Fan: Hi Jonathan and Lara. I'm very excited to be here. I have wanted to meet you for years. You made high school bearable. My question is was there ever anything in the show that really scared you? Was getting in and out of the coffin ever scary? Did the lid ever shut . .(inaudible) [audience laughs]
JF: No. You people were the doing all the acting, that's what I've always claimed, reading into things. What scared me was not knowing my lines everyday. I was nervous almost every day. It was absolute hell for me for that first year. Certainly for a long while. I'm such a slow study. I'm not really good for soaps - at least how they were done in those days. It was very much weekly stock and you had to learn the lines overnight and not in a week. So, I scared myself . . .
LP: We were too scared to be scared. (addressing fan who asked the question) Were you scared right before you asked your question?
Fan: Was I scared?
LP: Yes. Were you scared?
Fan: Well, yeah.
LP: Yes, scared. That's how it feels when you act. I mean, you don't care that you are in a coffin. [laughter] You're thinking: "Oh my god, it's going to be my turn!" [laughter and applause]
Fan: My question is really for Jonathan. First of all, it's wonderful to see you in person after admiring you for over 20 years. However, my question is really about Alexandra Moltke who is another favorite of mine on the show. I am curious as to why they used two substitutes knowing that she was pregnant and was going to leave? Why didn't they end the storyline with her and wasn't there a general clamor among the fans to have her back? She was popular . .
JF: I remember that happening. I was asking the same question at the time. Why not up it up knowing she was leaving . . I can't remember how much they knew in the front office. Sometimes with an actor something can happen so quickly that you can't change. I don't have the answer, maybe Lara does.
LP: Ours is not to reason why.
JF: She just moved on . .
LP: Alexandra Moltke wanted to be off the show very, very badly. She did not want to do it. She refused to wear makeup, she hardly bothered to comb her hair. She did not want to be there. If you watch the tapes towards the end you can see that she didn't wear makeup. A lot of times - as opposed to the rest of us who were plastered with it - she would do the least possible. She had a contract and she stuck by it but she wanted to leave. She didn't enjoy it. So when she got pregnant, they finally let her go. That's all I remember. I remember liking her very much.
Fan: It was strange to have a substitute for such a short time but with the pregnancy issue I can understand. Thank you. [applause]
Fan: Back to stage versus screen performances - what kind of stage genre did you feel like you were doing on the show? Restoration, tragedy . (inaudible). What was it like for your moment to moment performance.
JF: Rephrase your question, I didn't follow . .
LP: I think he wants to know the style of DS - restoration . .. .
Fan: Most of you had performed in genres on stage . .
JF: Well, let me answer that in a round-about way. My favorite section was when we went back to the past. I was much more at home, I think, in those costumes. In my first two or three plays in high school they were all classics and suddenly I had to do light, frothy comedy - playing a guy-next-door type person in sneakers. I thought I was naked on stage. I didn't have a costume. My beginnings were in the English tradition of disguising myself. I thought rather than play my own personality I would disguise myself. So, that's my style. Though, ironically, people say, "Oh, you were typecast!" The greatest romantic role I ever played was Barnabas. I had the whole gamut to play with that character over the years, especially when leading up to where this old bitch got me [nodding towards LP. Audience laughs and applauds. LP laughs]
LP: I think that I my own experience that I call upon a sense of period restoration feeling. When I auditioned, I remember being thrilled it was period, that at least it required a certain precision diction - an attitude of the characters that modern characters lacked - natural acting. A certain hauteur and strength. While at the University of Iowa, I had done 18th, 19th century plays so I felt I could certainly tap into that. I think there was definitely a strength to the performances. Jonathan's, Thayer David's, Louis Edmonds' - a lot of them. There was essentially a difference there.
Fan: This question is for Jonathan Frid. I would like to know what future projects you might have - theater, movies or your one-man show coming up?
JF: I'm thinking very seriously of just retiring and going to sleep. [audience reacts]. I had an operation this spring (gall bladder) and I enjoyed every minute of it because I could relax and feel sorry for myself. [audience laughs] and I recuperated for the longest time. [laughter] Really, all summer. But I'll probably get itchy in the fall . .I haven't really any plans. We don't have much booked at this point. Thanks to Mary O'Leary who has been here all afternoon - she and Nancy have been around setting things up - she and I have been working together for the last 8 or 9 years. But anyway, we both discovered that we had to create our own market. There's no market for reader's theater. It's not as if were selling Campbell's Soup or Puffed Wheat - we were selling something no one knows anything about - Reader's Theater. So, we had to create - Mary had an uphill battle the whole way. It's very difficult to sustain the energy needed to get booked. You don't count on bookings because of a so-called name - that goes for naught. You have to fight constantly whether you are looking for a role or an engagement. Now, Mary's got too much do over at Guiding Light - I don't know the right adjective - but she is a producer of sorts there. I don't want to sound disheartening, I'll be doing something, I'm sure.
Fan: You only made that one movie outside of Dark Shadows, and it wasn't very good. [audience laughs]
JF: I have no ambition to do any more movies, or television for that matter.
Fan: (inaudible about the portraits)
JF: There's a whole funny story about that portrait - but I won't go into that.
Audience: Please tell it!
JF: Oh okay. Well, that portrait of the original Barnabas - they didn't have the role cast but they had to have the painting ready. So Bob Costello, the associate producer, sat in as the model for it. He has a different shaped head than me and it was like those things on the street corners where you can put your head through a hole of (another body) [laughter]. Unfortunately, he didn't have a lot of hair so the hair he had he pulled across his forehead. so then, they just painted my face in - not my head - just my face at the last minute. It was that close - they had to have it ready for the next day. So hence the bangs - that became my trademark because Bob Costello didn't have a lot of hair. [laughter] Of course, my hair is so thick, even now. Anyway, that's the story.
Fan: Jonathan, I know you did many shows in the libraries in New York over the years. I wanted to know if you thought about adding any soundtrack to the stories.
JF: We did that last fall during my tour across the country. We experimented in the libraries with the music and it got terribly complicated. I think the music wound up being all right but it's a very expensive thing to do. That's very expensive equipment. We rented equipment and then we eventually trusted the college campuses to provide us with the equipment. Sometimes they made fake promises, sometimes they were quite honest, and sometimes they didn't have the equipment at all. Most of the time we didn't have what we were supposed to have ready for us. It was a messy business. The only way to do that was to have our own equipment, a truck which means extra staff which goes into the hundreds of thousands of dollars to do just what you suggested. We found that out. It was a very interesting experiment but rather frustrating because time and time again we got faulty equipment on various campuses. Music would be either ahead of me or behind me. Once I was on stage, I didn't care because I was just the actor doing my stories with the technician responsible for keeping up with me. It's a very expensive thing to do and the market doesn't warrant that kind of expenditure.
Fan: Jonathan and Lara: I have a question. I am so glad that MPI is releasing the final year of Dark Shadows because now we finally get to see what is, in my opinion, one of the most interesting storylines you did on the show. Maybe not the most memorable or (inaudible) . . the 1840 storyline was unlike anything done before on the show; very few supernatural elements - a couple of ghosts. But basically (inaudible) elaborate costumes or sets - it was like Masterpiece Theater. It's very interesting. Could you share any of your recollections about the actors who came along towards the end of the show? Mary Hooper who played Bramwell's mother, Josette Collins, and Keith Prentice who played Morgan Collins? Do you remember those particular actors?
LP: Well, Keith as my husband. He was fun. [laughter]. I really don't know . .
Fan: It was 23 years ago . .
LP: Who was the woman?
Fan: Mary Hooper - she played the adult Josette. I don't think she was in every episode.
JF: Kate Jackson - was she in any of those episodes?
LP: She played my sister.
JF: Oh. I must say I liked working with Kate very much. She tolerated me. She was marvelous - she had absolute tolerance of my shortcomings and I always loved her for that. She was probably the most efficient actress - I don't know whether I should tell this story - well, I'll tell it - it's a nice story about her. It's at the expense of one of the directors who had misgivings about her for some reason or other. I don't really know why. I thought maybe it was .. well, I won't get into that . . I said to him, "I don't understand your not liking her or having reservations about her. She's on time every day, knows her lines, gives no flack - she just does what she has to, and goes home, then comes back the next day equally prepared." And I did say this at the time - Ha Ha - "she will probably go on to be a star in Hollywood because that is just what they want out there. They want people who can learn lines, give no flack, and are on time." For no other reason she was marvelous for that. And she was very kind to me -
LP: As opposed to some of us . . [audience laughs]
JF: Anyway, I don't remember the storyline very much. I must confess we were getting a little tired by that point. The plots got changed so often I don't remember any of them. The last few years I don't remember very much.
Fan: It wasn't a supernatural story; it was more like Wuthering Heights.
LP: I loved it because I finally got to play the heroine. When I see the tapes, Kathryn is far less interesting. I was very, very happy doing that role. At last I was doing the romantic lead . . .
Fan: Keith Prentice was a very talented actor. He died last year.
LP: Oh, really?
Fan: Yes, Keith Prentice died last year.
JF: It was last Christmas, winter or something. Next?
Fan: Hi! I have a question for Jonathan. Are you married?
JF: No. [audience laughs]
Fan: Okay. Say no more. [laughter] Which was your favorite role?
LP: Who is she asking?
Fan: Mr. Frid: I want to know some of the Shakespeare plays you were in, and which were your favorite roles?
JF: Oh, oh. I guess Richard III. However, this is one thing about my one-man show for the past few years. I've done everything. I really wanted to do. So I'm not frustrated any longer. I even did a Shakespeare show - I did Richard II, Richard II, Caliban and others, two or three other characterizations like Don John in Much Ado About Nothing. By the way, if anybody has any interest in Shakespeare at all, don't miss Much Ado About Nothing (film version). It's fabulous. Even if you don't like Shakespeare, go watch it. It's the most gorgeous thing you ever saw. It's beautiful. The best Shakespeare I've ever seen on screen. Anyway, I did all those things, you see, in my one my shows so I don't have any frustration. If I want to do Lear, I'll do Lear.
Fan: I remember your Caliban - how wonderful he was. You gave him such sympathy.
JF: (inaudible)
LP: Remember the time when you were one Shakespearean play and you burst in with a speech from another play? [audience laughs]
JF: Oh, yes, that happened occasionally. [laughter]. That happened up in Stratford way back in the 50s. I was playing a messenger . .and I had been playing some of the messenger in Othello who brings bad tidings in the first act. That evening we were opening the Merchant of Venice and I came on as Salerio bringing the news to Portia. And I came on and did the other speech. It had the same rhythm and all - sounded like the same thing. In fact, very people noticed it, but the people on stage, behind stage were hysterical. [laughter] And they were falling over the furniture and in the aisles. The people in the audience just thought it was a bad message. [laughter] (inaudible) all these iambic pentameter lines. Oh, the things that happened occasionally. Okay, next question? [laughter]
Fan: Hello Jonathan. What was your favorite episode on Dark Shadows?
JF: There were 2 or 3 in that section I mentioned going back in the past. I had some loo-loos with Lara, and some with Kathryn Leigh Scott. It was (the scene) one of favorites and interestingly enough I went up (forgot the line) in the middle of the scene. I was so upset with myself that I asked the producers - they didn't want to change anything - I said, :"Please . ." It was my very favorite scene. It was when Lara had what's-his-name take Kathryn away from me and I had this confrontation with everybody in the drawing room. This is too long ago to really remember details - I had been jilted and why/what was the cause of all this. It was a very good, well written scene. By the way, I think this period is when the writing was at it's best. They were writing beautiful scripts. Anyway, I went up - I was just a blank in the camera - and there (inaudible) looking for somebody to say something! [laughter] Anyway, I asked the producers - they wanted me to meet some VIP that night - and I said, "I'll do it if you let me go talk to the editors in the editing room that night." They let me. So we played with all the sound, putting it in the video and changing it around. But we edited out that horrible moment out, so it remained and continues to be one of my favorite scenes. There was another one - there were a couple of scenes with Lara. (to LP) you were gutsy, they were real gutsy scenes.
Fan: I have to say Lara - you are the most beautiful witch I've ever seen. [audience applauds]
LP: My favorite scene is when I turn you into a vampire. [JF laughs, audience applauds]
Fan: I'd like to ask you - were you a little jealous when the new Dark Shadows came out? [laughter]
LP: Yes. [applause]
Emcee: I'm sorry to say we only have time for one more question. Then we will begin the autograph session.
Fan: I would like to say to both Lara and Jonathan - Lara you are so beautiful and I loved it when you played Angelique.
LP: Thank you.
Fan: And Jonathan, I'd love to see you do more (inaudible).
Emcee: Thank you, Lara Parker and Jonathan Frid! [applause and ovation]
