Tenebrosas.
- [V/O] Jonathan with his interpreter Eduardo
attended press conferences, receptions
and judged a fashion show.
The last stop each night was a night club
where he found himself waiting for extended periods in the car.
- I'd be sitting in the car
waiting for them to come and get me to come in.
And it'd take forever.
And I finally got mad at them all, and I said,
"What's going on here?"
And he said that they are furious
that you're not here with your costume and everything.
Not only costume, but Barnabas wasn't here.
They said, "Well where's Barnabas?"
And they said, "Well there he is, right there."
"That's not Barnabas."
- [V/O] Whatever the objections,
Jonathan was invited to return to South America
for a press tour in Panama.
This time, he wore the signet ring
and carried the famous wolf's head cane of Barnabas Collins.
By the end of his second South American tour,
Jonathan had become very enamored
with the Spanish language, and wanted to learn it.
He came up with a plan uniquely his own.
- I was for a whole year in Mexico.
Learning the language and going to towns
that guaranteed me there'd be no Americans or Canadians
or travelers.
So I wanted no English, to hear any English.
I had friends that later on said,
"Why didn't you tell us you were gonna be down there?"
"We were down there. We couldn't said hello."
I said, "That's precisely what I didn't want."
I didn't want to hear any English.
It's a fascinating language, and I love the sound of it.
And I love speaking it.
- [V/O] By spring of 1977,
Jonathan, frustrated by his agencies inability
to obtain quality and the type of work he wanted,
chose not to renew his contract.
He was on his own.
The choice most likely had a negative impact on his finances.
But he was firm in his convictions to pursue
his profession on his own artistic terms.
He accepted an invitation to appear on a production
of The Royal Family at Penn State,
University Park, Pennsylvania.
He was delighted to return to the theater
where in July 1965, he had played the title roll
in Shakespeare's Richard III.
- Well my greatest artistic success,
without a doubt was Richard III.
I didn't want to play it as the obvious villain.
I wanted to plumb various character traits
that might not be seen in a casual reading of the script.
It was digging deep into the character
that made it so fascinating for me.
- [V/O] Jonathan joyfully celebrated
the start of a new decade with family and friends.
On that New Years Eve however, what he could not foresee
was a looming health crisis that would nearly kill him.
For 35 years, Jonathan was a heavy smoker.
As a result, in 1980 he underwent an angioplasty.
Then, a relatively new procedure to prevent a major heart attack.
Following the surgery, he quit smoking, cold turkey.
During his recuperation at home,
he began to contemplate his past and future career.
- Oh, Dark Shadows has certainly helped my career.
Its made it, uh, in a sense.
I had a career long before Dark Shadows,
but it made me a celebrity.
It made a "star out of me."
And I thought that would fade,
but I remember someone telling me
that came from the coast years ago, during Dark Shadows,
he said, "Your life will never be the same again."
I said, "Nuts."
"After this is over, there will be other heroes,
there will be other people" so forth and so on.
"Time moves on."
But he was right.
And for a while I did want to shake the image.
I mean, as much as I enjoyed it, I'm an actor and human being.
I love attention, who doesn't?
But it got to be a little much.
I'm a private sort of person.
There's some actors who love, quit honestly love
to go to restaurants, and go to openings,
and be recognized, and be seen,
and all power to them.
Its... You have to be on all the-- 24 hours a day.
I'm too tired.
Uh, I like to act,
and when the curtain comes down, or the cameras turn off,
and most actors have that situation,
they go out of the studio and no one cares about them,
even thought they've done a good job,
but they're not in that celebrity status.
They're just good actors.
Good acting and being a celebrity,
have nothing in common.
I mean, they don't go together necessarily.
Uh, sometimes they do. Quit a lot they don't.
Anyway, I want to resurrect myself as it were,
and continue a career.
It started off when I was finally induced to go to these
Dark Shadows fan conventions.
It was a thing called ShadowCon. Out on the West Coast.
And after going to one or two of them,
where I would simply answer questions
about Dark Shadows, and sign autographs,
I thought I would do some readings.
Give them something new.
To see me as something other than Barnabas Collins.
- So, Dark Shadows had a big relaunch in syndication
in 1982.
I was just about to start an all-boys Catholic high school,
that I was dreading.
And in Dark Shadows I found an escape,
and I immediately fell in love with the show.
I became part of the fan community, joined a fan group.
Began contributing to a fanzine.
And that group decided to stage
the first ever East Coast convention,
and Jonathan became part of our planning committee.
- The Dark Shadows conventions started,
and then Jonathan always liked to do dramatic readings,
this is before his one-man shows,
and he asked me to do scenes with him.
And one of the most memorable was Macbeth,
and Lady Macbeth, of course.
- I met Jonathan in 1983.
Very quickly it became clear to him that I wanted to work.
And Jonathan loved people who wanted to work,
and were going to bring their passion and enthusiasm
to working with him.
- I did a whole show.
The first part was the rolls I had played in the past,
that might have influenced me in my playing of Barnabas.
And then, the second part, was material written by fans,
and a lot of it was very good.
There was a vampire named Frid,
[audience chuckles]
Went into his coffin he hid,
he couldn't get out and began to shout,
"Will someone please oil the lid."
[audience laughs]
From ghoulies and ghosties,
and long leggedy beasties,
and things that go boop in the night,
good Lord deliver us.
Thank you very much. [audience applauds]
- So then, not long after that,
they did a special on New Jersey Network,
where Jonathan was live in the studio,
and I happened to be one of the fans on the phones.
- Enough of Barnabas. What about you personally?
What about your career paths for the future?
Where are you headed?
- I'm going to develop this one-man show
I've been doing at Dark Shadows festivals.
It's called The Genesis of Evil.
And I'm going to take it away from emphasis on Dark Shadows,
and make it more universal for a universal audience.
- He had the energy for it. He had the material for it.
He had all the ideas for it.
There was just one element that was missing.
He needed someone to organize it,
manage it, produce it, sell it.
And he had no idea who this individual might be,
but ultimately, he found that person.
- I watched the special on New Jersey Network,
and Jonathan performed Edgar Allan Poe's
The Tell-Tale Heart,
and a soliloquy from Richard III,
and it was mesmerizing.
- I wrote Jonathan this letter...
This is the actual letter.
And so I was fifteen years old and I basically said,
uh, "You are a very talented performer
and I hope that this experience",
meaning the special,
"gets you back into some serious acting.
You are too good to waste."
- After I watched the special,
I decided to write Jonathan a letter.
- He had these two letters on his desk at the same time,
and he was like, "Maybe this is synchronicity."
On April 1st, 1985, Jonathan Frid had Mary O'Leary
who at that point was in the production office
at Guiding Light,
and me over to his apartment for a meeting.
- When Jonathan explained that he had been reading to fans
at Dark Shadows conventions,
I said, "You could do a similar style with your show."
"It could be readers theater."
And he hadn't heard that term.
I said, "It's what you've been doing.
"Take your script, stand at a podium,
"and tell a story.
"But it's with your expressions, and your voice
"that you create all these characters.
A whole world for this audience to enter into."
- My job was to basically troll my local library
after school and on weekends,
and find short stories, poems, pieces of verse.
Um, you know, anything work for the creative
concept of the show.
And I found this story called "The Cask of Amontillado."
Jonathan really liked it,
and it ended up becoming like, a signature piece.
It really captured what fascinated Jonathan
about the nature of evil.
Here's a guy who thinks somebody's his friend,
and then, spoiler alert, kills him.
[water dripping]
- It was now midnight,
and my task was drawing to a close.
I completed the eighth, the ninth, and the tenth tier.
I could finish the portion of the last and the eleventh;
there remained but a single stone to be fitted
and plastered in.
I called aloud,
"Fortunato."
No answer.
I hasten to make an end to my labor.
I forced the last stone into position,
I plastered it up.
Against the new masonry
I re-erected the old rampart of bones.
For the half of the century no mortal has disturbed them.
[water dripping]
In pace requiescat!
[water dripping]
- Jonathan from time to time
would invite the fans to come to his apartment,
where he would rehearse his one-man shows.
And he wanted constructive feedback
about what we liked and what we didn't like.
- And he asked, you know, "If you have pieces
"that you're interested in seeing me do,
I would be very interested."
And I remember after one of these rehearsals,
I did send him a copy of that page
out of Appointment and Sumera.
Just saying that I would love to see you do this.
I never expected it to be in the show.
- There was a merchant in Baghdad
who sent his servant to market to buy provisions.
And in a little while the servant came back
white and trembling, and said,
"Master, just now when I was at the market place.
"I was jostled by a woman in the crowd
"and when I turned I saw
that it was Death that jostled me."
- The first time I met Jonathan
was at a Dark Shadows festival.
And he was doing the performance of a show he was developing.
I wrote for several publications and I wrote a review.
Then we wanted me to come meet him and Mary.
They asked me to, uh, if I would work for them
as a writer.
I would work with Mary primarily to write promotional material
to the schools and colleges.
And I worked with Jonathan, assisting him with narration
in-between the stories.
- I tried two or three different ideas which didn't work.
And so I finally evolved this simple collection
of stories and poetry.
I started my own production company
called Clunes and Associates
and Mary O'Leary is my co-producer
and she's general manager.
- He was a man of integrity.
Honesty was the most important thing.
Jonathan said, "If we're going to be business partners,
"I have to know that you will always be honest,
"even if there's something difficult you want to tell me.
Don't be afraid, tell me."
- Here I am, not only running a new business,
which I've never done in my life,
but I'm a story teller,
which is not quit the same as acting.
There's a lot of resemblance to it.
But where as I'm-- do not have people on the stage with me,
I play to the audience.
And so my audience is my feedback,
and they're almost the other actors.
It's quit different and absolutely thrilling.
- Jonathan would get a story
and he would read it over and over again,
looking for the emotional truth of ever single character
in that story.
He really worked very hard on these shows.
[telephone ringing]
- Hello?
Hello, Frank.
Who's this?
You know me. It's Len.
Oh, Len Styres.
Cold, deep and intense.
Receiver dead cold metal in my hand.
Leonard Styles died four weeks ago.
For weeks, three days, two hours
and 27 minutes to be exact.
This is a damn poor joke.
No joke, Frank.
You're there alive and I'm here dead.
You know something, old buddy.
I'm really glad I did it.
Did what?
Killed myself.
- Mary booked Jonathan at a college
up in Newport, Rhode Island,
where the house that was used as the exterior of Collinwood
for five years happen to be adorn.
So when he did his first performance,
it was Barnabas Collins back at Collinwood.
- I must say, my first engagement
up at Salve Regina College in Newport, Rhode Island,
got a fantastic review up there.
Certainly, it was like a press release.
- To see his enthusiasm and excitement
that now we are heading into this entire period of his life,
where he was going to tour,
was just something that was so wonderful.
- I have to say, as somebody who wrote
Jonathan a letter saying,
"You're too talented to waste."
Being there to see that moment,
felt like a success story.
It felt like we set out to do something and we succeeded.
- I got a call from an agent named Bob Waters,
who said, "Would Jonathan Frid, who you ware working with,
"be interested in doing Arsenic and Old Lace?
We'll go on a national tour with Gene Stapleton."
Jonathan was perfect for Jonathan Brewster.
- And all of a sudden he was now a Broadway actor again,
and you'd walk on 46th street
and there's Jonathan Frid's picture
on the 46th Street Theater.
- I was a nervous wreck for two weeks in New York,
like I used to be in Dark Shadows,
because I wasn't ready.
When I got to Washington after a week in Louisville,
and a week in New Haven, I really began to enjoy it.
Now I'm just having a ball.
- I went to see Jonathan Frid in Arsenic and Old Lace.
He was so letter perfect.
He was so sure.
He amazed me.
- In all the comedies I've been in,
I've never seen waives of laughter all night long.
When the audience doesn't laugh at a joke,
it's because they're exhausted.
- But we got a hot stiff on our hands.
- Forget Mr. Spenalzo.
- But, you can't leave a dead body in the rumble seat.
[audience laughing]
You shouldn't have killed him, Johnny.
He's a nice fellow.
He gives us a lift and what happened.
- He said I look like Boris Karloff.
That's your work, doctor. You did that to me. - Easy, easy, Johnny.
- We were on tour.
Toured all the major cities
and stayed two weeks.
Always there would be this bunch of people,
and they'd be waiting to see Jonathan,
and to have him all to themselves.
They weren't interested in us at all.
These people had not been to see Arsenic and Old Lace,
they came to see Jonathan Frid.
- I do my calisthenics backstage every night
before I go on.
And it either revs me up or calms me down.
Depending on what I want at the particular moment.
I look idiotic back there.
I mean, I don't have sneakers
and I look like some kind of a scare crow back there.
You know, doing my exercises.
- He looked like a black vulture walking.
He's very tall, very angular, you know.
He would be on, I'd think, "Oh wow, there he goes."
[laughing]
- Arsenic and Old Lace,
the starriest show in town.
- We play the Brewster sisters.
- We give comfort to lonely old men.
- Everyone needs a hobby.
- But then their handsome nephew drops in. That's me.
- And their other nephew, the black sheep.
That is I.
- Not to mention Teddy Roosevelt, the mad doctor,
and most of the police department.
- For lost of laughs. - For a little Arsenic and Old Lace.
- Come on over to our house.
- Everyone is dying to see you.
- Uh... [thud]
- I was able to get bookings for his one-man show
on Monday night off.
So, he didn't have to stop his one-man show.
- I think Arsenic and Old Lace
fueled the success of his one-man shows.
- To really talk about the present and the future,
for me, in addition to Arsenic and Old Lace,
which has given me a complete new lease on life.
It has also given me an opportunity to develop
my one-man show called,
Jonathan Frid's Fools and Fiends.
So, you see, I'm not getting away from my reputation,
I'm carrying it with me in this own-man show,
and I have a ball doing it.
And as far as live theater is concerned,
that's as lively as I-- I forget
I play all the rolls. I play everything.
That's what I love about it.
- He could scoop it up one minute.
He could be funny.
He could shift back and forth between comedy
and drama.
And it was really a marvelous experience
to watch him perform.
- And I had a lunch with this chap in New York
who wants to be my agent, and he's a wonderful agent.
But I said, "Listen, Bob, we've got other things to do,
"and I don't want to be side tracked again.
I did it with Arsenic, but not again."
I want to spend the next three years
building a tour all over the whole country,
and indeed we are.
We're getting more and more engagements all the time.
We're going to colleges and theaters.
Coast to coast.
- When he started his one-man shows,
I began going to the ones not only at the conventions,
but the libraries in New York.
After which he would have a celebratory dinner.
With some of his fans and me,
and we just became really close friends
from that point on.
- Now I'm putting on a new one called,
Jonathan Frid in a Lighter Vein.
There's a little bit of a play on a word.
But however, it's going to be less ghoulish
than Fools and Fiends.
It won't be ghoulish at all.
There will be evil people in it, but there always are.
You can't write a story without an evil element.
Or a play without an evil element.
So then the next-- Also next year
I plan to have ready Shakespeare's Fools and Fiends.
In which I will be dealing with some of the fools,
Shakespeare writes in upper case fools,
and also some foolish people from Shakespeare.
And then my last part of the show will be
the rise and fall of a fiend,
or the rise and fall of a tyrant.
Meaning, a kind of observation, a study
of the rise an fall of Richard III.
- Perjury. Perjury in the highest degree.
Murder, stern murder in the direst degree.
All several sins, all used in each degree.
Throng to the bar, crying all.
"Guilty! Guilty!"
I shall despair.
There is no creature loves me.
And if I die no soul shall pity me.
- Jonathan and Mary developed these three one-man shows.
He would get booked at theaters, and conferences,
corporate events, private parties,
universities, and colleges, and even on a cruise ship.
- Jonathan's Evil Eye, which has been commissioned
by the Norwegian Cruise Lines for their S.S. Norway cruise
this fall.
So I'm going to be cruising through the Caribbean
doing Evil Eye.
And that, of course, that is a quote
from The Tell-Tale Heart.
I was never kinder to the old man
than during the whole week before I killed him.
And every night, about midnight,
I turned the latch of his door, and opened it,
oh, so gently.
And then, when I had made an opening
sufficient for my head,
I put in a dark lantern. All close, close,
so that no light shown out.
And then, I thrusted my head.
When my head was well in the room,
I undid the lantern cautiously-oh,
so cautiously.
Cautiously for the hinges creaked.
And I undid it just so much that a single thin ray
fell upon the vulture eye.
And this I did for seven long nights.
Every night, just at midnight,
but I found the eye always closed;
and so it was impossible to do the work;
for it was not the old man who vexed me,
but his Evil Eye.
- The nice thing about having three shows
was that he could be booked at a particular college
one year and he could come back the next year,
or two years later, and do a different show.
- In January of 1991,
Jonathan was doing his one-man show in Atlanta,
I believe it was Fools and Fiends,
and I took my mother to see it for her birthday.
And the show was great, and Jonathan was wonderful,
and he was very, very gracious, and personable
in the meet and greets in the lobby after the show.
I was the director of theater
in Georgia College and State University,
and the next week we booked Jonathan.
And three weeks later he was doing Fridiculousness at school.
It was very well received. He was great with the students.
He did workshops
where he worked on text from Richard III with them.
And I think he liked our town.
He liked living in the old governor's mansion.
And we brought him back to do Shakespearean Odyssey.
We had Thornton Wilder play Our Town
scheduled for the next season.
And I said, "Jonathan, why don't you come and play the narrator."
And he said, "I'm not interested in that,
but I might like to direct."
So I said, "Sure. What do you want to direct?"
And he came up with The Lion in Winter.
- Jonathan had called me and said,
"I'd love you to play Eleanor, the fabulous roll."
- [chuckles]
- That was all I needed to know and I said, "Oh, yes."
Even though this was really his, "debut", as he always called it,
Jonathan was a wonderful director in this way.
He told us in the beginning exactly what he wanted.
An overall picture. He spend quit a bit of time
on that first rehearsal telling us that.
And then once we started working, he gave us free reign,
so that he didn't interfere.
And as long as you knew what you were doing, this was great.
If you didn't, then he would guide one of the kids in a way,
and it worked very smoothly.
And so many fans from Dark Shadows came,
and we would have talks afterwards.
It was wonderful.
- [V/O] The Clunes Associates partnership was dissolved
in 1994.
Jonathan, who retained his Canadian citizenship
throughout his forty years in the United States,
retired to his homeland.
- Got a phone call that Uncle Jonathan was going to be
moving back to Canada.
As he had turned 70
and wanted to slow the pace down in his life.
And um, basically spend his remaining years among family,
and familiar surroundings. His home town.
And my wife and I rented a truck
and we drive down to Manhattan and parked the truck.
He had movers there waiting to fill the truck,
and we made our way back up to Canada.
He had never really owned a house before,
and was very excited at the prospect of having
a house he could put his own stamp on.
And a garden he could take from his mind and make it a reality.
I was aware that he had a small garden, rooftop garden
in one of his apartments in New York.
So he always had kind of a green thumb in that regard.
- Jonathan started meeting his old friends from school
that he kept in touch with.
Every Tuesday they would meet up there at a pub.
- He actually kept the ball rolling in that
he was performing his one-man show,
which were basically for charity.
He was always very critical of himself,
and he would practice in the living room.
- Here we are my dear, said the better
of the white MacIntosh coming in through the window.
Fairly muddy, but most of it's dry.
Say, who's that chap that bolted out the doors as we came up?
A most extraordinary man.
A Mr. Nuttel, said Mrs. Sappleton,
could only talk about his illnesses,
and dashed off without a word of good-bye or apology
when you arrived.
One would think he had seen a ghost.
- Jonathan asked me if he could hire me
to come into his house and help him
sort through these archives
that he had brought back with him from New York.
My first impression of Jonathan was that he was very,
he was a very cordial man, he was very...
He had a sort of an old eloquence about him
that was very charming.
And... And, um, very proper.
We started to chat because he knew
that I was budding actor,
and he started opening up about his career,
and we became friends.
- I did Sir Anthony Absolute with Sheridan's The Rivals
in the final year in prep-school,
and that was the great moment of my life.
When I discovered that I really wanted to be an actor.
And I felt that I had talent.
Um, it was a great breakthrough in my life,
because up to that point,
I didn't know what I wanted to do.
And nothing was very meaningful until I got that roll.
- John never gave up his love for theater.
Making theater was very important.
There is that soul commitment to that art,
which is different than film and TV
It's an empathic art with the audience,
where you are making a personal connection every night
with a blind date,
and having to win them over, you know.
- To an actor on stage, it's immediate.
You get the reaction right now,
or you don't get the reaction. [chuckles]
- But that live connection is what really---
That's-- That's what it's about.
That's really what fulfills you.
- When they applaud, we're happy.
We know we've made-- We've touched them.
- I think all of us look at it too much as a money game,
and I got to do movies and this to be successful.
Johnny was happy to be on the stage
and, you know, doing his thing.
- First place, the theater company is a family.
And even if they've just come together to do one play,
but you grow to love each other, because depend on each other.
And that's a family, that's the theater.
Companies get together,
but then everybody goes their ways.
The magic of an actor is,
there's a piece of paper with words on it,
they're just words, all they are is ink.
An actor can go and pick up the piece of paper,
look at it, think about it,
and create a person.
Who says that the words that were on the paper
were simple.
But it is a miracle and Tennessee Williams
can't act Stanley.
Tennessee Williams can't play Blanche,
but he can create them on the page.
Always on the page.
It takes the actor to lift them off.
William Shakespeare couldn't play Hamlet,
but an actor can.
- So somehow along the way,
Jonathan and I got talking about the fact that
wouldn't it be fun to do something together.
And so, I proposed the show Mass Appeal,
and it's a rather delightful two-man show.
We hired a local director, hired s stage manager.
Jonathan wanted to make sure it was done properly,
and that we had ample rehearsal time.
And unfortunately, on that opening night,
Jonathan really became confused, and um, lost his place.
And was really struggling to kind of finish the show.
I knew the script well enough that I just tied up the show,
got him off the stage, we took our bows.
And I remember him backstage, and he was saying,
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." I said, "Jonathan, it's okay."
"Don't worry about it."
"You know what, you're fine, we're good."
Um, but it was something that bothered him a lot,
and uh... So then, we had to make...
We had to make a decision on how to proceed.
So we did get the idea of using like, an earpiece,
and so we rented this piece.
And so that's actually how we moved forward with the run,
was that, if need be,
the assistant stage manager who then stayed on script,
could always feed a line to Jonathan.
To just prompt him in varying degrees,
depending on the day.
And when he was on, he was on.
And he... he did a great job
of that roll of Father Farley.
It had it's bumpy moments for sure.
But I was thrilled that I got to spend that time with him.
I was very, very happy for John
that it went out on a real high note,
because he did a really great job,
and he had some really fabulous performances.
- I, at that point owned, and still own a property
in Niagara on the lake.
Which is not far from Lancaster,
where John was living at the time.
We had a small group which we called the Project Team.
And it began with work mostly on the website,
and on the Evil Incarnate.
Which was basically four scenes from Shakespeare's Richard III.
- Plots have I laid,
inductions dangerous.
By drunken prophecies, libels and dreams,
to set my brother Clarence
and the king in deadly hate the one against the other.
- When the opportunity in 2007 came,
uh, to go to one of the festivals,
he started to look forward to it.
And we started to divide the time between
what he was working on with the website,
and planning for his return to the Dark Shadows festivals.
- In 2007, it was the 40th anniversary
of my uncle starting Dark Shadows.
He was getting up there in age,
and so I thought I'll come down and be of support.
When I arrived there was a lot of anticipation.
We had to take him around back behind the stage,
and I was delighted to opening the door.
[audience applause]
- Thank you.
[applause continues]
Upside down.
Thank you.
- It was so surreal for me to finally see
how much he meant to these people.
He hadn't been in front of his fans for so many years,
and they were just so happy to see him.
- [V/O] In July 2010, the annual Dark Shadows
festival kicked off with a very special opening event.
Jonathan putting his hand print and initials in the courtyard
of the historic Vista movie theater in Los Angles.
It was 90 degrees and Jonathan's back was hurting him,
but he did it to please the crowd of fans.
- Then I thought, "Well at the Dark Shadows festival,
"wouldn't it be wonderful if Jonathan and I
could do something together."
- There were several scenes from Mass Appeal.
- Your servant sucks.
[audience laughter]
- You haven't heard the rest.
- The rest could be the Sermon on the Mount,
but after two minutes of this, they just turn you off.
- I can't believe that.
- It's not a question of faith, it's the cold hard facts
of the pulpit.
- What are you suggesting I do?
- I'm not suggesting, I'm telling you,
don't kick ass.
[audience applause]
- That was the final performance that we had
from Jonathan.
Um...
So that is a particular moment in time
that I cherish.
- Johnny and I were very good friends,
and it was a surprise.
A big surprise that it happened.
Jonathan is a reserved human being, you know.
A lot of class.
The thing about Jonathan Frid and myself,
we are two poles apart as human beings,
and we became great friends on that show.
I mean, great friends.
I look to this day Jonathan is probably one of the five
or six best friends I've ever had in my life, you know.
I remember when I was moving into a new apartment, you know,
I was just married and he gave me all this furniture and stuff.
We used to go up to his apartment,
this lovely, beautiful apartment
overlooking the Queensboro bridge.
Having a nice steak dinner out, you know,
with this beautiful bridge before you.
Johnny was a good friend.
A deeply, good, good, good, good friend,
- You know what was fun?
Jonathan liked to cook and I loved to cook,
so often I cooked at his place, he cooked at my place.
We even went to the picnics at Central Park,
the Philharmonic concerts,
and that was a wonderful time.
- John was at my wedding,
and when my first two children were born
he was at the house, and he was holding them.
And he was at our shindigs,
and we had so many lunches together.
He was a nice friend to have,
and I'm really, really grateful for the time we had together.
- In those days, it was illegal to be gay.
And this played on his mind,
and so he was never overtly gay.
I talked to my friends who are now in their 80s,
and they did the same thing.
We were embarrassed about it.
We never really talked about it.
- He never really had a significant other.
And I did find this...
I think, a little bit interesting about him,
but he always seemed very content.
He seemed very, very content
to just live his life, on his own, as he liked.
And he got to do exactly what he wanted to do.
- He took pleasure in the simple things,
such as sitting at his favorite restaurant Sammy Joe's.
Invariably at the same seat,
and he would look out on this tall pine tree,
and he was just amazed at the size of it,
and the perfection of it.
He would come to my house and always sit in the same seat,
looking out at the garden.
He just loved that vantage point.
You know, basically, a man of simple pleasures, really.
- He became more of a father figure for me
as my dad passed away when I was 25,
so I looked up to him
as a person I could trust and talk to.
And he was always there for support.
- Working with Jonathan was incredibly validating,
because I had a voice at the table.
I was always heard.
He taught me by his behavior.
He taught me by the way he regarded me,
the way he regarded the fans.
- Jonathan Frid was one of the most compassionate men
that I ever met.
I lost a sister to cancer in 1988.
From the day she was diagnosed, she was terminal.
After my sister passed away, he was doing his one-man show,
you know, around the country,
and he literally had one night stands everywhere.
And he called me up and let me pour my heart
out to him because I was devastated.
The things that this man said to me, I'll never forget it.
- The AIDS epidemic tragically took the lives
of some of Jonathan's Dark Shadows co-stars,
as well as some of his closest friends
whom I've had the pleasure of meeting.
Jonathan showed strength and courage through it all
at a time when people were scared to be near
an AIDS patient.
Jonathan would sit by a dying friends bedside
to talk, to listen, or to just hold his hand.
- When he got into his 80s, um, he had some mobility issues.
He had taken a couple of falls.
His house had different levels,
and that was part of the reason he moved to a one floor condo.
His memory was starting to fail him,
as it fails all of us.
But he always stayed on track as far as what he wanted to do.
His desire to do things was strong,
but his abilities to do them was starting to diminish
as he got older.
- One day I just picked up the phone and called him.
I said,
"Is it possible we could get together?"
He said, "Oh David, I don't leave my place anymore."
He says, "In fact, I'm in my robe."
[laughing]
I must say, we had a laugh about that over the phone.
- [V/O] In the summer of 2011,
production began on a feature film of Dark Shadows,
directed by Tim Burton,
and starring Johnny Depp as Barnabas Collins.
On short notice, David Selby, Catherine Lee Scott,
Lara Park, and Jonathan,
were requested to fly to London for one day of filming.
At age 86, Jonathan no longer had the stamina
for what turned out to be 20 hours of travel.
He arrived completely worn out.
- I knew at that time
that I was going to be watchful for John,
and to make sure if we stepped off a curb
I had my hand there to help to get down.
But anyway, we end up over there,
meeting Tim and Johnny
and they couldn't have been nicer.
The only experience that was difficult was
no one was communicating exactly what it was we were doing there.
[chuckles]
Why we were there.
Besides sitting around in a dressing room,
um, and observing.
- [V/O] They finally filmed a\ scene in which Barnabas
greets the quartet arriving as party guests
in the doorway of Collinwood.
After three takes Jonathan was exhausted
and had to rest in his dressing room.
Later, he caught the next flight back to Toronto.
- I heard rumors that there was a movie in 2012,
that was made by Tim Burton,
who I've admired as a filmmaker.
They say Johnny Depp was in it as Barnabas Collins,
but it doesn't really exist in my world.
- The character of Barnabas
just did not work.
And you could not put that character into a lid
with Jonathan Frid
doing Barnabas.
- I saw John a week before he died.
Um, he had a fall.
It appeared to me that he had a pretty serious concussion.
But we chatted and we talked and talked about
the festival coming up,
and the plans.
Um, and...
I knew at that point
that I was not going to see him alive again.
- Uncle John never wanted to have a fuss made over him
alive and certainly after he passed.
He would not want a fuss made over him either.
So we got together at one of his favorite restaurants
In Lancaster.
We didn't involve a lot of people.
Only the inner circle of family and friends.
- When Jonathan passed away in April of 2012,
his family was rather surprised to learn in the will
that he had left the bulk of his estate
to the Hamilton Community Foundation.
- We are the oldest and largest of the community foundations
in Ontario.
Among the founding directors was H.P. Frid
and our foundation really was the vision of a group
of old industrialists in Hamilton, including Mr. Frid
to leave a legacy.
That they knew that they had done
remarkably well here financially.
They had a deep sense of commitment
to the place that had given them their start.
And Mrs. Frid, in fact, was a director,
and active board member in the 1960s.
John had a wide range of interests,
and causes that he supported,
and through his legacy, continues to support.
Beginning with Hillfield the school which he attended,
with his passion for the arts.
But he also was deeply dedicated to eduction,
to poverty, to the environment.
And so if you look at the range of causes that he supported,
it is extraordinarily wide and deep,
and he was very thoughtful about the difference
he wanted to make.
- And I thought he was a very charming, gentle man.
- And a great thing about Jonathan was,
he was fearless, he would do anything.
He just loved the theater.
- You couldn't work with the better person,
and a kinder person.
- He never played the star. Nothing like that.
He was the most down to earth, and lovable, funny guy.
Very dedicated, very professional.
He was super to work with.
- I really enjoyed Jonathan.
I enjoyed him very much,
because he was a kind soul.
And also, he was a very hard worker.
Um, Shakespeare didn't intimidate him.
He was at home with Shakespeare,
and he enjoyed playing it,
and he enjoyed acting in it.
And I can tell you, I was very lucky in my lifetime
to have worked with a person as knowledgeable,
and as loving, and caring as Jonathan.
So that's it.
- Jonathan told me to believe in myself,
and that I could do anything that I wanted to do.
And I believed him.
And in believing him, I believed in myself.
And the only thing I can say is, thank you, Jonathan,
and I miss you.
- We respected each other,
we collaborated,
and when the work was done, it was done.
And I'll never forget him.
You know, I'll never be able to thank him,
and Mary for, you know, what they did for me.
Um, and I'm just... very lucky.
- He was somebody that had a quiet dignity about him.
And I think he had learned through his upbringing.
He treated everybody with respect and kindness.
I felt lucky to know him.
He was truly an extraordinary human being.
- There was not a single instant ever,
in our relationship that was anything but "How are you,
dear friend?"
We got along from the very first moment,
and we never let go of that.
Never.
And I was always thankful for him,
that he welcomed me with open arms.
And we continued that friendship,
right straight through.
- You know, he was a class act.
God.
- Our revels now are ended.
These are actors, as I foretold you,
were all spirits, and are melted into air,
into thin air.
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
the cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
the solemn temples, the great globe itself,
yea, all which inherit, shall dissolve.
And like this insubstantial pageant faded,
leave not a rack behind.
We are such stuff as dreams are made on,
and are little life is rounded with a sleep.
[dramatic stringed music] ♪♪
- Um, what was your very first Dark Shadows audition like?
- I went into this room and there were a whole
bunch of people, all kind of creepy looking,
[audience laughing]
And I thought, "Oh, I don't have a chance here."
Ho, ho. ho.
But apparently to them,
I was the creepiest of the bunch.
[audience laughing]
[dramatic music] ♪♪
- John was always very, very funny about the irony
of this man who sent out to be perhaps an American Olivier,
and became a bat.
[dramatic music continues] ♪♪