Jonathan Frid interview from FILM THREAT Magazine, 1991

I was recently sent this interview with Jonathan Frid from Film Threat, a magazine that primarily covers independent and underground films.  In it, he speaks very candidly about the original and revival series.


FILM THREAT
Spring 1991

Barnabas Collins: Back From the Dead


Low ratings can scare off a television vampire quicker than garlic. But you can't keep a good bat down. Two decades after the demise of the Gothic soap opera Dark Shadows, that suave 175-year-old fangster Barnabas Collins and his clan have swooped back to TV.

Perhaps best remembered for its eerie music, creepy (if somewhat cheap) sets and blood-tinged suds, the ground-breaking 1960s soap was already enjoying a cult afterlife prior to NBC's primetime remake-- thanks to a 20,000 member fan club and the release of all 1,225 episodes by MPI Home Video. More recently, the old shows began airing on the new SciFi cable channel. Executive Producer Dan Curtis, who created the original in 1966 and saw it through five seasons, has clearly had his fill of Dark Shadows-- just ask him why the saga was resurrected. "Well, a lot of people (namely, NBC chieftain Brandon Tartikoff) wanted it," he says impatiently. "I'm in the television business, so that's why it's back on."

Good enough. What then, killed it the first time around? "Oh, you mean twenty years ago or whenever the hell it was? Um, yeah. We just ran out of steam. We couldn't think of another story. So, with a bad story, so go the ratings."

Curtis, who went on to better things like the highly acclaimed miniseries The Winds of War and War and Remembrance, should have known history has a way of repeating itself. Although the new hour-long Dark Shadows benefits from a bigger budget and an infusion of big names including Ben Cross (Chariots of Fire) and two-time Oscar winner Jean Simmons (Guys and Dolls, Spartacus) as matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, the story is cornier than ever and the ratings have, well, sucked. What's worse, the character that was introduced to bolster the old soap's sagging viewership near the end of its first year has been with the new show since the outset:  Barnabas Collins. Though admirably played by Cross, the lovelorn neck-ripper just doesn't have the same mixture of pathos, dread and dark appeal that Jonathan Frid brought to the role twenty-five years ago.

Frid, now 66, wasn't even asked to be a part of the new show, which is too bad since his career hit a weak vein after the old show's cancellation in 1971. The Yale Drama School grad did a couple of big screen features (House of Dark Shadows and Oliver Stone's 1974 shocker debut Seizure) and some work off and on Broadway (most notably in "Arsenic and Old Lace") before forming his own production company in 1986.

These days the gravelly-voiced Canadian actor, who makes his home in Manhattan, haunts college campuses and community theaters around the country in a one-man show that includes readings from works as diverse as Shakespeare and Stephen King. Herewith he sinks his teeth into the Dark Shadows phenomenon, past and present.


FT:  Were you disappointed that you weren't asked to appear in the new series?

JF:  It was rumored that they wanted me to play Barnabas' father, but I was never approached. I've attended Dark Shadows fan festivals for the last eight or nine years, and people would always ask me if I would reprise the role if the series were revived. I doubted it would ever happen, so I would say that I'd want at least a million dollars or two to do it. And that's my answer now. I'd start with two million dollars, and I might come down to a million for a cameo. I mean, I'd want big money. I'm not going to do it for sentimental reasons. So I'm not surprised they didn't ask me to return.

FT:  Did you like the original show?

JF:  It was absurd. I thought it was perfectly dreadful. But I'm knocking myself more than the show. Some of my performances were so appallingly bad. I'd forget lines, I'd forget names. I had done television previously, but not too much, and the fact that there was a lot of money involved in the production intimidated me to an extent. I was nervous and it showed. The irony of it all is that they're making videos out of those very shows where I didn't even know what I was talking about!

FT:  So you felt your neck was on the line, so to speak?

JF: I was afraid I'd get canned, that I'd get kicked out of the unions. In a sense, Barnabas and I went through hell together. Imagine yourself coming out of a coffin a hundred and thirty-five years from now. You're in a kind of predicament, and you're a little nervous about how you're going to pull this one off. And, of course, that's what I did for four years. I played a vampire. I don't know what that is really. I played the lie. So Barnabas' predicament on television and my own kind of meshed-- one sort of helped the other. I mean, I was just a scared, dumb actor. If I had had to play some cock of the walk, debonair Clark Gable, I would have been canned in two days.

FT: Dark Shadows itself was almost canned before Barnabas Collins was introduced ten months after its debut. How did your character save the show?

JF: True, the show wasn't working until they brought this creep on. I wouldn't know why, because I don't watch soap operas. The silly things are so full of shit.

FT: Certainly, there was something about the character that audiences responded to.

JF: With Barnabas, I played against the obvious as much as I could. It was difficult under this problem I had with nerves. I didn't try to make Barnabas a lovable vampire, but I tried to play common sense; I tried to humanize him.

FT: Barnabas was a hit with young female viewers. How did it feel to be featured on the cover of Tiger Beat?

JF: I had no intention to do that. I was just playing a man with common sense. Of course, mind you, he was pining for his lost love, and I was certainly going through unrequited love at the same time. But I think the fact that Barnabas was always a threat, if you took all the show's shenanigans seriously, was one of his appeals. He was in love and wanted to be cured. He was like a drunk-- belligerent and unpredictable.

FT: The quality of the show was unpredictable, too. You could sometimes see the microphone dangling and the wires holding the bats. I remember one scene where you had this pesky fly buzzing around your head...

JF: Oh, yes. [Laughs] I just tried to pretend it wasn't there. I guess I gave it a couple of swats, but all I can remember about that is thinking, "Keep going.. Keep going... Don't let it make you lose your concentration." It was a little awkward, but it didn't bother me. In fact, I rather enjoyed the challenge of it.

FT: Did you find it tough going after Dark Shadows?

JF: I didn't try to make Barnabas a lovable vampire. In a sense, Barnabas and I went through hell together. Yes. I went with an agency that promised to rebuild my career. And they didn't do a damn thing. I just sat and waited and waited. I eventually took up Spanish so I wouldn't have to wait by the phone all day. But I think the reason was that I wasn't accommodating enough. I didn't want to be used as some sort of a commodity. I wanted to get away from all that. I thought it was perfectly dreadful. But I'm knocking myself more than the show. They wanted to exploit it. So I didn't do an awful lot. But now I'm in control of my own destiny.

FT: Your one-man show incorporates readings from Edgar Allan Poe and Stephen King. Do you enjoy horror stories?

JF: I'm not a great fan, no. There's enough horror in our everyday life without having to conjure up these strange images. Subtlety is what I don't find in today's horror stuff-- it's all so obvious. It gets more and more violent. It's so boring. But I know what side my bread is buttered on, and I still appear at Dark Shadows festivals because it stirs interest in my current work.

FT: How much longer will you continue with the Reader's Theater tour?

JF: Til I drop dead, I guess. I'm as happy as a lark doing this. I get to play all the parts.

FT: Do you hope the new Dark Shadows flops?

JF: No, because I'm still basking in reflected glory. I'm calling myself the Johnny Weismuller of Dark Shadows instead of a retired sage who's passed the curse on to Ben Cross. If it lays an egg, then I'm pretty well washed up too as far as any reputation is concerned.


Dean LaManna

Ah - another "classic" Frid interview - always looking at the bright side of everything - especially his own performances.  :-/

But this sounds exactly like the TV interviews he gave in late 1990 before the '91 series debuted, so we really shouldn't be surprised by anything he had to say here...

That was interesting Midnite, I enjoyed hearing some of Jonathan Frid's comments regarding the show and also his views concerning the 1990 revival series. Thanks for posting this!

Good interview, some very interesting comments by Frid.  Thanks for posting this, Midnite.

Thank for sharing J.F.'s interview with us Midnite
From this and other interviews I think we see that
J. Frid most of the time through the years
thought of DS as just a job he had done, maybe
something he didn't care for too much. In some other
interviews he speaks of it in a different matter, as if
he had fond memories.
To me this is understandable.
To begin with I bet he nor anyone else ever expected
DS to be seen again. Maybe if he did, he would have
worked harder to avoid those bloopers that obviously
made him cringe later.
I would also say he has a love/hate relationship with
DS. It made him a star, but then afterwards he didn't
get to go on to even bigger stardom. As he said though
this could have been laid at the door of bad management of his career. Who knows what would
of happened if he had a better agent?

Very interesting but not surprising!.

jennifer

Thank for sharing J.F.'s interview with us Midnite
From this and other interviews I think we see that
J. Frid most of the time through the years
thought of DS as just a job he had done, maybe
something he didn't care for too much. In some other
interviews he speaks of it in a different matter, as if
he had fond memories.
To me this is understandable.
To begin with I bet he nor anyone else ever expected
DS to be seen again. Maybe if he did, he would have
worked harder to avoid those bloopers that obviously
made him cringe later.
I would also say he has a love/hate relationship with
DS. It made him a star, but then afterwards he didn't
get to go on to even bigger stardom. As he said though
this could have been laid at the door of bad management of his career. Who knows what would
of happened if he had a better agent?

Frid said in the interview basically that he was as much to "blame" for not getting more mainstream work as anyone else - as an actor playing in the major leagues, you have to be willing to be packaged, etc. and he wasn't the type of person who wanted to be a package.  It's a decision all actors have to make in their career.  Most of them have no problem with being packaged and distributed - it gets them work and that's all they care about.  I never realized until I got into the business myself there are actors who hope they are never famous because they find it "limiting" in terms of getting varied roles.  (There's a very good reason Johnny Depp doesn't appear in major Hollywood movies.)   As for not working harder, Frid worked pretty hard on DS while simultaneously doing most of the publicty for the show.  However, nothing can make up for not being able to learn lines quickly which you must be able to do especially back in those days when so many shows were done "live."

Nancy

I in no way meant to knock Jonathan Frid when I said
maybe he would have worked harder to avoid the
bloopers. I realize he and the rest of the cast worked
under tough conditions. I think they did an extraordionary job
Most of the time I barely notice the bloopers.

I in no way meant to knock Jonathan Frid when I said
maybe he would have worked harder to avoid the
bloopers. I realize he and the rest of the cast worked
under tough conditions. I think they did an extraordionary job
Most of the time I barely notice the bloopers.

I agree with you.  I've never understood the fascination with the bloopers where the point is to look for and anticipate them.  But quite a few people watch DS for the mistakes or comment how distracting they are.  As for me,  I would not want to spend time shifting through distractions or moments that remove the sense of reality in order to watch a program.  But, that's just me. For others, spotting and anticipating the blooper is entertainment.

Nancy

If Frid could make history young again and go back to 1971 and revitalize his post DS career, this is what I bet he would do--

1.) Take on all the packaged, stereotyped roles he was no doubt called on to take but which he rejected.  This would permit him commercial and popular success. Maybe get a whole series of movies starring him as some heavy (but not necessarily in a horror or gothic role).

2.) Use his enhanced fame and exposure from the above to take on whatever challenging Broadway roles he desired.

That's what Frid would probably do if he could do it over. Don't you think? He seems to have regretted his fall from fame a bit.

If Frid could make history young again and go back to 1971 and revitalize his post DS career, this is what I bet he would do--

1.) Take on all the packaged, stereotyped roles he was no doubt called on to take but which he rejected.  This would permit him commercial and popular success. Maybe get a whole series of movies starring him as some heavy (but not necessarily in a horror or gothic role).

2.) Use his enhanced fame and exposure from the above to take on whatever challenging Broadway roles he desired.

That's what Frid would probably do if he could do it over. Don't you think? He seems to have regretted his fall from fame a bit.

Doubt it.  In the mid- 1980s, Frid returned from years of travelling and family business things to the theater, and started taking small theater roles in New York.   He was cast as Jonathan Brewster for the Broadway touring company of "Arsenic and Old Lace" in which he played the role on Broadway for a few weeks prior to it going on the road.  The tour was very high profile as it shattered existing theater box office records.  Frid received enormous TV and radio exposure during the tour appearing on dozens and dozens of TV and radio talk shows, not to mention giving print interviews.  The tour resulted in the industry knowing Frid was alive and kicking and the offers started coming in for film and TV work but he turned them all down.  Why?  Because he established his own theater production company in 1986 called Clunes Associates for the purpose of developing several one-man shows.  These shows toured the country for eight years.  He didn't pursue film or TV work outside of his production company after "Arsenic and Old Lace" tour ended in 1987 early 1988.    He still wasn't interested in being packaged.  

I can post a more recent  except of a Q&A Frid did a few years ago at a charity performance he gave in New York.  He talks about  his happiness with doing theater.


Nancy

May I suggest that the difference of a decade may have made a difference? I am aware of the slight renaissance of Mr. Frid's career at the time, but by the mid 80's he was too old and overweight to make any huge impact in show business in the same way he did (and could have easily eclipsed) in the late 60's.

His popularity in the mid 80's was not equal to his fame immediately following the end of Dark Shadows. He had a renaissance that allowed him to reenter film and TV, as you said, but those roles, because of his increased age, increased weight (i am going by a festival video from 89), as well as his decreased fame (theatrical success is great, but it could have been no where near to what he had on DS) - all of these factors would not permit him to gain the same success in mainstream film and TV, playing the most desirable roles, as he could have had if he had actively pursued success as an actor after DS.

I realize he studied Spanish and whatnot during the 1970's, but wasn't that the result of boredom suffered while waiting for desirable roles that were not of the "packaged" and "stereotyped" variety? Taking Spanish, doing the family business, a few roles, etc etc. is really filler for a long strech of inactivity on his acting resume. I do seriously think that -- could he do it over -- he would pursue a high profile acting career in 1971's post-DS era, when he was still "young," when he could still get leading roles, when he still maintained some trace of seriously financially rewarding fame (which he never came close to equalling again).

To reiterate my point--easily missed in the above convoluted passages--the opportunities he had in the mid 80's as a result of minor theatrical success were nowhere close to the opportunities he had in 1971, when he was still a "young" man. As an older gentleman in the mid 1980's, one man show's had a great deal of more appeal.

Of course nobody should take any of what I postulate here too seriously. It's just a sort of revisionist what-if approach to his career. I would be deeply interested, Nancy, in seeing the Q & A you mentioned some time at your leisure.

To reiterate my point--easily missed in the above convoluted passages--the opportunities he had in the mid 80's as a result of minor theatrical success were nowhere close to the opportunities he had in 1971, when he was still a "young" man. As an older gentleman in the mid 1980's, one man show's had a great deal of more appeal.

Of course nobody should take any of what I postulate here too seriously. It's just a sort of revisionist what-if approach to his career. I would be deeply interested, Nancy, in seeing the Q & A you mentioned some time at your leisure.

You will be happy to know as a fan that none of what you feared to be the case with JFrid turned out to be the case, LOL.  Frid wanted to do things away and apart from the supernatural roles such as having a talk show and that just wasn't going to happen in 1971.  He hoped it would, but he found it otherwise.   What would producers call the show? "Jivving with Barney?"  No casting agent or producer would go for it so the issue was play what was being offered, produce and star in your own TV series, etc.    Here is an exerpt from the Q&A which is on a yahoogroups discussion list on JFrid.

Q&A following a charity performance in New York of his one-man show.  When asked about his one-man show, why not pursue (or have pursued) film and television work he responded:

JF:  Now, a couple of other things I'd like to touch on too . . oh yes.  I had some experience with, let me put it this way . .. 1987 was probably the happiest year of my life in the theatre. I did two things that year.  I was formulating and formalizing this Readers Theater thing, which I found the happiest part of my life really.
And also my biggest professionally in the sense of big business apart from "Dark Shadows".  This was on the stage, in a Broadway touring production of "Arsenic and Old Lace".  Of course, I was playing Jonathan Brewster.  And I began, I was you might say always stuck in these type castings; I was playing a gruesome  killer, which I was.  But in the course of the year, touching
on two things at once here, one about villains...It was a wonderful role because even though it was supposed to be an evil son of a gun.  I remember the director who wanted me to do it, too.
I said "But it's a comedy".  He said "We have enough comics in this show.  You play, go after the
aunties".  If you know the "Arsenic and Old Lace" story.  And he goes after them.  He said "Give
it to them".  And I had those two ladies breaking down in tears a couple of times.   I get so evil. [Laughter] Of course, they deserved it. [Laughter]

So he [the director] was very happy with that. But the thing was, there were also scenes that he has with this Dr. Einstein, the quack doctor.  We were just a couple of crackpots in this thing, and had funny scenes. And there are two or three very funny scenes, that famous scene where they try to get the body through the window and put into the windowseat, if it's done right, is one of the funniest things I can recall in all the plays I've ever seen in my life.  Although I never quite conquered that one totally, but I did my best.  But I mean there are other scenes I had.  But anyway, to make a long story short, the last night I played it was after a whole year, I finally got that role so that it was one of the most pleasurable
experiences of my life. Even though he was a nasty, nasty man, he was in a comedy, in a farce at
that.  And he does have scenes where he is funny.  And to be able to get laughs seconds after I just scared everybody on stage, it was a wonderful feeling, being mercurial, I think that's the greatest joy of an actor; it's when you feel that you
I can go from one thing to another almost instantaneously and become something else all of a
sudden. And it's the mercurial thing that keeps me buoyant  as an actor.  And that's what I did
in "Arsenic and Old Lace". It was a simply wonderful experience to be able to play comic... The
director let me do this once he knew I was doing my job humiliating these aunts at the right
moment.  There were just times where you had to, that it was just so automatically comedy, that
I did play it for both values.  So it was just this mercurial going back and forth  
And all the farce, comedy, melodrama, and most tragic

It was a great lesson for me.  Now the other thing about "Arsenic", it was the best role I've ever
had in the longest run that I've ever had.  Sometimes I've had long runs just playing small walk-
ons or something, or I've had great roles like Richard III and only had three weeks to play it
But this played for a year.  And I'm a slow study, as possibly you've all discovered just by watching "Dark Shadows"  [laughter].  I really had a terrible, terrible time with that show for the first six months to a year.  I was talking about that this afternoon in another context.  But in this particular context, speaking about how wonderful it was to have "Arsenic" and be able to do that for a whole year and have all that time to perfect it, while other actors, some of the other actors, were bored stiff.  And a lot of actors, very good actors, better actors than I am in a way, in some respects anyway, they play a role -- and they admit it -- they play a role for three or four weeks and then they have nowhere else to go, they're just bored. I'm forever, ever, exploring - I mean I'm so slow. (Laughter)  And I keep looking and looking and looking.  Tonight and this afternoon, there were two or three stories read quite differently in my head, I don't know who has been here twice today, but I read quite differently from this afternoon.  One little revelation that hits you in the brain will trigger all kinds of little things all through the rest of the story, so it's like really playing a new story.  I'm not a very organized person, but I let my imagination fly.  So that's one of the joys I get, but it doesn't always leave me in good stead in the professional business.  So that's why I  get called a dilettante kind of actor instead of a money-making actor.

To tell you the truth, I love my acting profession, but I refuse to bow to being shaped into a business property.  I wouldn't do that; I got out of all that.  That was quite deliberate.  I had no interest in that at all, even if I missed making millions, I didn't care.  I just had no interest in that sort of thing.  I was just wasn't going to be a toy to these guys. I just have my own way of acting.  I loved being flexible and private, and I had this great way of doing it with these One Man Shows.  This is why they are my very favorite part of my career.  And by
the way, people say, isn't there some part you've always wanted to play and never, and every
actor's been asked, and most actors say yes, they do have a part that I haven't played yet and
I'd love to do.  I don't have that problem; I just put them in my Readers Theater and do it.
[laughter and applause].  

End of excerpt:

Ironically enough, Frid took on the role of Jonathan Brewster in Arsenic and Old Lace on Broadway in 1986 and went on the very high profile tour of the production across the country.  At the time, the show was the most financially successful tour according to Variety magazine.  As Frid said in interviews at the time, he took on what he expected to be a high profile tour in order to let the industry know he wasn't dead so he could generate some publicity for his one-man shows.  The exposure was enormous - radio, TV and print interviews all over the place.  When came back from the tour (which lasted over a year) he turned down the many film and TV offers that came in (some of them for films that were highly successful when released) because he only wanted to do theater.  That's all that has ever really interested him.    It's what he's best at too.

There is a marvelous book out on Jonathan Frid's career written by Malia Howard you can check out at www.curiousjourney.com and also his own website at www.jonathanfrid.com

Nancy

Unfortunately, though I still disagree, I do not think it fitting to go back and forth over different opinions of how Frid's career likely would have turned out if he could redo 1971. It's always healthy and instructive to have a number of differing perspectives on any issue, and I respect your viewpoint as being as equally valid as my own. Thank you so much for taking the time to share your Frid treasures (the exert - kiss, kiss). Anything Frid is fun and fabulous.

I always adore checking out Frid's web site regularly for additions from the Maestro. It has been the best site maintained by any DS star for a while. Frid's own writings and the new Tempest readings are truly sensational and certainly far more than I could have ever expected, say, 10 years ago. I continue to await other surprises from this still highly gifted artist.

Unfortunately, though I still disagree, I do not think it fitting to go back and forth over different opinions of how Frid's career likely would have turned out if he could redo 1971. It's always healthy and instructive to have a number of differing perspectives on any issue, and I respect your viewpoint as being as equally valid as my own. Thank you so much for taking the time to share your Frid treasures (the exert - kiss, kiss). Anything Frid is fun and fabulous.

I always adore checking out Frid's web site regularly for additions from the Maestro. It has been the best site maintained by any DS star for a while. Frid's own writings and the new Tempest readings are truly sensational and certainly far more than I could have ever expected, say, 10 years ago. I continue to await other surprises from this still highly gifted artist.

You are absolutely right, Spiderman.  Your viewpoint is as valid as mine or anyone else's here.  My viewpoint comes from working with Mr. Frid and his production company for many years, reading incoming scripts being offered to him and knowing how he liked his business conducted.  Nothing was more interesting to him or worthwhile than his one man shows hence all the other offers were appreciated but turned down.  These days it is with as little fanfare as possible and no interviews.  He enjoys his fans but dislikes celebrity which is why he choose to have remain low profile, but have just enough profile to advertise his theater work.   But you don't have to take my viewpoint or his for gospel.  

Nancy