By Walker Joyce
Fifty-nine years ago, a daytime TV soap opera premiered on ABC. It had been promoted with brooding clips for weeks, depicting a mansion on a storm-racked seacoast and an ingenue in a foggy train station. Its original storyline evoked the famous novel JANE EYRE, but in my 6th-grade mind, it was some sort of haunted house tale, my favorite genre.
I enjoyed the debut episode. The lead actress was pretty, and the sets were both eerie and opulent. It began as a standard soap, featuring domestic issues in lieu of the supernatural. But gradually, that began to change.
The first touch of horror was an estranged wife who turned out to be a phoenix, the mythical creature that lived forever by rising from its ashes. She attempted to capture a small boy, the son of a principal character. This sub-plot fizzled out, literally, and as the first season concluded, the ratings were poor. Dan Curtis, the creator-producer, was told the show would be canceled in a matter of weeks.
He decided he’d “have a little fun on the way out,” and told his writers he wanted a vampire to arrive in the fictional Maine town.
And so, in April of 1967, Barnabas Collins knocked on the door of the estate. As he entered the reception hall, he paused under an old portrait. He was the spitting image of the man in the painting, an ancestor from the 18th century. He wore a black onyx ring on his index finger and carried a cane with a silver wolf-head, which also matched the details in the frame.
He claimed to be a cousin from England, but in fact, he was the same man in the picture, released from a chained coffin in the family crypt.
Thus, a 200-year old blood sucker became the hero—and savior—of the series. And just as suddenly, I became the prototype of the program’s core audience: teens who’d rush home from school to watch the 4 o’clock airing.
Barnabas was a reluctant vampire, turned into one by a vengeful witch. He was played by Canadian Jonathan Frid, a classically trained stage actor with lots of Shakespearean credits. Thus, his version of Dracula was a courtly figure who could also be gracious, even noble. He wasn’t a matinee idol, and his prominent ears gave his countenance just enough uniqueness to evoke a fantasy figure.
In other words, perfect casting. He could be scary, especially when he bared his fangs, but he could also play a romantic, tortured soul. This quality was enhanced by the panic he often felt during his start, when the pressure of learning a new script every day and playing it live for millions registered on his face.
Much to his surprise, Frid became a sex symbol. Ratings soared, and when he made personal appearances, he was mobbed just like the Beatles.
SHADOWS redefined what a soap opera could be. As the show evolved, its gothic tone changed into a glorious mix of every kind of terror and suspense theme, introducing ghosts, werewolves, a Frankenstein Monster-like character, and even Satan! Maine was the Horror Capital before Stephen King ever wrote a word.
But Barnabas remained the spoke of the wheel.
The show spawned books, comics, record albums, three feature films (to date) and an ill-fated reboot in prime time. Reruns were even used here in New Jersey for PBS fundraisers.
Quite a legacy for a character who was created partly by spite, and who was supposed to last just a fortnight!
