Costello Signature

[The Doctor and K9]

I have a box of documents from the Dan Curtis Productions files.  A number of the script pages bear the name COSTELLO. I'm wondering if he wrote his name to identify his script or if some unknown person put his name on it before giving it to Mr. Costello.  Does anyone have an image of his signature?  I'd appreciate seeing examples of his autograph.

[Miss_Winthrop]

I don't have a facsimile of his signature.  I'm wondering how you were able to acquire a box of his papers relating to DS?  I know he left DS and became involved in the Strange Paradise series.  Just curious.

[The Doctor and K9]

At the 2006 Festival, Jim Pierson was auctioning off a box of documents from the Curtis archives. This one was a box of script pages, the ones dealing with scene summaries and cast lists.  They have handwritten notes with things like Betsy Durkin's telephone number, the voice over used to announce that "the part of Carolyn Stoddard will be played by Miss Diana Walker", notes on "pre-tape sequences", doodles of faces on the pages, the name Molly is crossed out and replaced with Amy.  Many have nothing written on them. Most bear the name COSTELLO.  I theorize that these were pages from his scripts and were either identified as such by him, or by some unkown office person. It just occurred to me to compare the other writing with the signature. DUH!! That should be helpful! 

[The Doctor and K9]

I'm not an expert, but being an English teacher, I'd say I have some experience with matching signatures to handwritten text. These appear to be written by the same person, Robert Costello.
Here's another example.
1. Pre-tape of memory scence picked up cross talk, had to break for lunch, and do it later. Much time lost.
2. Taped Dress-NO time to tape "AIR". 
This was regarding episode 584. Taken to the hidden room in the mausoleum, Maggie (Kathryn_Leigh_Scott) begins to remember her awful experiences of the past year. Barnabas (Jonathan_Frid) decides the only way to save Victoria is to kill Adam, aired September 19, 1968, taped September 12th.   http://www.starpulse.com/Movies/Dark_Shadows:_Episode_584-V247965/Summary/

[Gothick]

Dear Doctor and K9,

that's very interesting about that note regarding episode 584.  I think that's the one where Maggie has a flashback from her time when Julia brought her to the Mausoleum in the hopes of stimulating her memory in the preceding year.  Fascinating to think that the "Dress Rehearsal" wound up being taped as the day's episode. I wonder how often they wound up doing that.

Given how short the rehearsal times were, I still think it's amazing--and a testimony to the incredible talent involved--that the shows wound up as incredibly good as they so often did.

Regarding Bob Costello's signature, a letter from Costello to a fan might have been included in this book that came out many years ago of letters various fans had received from DS cast members.  Some crew members, such as Ramse Mostoller and Sy Tomashoff, were also included.  I remember more than one crew member mentioning having to accommodate Dan Curtis's shall we say "unique" working style as the main difficulty in working on the series.

G.