Thanks for the update, Anne.

You know, I don’t think there were many tv shows from the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and into the 1990s that Dennis Patrick was not on.

Mr. Patrick was on “Bonanza,” “The Fugitive,” “Lost in Space,” “Emergency,” “Quincy ME,” “The Incredible Hulk,” “Murder, She Wrote,” “Hawaii 5-0,” “All in the Family,” “Dallas,” etc., etc.

Mr. Patrick truly was Mr. Ubiquity of American television. And, he rightfully takes his place along with John Anderson, Judith Chapman, William Shatner and, of course, Kathryn Leigh Scott, as one of the most prolific actors on American television.

MB,

Helena Bonham Carter and Eva Green, you say? I think 1991 NBC DS’ Joanna Going (Vicky Winters) and Ely Pouget (Maggie Evans) are also on that list of exceptionally brave, young actresses.

But, please, don’t tell me that Anita Bolster and Isabella Hoopes are also that list. Both the Rev. Trask and Abigail Collins, those two tireless champions of moral rectitude in Collinsport, would be absolutely appalled! 

I agree about the photos in the ORIGINAL edition of "My Scrapbook Memories." Miss Scott's writing talents have made a lot of progress since that time.

The photos of Thayer in the antique store are among my all-time faves.

G.

If Ms. Scott conducts another tour of Lyndhurst this fall, I’ll bring along my copy of “My Scrapbook Memories of Dark Shadows” to the event, and ask KLS to finally autograph the book “only” 37 years after I bought it at a bookstore located next door to the Radio City Music Hall. 

Happy Birthday, ProfStokes.

I wonder if T. Elliott was also an Aries? 

Many happy returns! 

Bob, aging Pisces.   

Oh, ribs, now you really have me wanting to partake of that epicurean feast at that supper club! 

During the opening of “The Sopranos” on HBO, you see Tony Soprano driving by a little hole-in-the-wall, called
Pizza Land. This tiny pizzeria is located on the Belleville Turnpike in beautiful North Arlington, NJ.

And, even though they never actually filmed a Sopranos scene in that pizzeria, the owners of Pizza Land get orders for their food from far off places like Australia and England. So, the owners pack up their pasta dishes in
boxes with dry ice and ship their food overseas at not inexpensive prices. Mangia! 


PS I wonder if the Collinsport Inn coffee shop served Easter dinner or at least a ham sandwich for the town’s lonely bachelors like the Eagle Hill Cemetery caretaker or Buzz Hackett?

Hey, gang,

While browsing through YouTube the other day, I came across a film I hadn’t seen in fifty years, “Shamus,”  starring Burt Reynolds and Dyan Cannon. Burt Reynolds portrays Shamus McCoy, a down-on-his-luck Brooklyn detective, who is hired to recover some stolen diamonds.

While tailing a possible suspect, Shamus observes the fellow from a Manhattan book store run by a very attractive and a decidedly zaftig young woman, who is portrayed by Dark Shadows’ own Kay Frye, a/k/a “Pansy Faye.” Shamus, for obvious reasons, is instantly attracted to the comely bookstore owner and, after some brief but highly effective flirting on his part, gets to know the lovely young woman in the “Biblical sense.”

It’s somewhat remarkable how different Ms. Frye’s character looks in this gritty detective film than from how she looked while on Dark Shadows. While Pansy Faye was dressed in an especially garish manner with a lot of flashy
 jewelry and a ton of makeup on her face (not to also mention that Cockney accent of Pansy’s), the bookstore
owner wears glasses and looks like she had bought her conservative clothes at the ladies section of the local
Brooks Brothers’ store. That’s quite a contrast!

Incidentally, this encounter between Shamus McCoy and the beautiful bookstore owner in “Shamus” is a tribute
to a similar scene in Howard Hawks 1946 film, “The Big Sleep,” where private detective Philip Marlowe
(Humphrey Bogart) “encounters” a similarly voluptuous bookstore owner (Dorothy Malone).

In looking up Kay Frye’s acting career, she did not have a lot of credits. Ms. Frye appeared in some television
movies in addition to her work on DS and in this film. Ms. Frye’s year of birth is listed as 1928, which would
have made her about 41-years-old when she portrayed Pansy Faye on DS. She did not seem to be that old to
me on DS. Sadly, Ms. Frye died in 1991 of cancer at the reported age of only 63.

I very much enjoyed watching Kay Frye on DS as the saucy and irrepressible Pansy Faye. I think the DS writers made a big mistake when they killed her off so soon, almost immediately after Carl Collins brought her to Collinwood as his fiancee.
It would have been great fun to have seen how Pansy got on as sister-in-law to the “slightly” dour Judith Collins
and the “slightly” stuffy Edward Collins. However, I think that Pansy and Quentin Collins would have hit it off right from the
start as kindred spirits! 

“Shamus” also features a scene in which Burt Reynolds is threatened by a knife-wielding thug, portrayed by another DS alumnus, veteran stunt man Alex Stevens, who subsequently gets his arm broken and then slammed into a wall by Mr. Reynolds’ macho character.

Another DS alumnus who gets hit by a two-by-four piece of wood by Burt Reynolds, is actor Captain Arthur Haggerty, a huge and completely bald man, who was one of Angelique’s executioners in the second Dan Curtis DS film, “Night of Dark Shadows.”

If you have never seen this enjoyable 1973 detective film, you might want to check it out over on YouTube, if only to catch Pansy Faye, the werewolf and Angelique’s hangman in other screen roles!

Anne,

I wonder if the Collins family will be having the traditional ham for Easter dinner? And, will Mrs. Johnson charbroil the ham to a virtual cinder? 


 

Bob