Other then DC, who created Barnabas?

[Mysterious Benefactor]

has anyone connected with the show ever stated or confirmed that Mr. Wallace was indeed the creator of Barnabas?

I spent a good part of today hunting through my DS stuff and came across this (which I'd completely forgotten about) in a 1968 article entitled "The Lovable Vampire".  DS producer Robert Costello's statements would appear to make things pretty clear:

[Gothick]

Wow, that's really fascinating, MB!  I don't think I've ever seen that article before.

would be interesting to see the whole thing...

it's kind of funny though to think that Joshua's "rewriting" of history extended to putting his wife's death 30 plus years into the future!

G.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

would be interesting to see the whole thing...

Apart from that particular excerpt, the article isn't all that much different from the myriads of other ones done at the time - or even since. But it will probably show up in its entirety in the Members' Archive - eventually. 

The thing that would be really interesting would be to read Wallace's backstory and bio for Barnabas. The ones he did in the Shadows on the Wall bible are really interesting and contain some bits of info about the characters that were never actually used/revealed or barely touched on on the show. It would be fascinating to see what sort of stuff like that might have been in Barnabas' bio. Though who knows if it even still exists at this poiint...

it's kind of funny though to think that Joshua's "rewriting" of history extended to putting his wife's death 30 plus years into the future!

Apparently that's one of those things we're not supposed to notice (even though we couldn't help but miss it every time there was a shot of her plaque on the mausoleum wall). 

[Philippe Cordier]

Very interesting, MB!  I can relate to your determination to track down articles or other material that could shed light on what appears to be a controversial subject.  I had been thinking today that the papers Mr. Wallace filed in his legal action against Dan Curtis (or Dan Curtis Productions?) would likely have spelled out in precise detail exactly what Mr. Wallace's contributions as a writer and conceptualist were to the series.  (I am rather stymied as to how one might research those legal filings, though -- a task that a biographer might well under take.)

The full context of the article you tracked down would be interesting to read, if you're able to post it in the future (and possibly note in an update to this thread ...).  Costello's comments certainly establish Art Wallace's presence during the planning stages of Barnabas.

The excerpt doesn't make clear if it was Wallace or someone else who had the light-bulb idea -- a-ha! why don't we introduce a vampire! -- since it says "the decision was made" (which sounds like a corporate decision) to go with "the vampire" (the wording of which possibly suggests the idea as one developed around corporate discussions -- e.g., it doesn't say "the decision was made to go with Wallace's idea for a vampire").

He then goes on to say that Wallace (then?) developed "this elaborate backstory" explaining the background to the vampire ... but again doesn't definitively say the initial idea was Wallace's.  It might not be worth splitting hairs over were it not for competing claims as to whom created Barnabas.  I don't know if Dan Curtis has specifically taken credit for the idea, but we do have Mr. Wallace's comment:  "I created Barnabas."

It's good to know though, at the very least, that Wallace was actively involved in the show during the planning of Barnabas and developed the initial backstory explaining Barnabas' past prior to the 1795 flashback.

It seems possible too that Wallace was the person to suggest a vampire, the idea was readily adopted, and as time went on no one really remembered exactly who had first proposed the idea since many writers soon became involved with the character.

I wonder where Wallace donated his papers?  Perhaps some day an independent researcher will use them to write a history of the show or in the process of writing a biography of someone connected with the show.

I'm even more impressed with his creativity now (not that I wasn't before) in developing the first backstory for Barnabas (even if it was later ammended, supplanted, whatever).  Hmmm ... how about "A Vampire in the House of the Seven Gables" ... 

[Philippe Cordier]

As I re-read the excerpt from the article again after posting the above, I paid more attention to the phrase "character bio," which MB and Gothick found more significant than I did at first.  DS producer Robert Colstello's statement that Art Wallace wrote the first "character bio" of Barnabas Collins would seem quite sufficient support to back Mr. Wallace's claim "I created Barnabas."

Perhaps we could lobby to get this information included in future Dark Shadows books and publications, even a simple statement like, "Art Wallace wrote the first character treatment of the vampire, Barnabas Collins." ("Robert Costello came up with the name 'Barnabas,' " etc.).

[Charles_Ellis]

I don't know about you, but from reading that article excerpt it only bolsters what I said earlier- Mr. Wallace merely created the characters and backstory for the pre-Barnabas storylines.  By April '67 he was long gone and it was up to the combined efforts of Curtis, Costello and the  staff writers (Sproat/Marmorstein) I quote verbatim from Ron Sproat's intro to The History of 'Dark Shadows' 1966-67:  "We outlined the next week (the "we" being Mal Marmorstein and me, Francis Swann having left the show), following the Laura story that Art Wallace had left behind (my emphasis- CE), and it just didn't work.....By roughly episode #180, it became obvious that Laura could not go on much longer, that we would need to find another character to equal, or if possible, top her.  Dan Curtis decided only one character would do to follow Laura- and that would be a vampire.  This led to a round of meetings, culminating in one marathon 41-hour meeting- but out of it, Barnabas Collins was born".

There you have it, from someone who really was there.  All Wallace did was create what was written in his bible "Shadows on the Wall".  Sproat and Marmorstein changed Wallace's original idea for the Laura storyline into the Phoenix storyline, and with Diana Millay about to have a baby, Laura had to go up in flames, and at Curtis' suggestion, the initial Barnabas story was created out of scratch with only a few pieces of the Wallace backstory shoehorned in- mainly, the idea that Josette Collins was Barnabas' long-lost love and he was the reason for her falling off Widows' Hill, and not beacuse she was unhappily married to Jeremiah as per Wallace's bible.    I think that settles the issue.  Mr. Wallace had a case of "sour grapes" over how the succeding writers changed his story and made "Dark Shadows" one of the most talked-about shows of the late 1960s.

So there.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Vlad,

I think the situation with Barnabas is probably similar to that of the original DS characters. The article clearly credits DC with the idea of putting a vampire on DS - I don't think anyone would ever dispute that. But just as with the "dream" governess who would eventually be turned by Wallace into the character Victoria Winters, it seems likely that Wallace took the vampire idea and turned it into the character of Barnabas Collins, fleshing him out with a backstory and bio just as Wallace had with Vicki, Liz, Roger, etc.

As Wallace states in the Files interview, DC did indeed have the idea for a gothic series, but he had no characters or story. The situation is probably very similar here - DC had the idea for a vampire, but he had no fully developed character or story. Costello's comments would seem to indicate that Wallace again created the character by fashioning a bio and backstory.

Where the splitting hairs aspect of it comes into play is who is actually responsible for a character - the one who had the initial idea to bring the character into play or the one who fleshed out the idea and gave it a personality, if you will? That's where I think DC and Wallace probably might have disagreed...

[Charles_Ellis]

Costello merely stated that Wallace created a backstory and characher bio.  This is true, but for only what was in "Shadows on the Wall".  Please notice that Costello did not specifically say that Wallace created a backstory/bio for Barnabas!  Wallace did create bios and backstories for Vicki, Liz, Roger, Carolyn, Maggie, Joe, Burke, Sam et al from the pre-Barnabas era.  I have read thousands of items regarding the history of DS over the decades and the only place where Art Wallace is mentioned as having a hand in the creation of the Barnabas character was in that "Files" interview.  I have that particular magazine, and when I read it the first time, I said to myself "How could he take credit for something that happened months after he left DS?".  The rest of the interview you can take with the proverbial grain of salt- a VERY BIG grain.  All he did was take Curtis' concept based on his legendary dream and create a story and characters, using in part his previous teleplay "The House".  To put it bluntly, Art Wallace was simply a writer for hire, a hack.  He wrote for a lot of primetime shows, but never seemed to have a steady job on a series, and he never created any other bibles for TV shows either.  Ratingswise, his storylines weren't working and with the arrival of Sproat, Marmelstein, Caldwell and most of all Hall and Russell, they changed the story and made "Dark Shadows" a hit.

[Josette]

Obviously they couldn't have guessed that the show would ever be repeated, let alone the way it is now!!  Astute fans at the time must have noticed a lot of the discrepancies, but it probably wasn't that big a deal.  How funny that they WERE quite aware of it, but hoped it wouldn't matter - not knowing how years later everyone would be poring over every detail!!!

Contrary to Charles_Ellis' interpretation, I read those quotes to mean that Wallace did provide the background for the Barnabas story up to the point where they went to the flashback.

[LorraineAAB]

Obviously they couldn't have guessed that the show would ever be repeated, let alone the way it is now!!  Astute fans at the time must have noticed a lot of the discrepancies, but it probably wasn't that big a deal.  How funny that they WERE quite aware of it, but hoped it wouldn't matter - not knowing how years later everyone would be poring over every detail!!!

I don't know, kicking back the "origins" story almost 40 years sounds like a glaring discrepancy which nobody who had followed the show from the beginning could possibly have missed, even if they couldn't DO anything about it.

Also, busting Josette down from being the Collins ancestress, to just a fiancee of the vampire, and quickie wife of the FORMER patriarch of the Collinses, who was also busted down to browbeaten younger brother of the vampire's father....

Who, in the end,  was the ancestor of NOBODY (unless you count all Barnabas's victims as "descendants" of a sort) and had to turn the estate over to collateral relatives?  (Actually, making Joshua the direct ancestor through a surviving son was a decent change in the 1991 series.)

Contrary to Charles_Ellis' interpretation, I read those quotes to mean that Wallace did provide the background for the Barnabas story up to the point where they went to the flashback.

Maybe the leaner, meaner Barnabas of the early episodes was Mr. Wallace's original conception, along with all the implications that he'd been quite an arrogant aristocratic S.O.B. in his human life?

L.

[Joeytrom]

It appears that Costello was crediting Wallace with the backstory of Barnabas.

It seems that Barnabas' original backstory took place over several years rather then several months.   There was also no mention of how and why Barnabas had become a vampire in the pre-1795 episodes and the creation of the Angelique character may have led them to throw out Wallace's origin for a compressed one.

Oddly, the writers still used the original backstory less then a month prior to 1795 when Barnabas tells Julia the story of Josette's suicide shortly after the death of Burke Devlin.

When I saw these episodes for the first time, 1795 sure was a surprise to me as almost everything stated before turned out so different!

[Philippe Cordier]

I don't know what to think now.

I have carefully read and reread the selected excerpts posted by MB and poster Charles Ellis.

It appears that Costello was crediting Wallace with the backstory of Barnabas.

This was my interpretation, too, although I had to read the Costello excerpt MB posted several times to reach that conclusion.

However, the excerpt from the piece written by DS writer Ron Sproat, "The History of Dark Shadows," as posted by Charles Ellis, would lead one to a very different conclusion.  I'd have to say that the Sproat quotation seemed clearer and less ambiguous than the Costello quotation.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I'd have to say that the Sproat quotation seemed clearer and less ambiguous than the Costello quotation.

I don't really want to press the point because discussion in this topic has already gotten somewhat more heated than we would generally like. But within the context of the entire "The Lovable Vampire" article, it's actually clear that Costello is referring to a backstory and bio of Barnabas, or at least the character that would become Barnabas. Also, Costello refers to Wallace having written a "bio" not bios, which would have been the more likely word choice had he simply been referring to the character bios of Vicki, Liz, Roger, etc. in the Shadows on the Wall bible.

Who knows? Perhaps Wallace simply wrote a backstory and bio for a potential vampire character and then Sproat et al. used it as a starting point with which to build upon in their marathon session? Perhaps no one account presents the full picture. But I would submit that Costello's remarks would seem to make it clear that Wallace did in some way contribute to the creation of Barnabas and that Wallace's backstory for the vampire character was used as a basis for what would eventually be done with Barnabas prior to the 1795 flashback.

Truthfully, only the people who were actually involved in Barnabas' creation know the entire and complete story of that creation. And dissecting their every word in search of hidden meanings and alternate interpretations, as well as accusing someone of outright lying, is fairly pointless. In the larger scheme of things, isn't all that's important is that Barnabas, by whatever manner he came to be created, became a part of the DS canvas?

[victoriawinters]

I had been thinking today that the papers Mr. Wallace filed in his legal action against Dan Curtis (or Dan Curtis Productions?) would likely have spelled out in precise detail exactly what Mr. Wallace's contributions as a writer and conceptualist were to the series.  (I am rather stymied as to how one might research those legal filings, though -- a task that a biographer might well under take.)

Easy peasy.  If you have access to Lexis-Nexis or other type of on line search like KnowX, you can search under someone's name and see if there ever have been any court actions filed against them or by them.  Once armed with a venue (like New York Superior Court and court branch) and case number from said search, you can go to the kind court clerk of that venue and order copies of any complaints, cross-complaints, answers, etc.   They are all public records.

Generally, it's a good idea to start with a "docket sheet" so you know what was filed in the action.  If you know the year that the action was filed, you might be able to look in the docket book for that year or period of years and find a case number as well.  That way too you know what documents you want copies of.  Discovery (deposition transcripts, etc.) might not be on file with the court and probably are lost unless they are with someone's personal effects.   If there ever was a trial, there would be trial briefs.

I'm not sure how long records are kept by the courts these days but I'm sure quite awhile.  There may be some microfilm or microfische they can copy as well.    Each court has their own rules and best to familiar yourself with them before visiting the kind court clerk.

Expect to pay $$$$ for copies.  The other thing to do is to visit the courthouse library or law school library and see what they have available in terms of tracking down a case number.  They would probably have West Law and a myriad of other helps.

Getting a case number is the key.  Without it, there is no way to track down copies of any pleadings since court files are arranged by case number.

Your DS legal eagle,

[Julia99]

Truthfully, only the people who were actually involved in Barnabas' creation know the entire and complete story of that creation.  In the larger scheme of things, isn't all that's important is that Barnabas, by whatever manner he came to be created, became a part of the DS canvas?

I agree with MB here. . .does ANYONE here remember exact conversations or group idea developments from their work 30+ years ago?  I don't remember 15 years ago or 5. . .soooo. . someone created Barnabas, it was the DS writing/producing/acting team.  . . he's here, he's remembered and we're talking because of him . .assigning creation of Barnabas to one individual is not possible since it involved many people including the costumers, acting coaches, media reps, teenage girls. . etc.