The Creepiness of Anthony George

[arashi]

One was sort of masquerading in a suit, and he always seemed too "big" for it, or too big to be confined by it.  Two sleeps in his.

This sums up my take on their characters as well, nice analogy MT.

[tragic bat]

As for AG as Jeremiah, I think he was just "neutral".   I think he walked through that part, too.  The thing is, he didn't speak lines that made him seem to have a bad attitude of any kind, so we're left with a sort of mild, vaguely amiable, agreeable character, and people generally find that to be "likeable". 

I think you're right, Jeremiah was never particularly offensive, but he also was just sort of there.  It's hard to have any strong opinion about him, because he just went through the motions.  And from the way Barnabas often talked about him pre-1795, you'd think Jeremiah would be a more intense character.  Perhaps having them be best friends until a moment of witchcraft was really a copout for the storyline.

[Uncle Roger]

Jeremiah is a far more interesting character to hear about than to actually experience. For example, I never would have expected Mr. Bland to have ever been involved with Laura, let alone have been married to her as we learn in 1897.

[alwaysdavid]

It would have been an interesting tie in to have had Mitch Ryan be the Jeremiah married to Laura. And If  Mitch Ryan  had stayed and Alexandra had a decent leading man with whom said he enjoyed working, would she have left.

[MagnusTrask]

Burke/Mitch was good as a lone wolf.   He's not leading-man/boyfriend (aka "adjunct-to-the-heroine") material.   The problems happened when his storyline was over, and for lack of anything else to do with him, they had to attach him to Vicki to justify his continuing presence.  By that point, it didn't really matter who played him.   The boyfriend role is superfluous.   
You might be able to tell that I'm not a soap viewer...

[michaelhacketttodd]

Didn't Mitch Ryan have a drinking problem?  Perhaps he was a loose cannon on deck.  Dan Curtis was very ambitious and there must have been clashes between the two.  As for Robert Gerringer, perhaps he decided to split when he learned his character was being killed off.  Even Dana Elcar  left around this time.  Dark Shadows was about to travel back in time and some of the characters were doomed, such as Burke, Dave Woodard and the Cemetary Caretaker.

[MagnusTrask]

I'm no source for fannish information, but I do know from posts here that Gerringer refused to be a strikebreaker, and was fired instantly over it.  No one here has contested that story, anyway.

[Sandor]

My Anthony George experience may be different, since I first watched him on "Search For Tomorrow" in the early 70s as the kindly Dr. Tony Vincente - before realizing he had been on "Dark Shadows" in its early years. The weirder part is, after George was killed off "Search," he later joined "One Life To Live" as a likeable doctor, and at the same time (mid-70s), a local station was showing the first re-run 1967 episodes of "Dark Shadows" - the early black and white Barnabas ones.

Realizing that Anthony George was now playing Burke Devlin - 180 degrees from Mitch Ryan's version of the part (writers' choice likely, to pit Burke as Barnabas' rival), I was more disappointed that his dour presence was so unlike his later daytime efforts on "Search" (he married the long-suffering heroine, Joanne) and "One Life To Live" (he was a widower with 2 grown kids). But maybe the Burke character was re-molded to possess a creepy, chauvanistic way of expression - to contrast Barnabas' nostalgic romanticism. It was as if we the audience noticed Anthony George's detachment and Burke's new uncharacteristic aloofness and concluded, "Sure, Barnabas may have a coffin waiting for Victoria, but he'd treat her better than this Burke #2 would!"

-Sandor

[Uncle Roger]

Did Sam Hall and Gordon Russell write for One Life to Live when George was playing Will Vernon? If so, they wrote much more suitable stuff for him there.  The character was widowed before he took the part and Will's only on screen love interest died early in the game. But he was great as a concerned father/doctor/friend and still looked damn good.

[Gothick]

Like a lot of New York actors, Tony George was a friend of the Halls.  He and Grayson were particularly fond of one another, and I think it shows in some of the Burke/Miss Hoffman scenes.

G.

[MagnusTrask]

But maybe the Burke character was re-molded to possess a creepy, chauvanistic way of expression - to contrast Barnabas' nostalgic romanticism. It was as if we the audience noticed Anthony George's detachment and Burke's new uncharacteristic aloofness and concluded, "Sure, Barnabas may have a coffin waiting for Victoria, but he'd treat her better than this Burke #2 would!"

Only if they'd decided Barnabas was headed out of being a villain, at this point.   Had they?   AG's Burke always does seem like "the wrong boyfriend", but was that me or the writers?

[IluvBarnabas]

It's no secret I'm in the 'Mitch Ryan the best Burke Devlin' camp. Say what you want about his occasional flops on lines due to his drinking, but he infused Burke with such a complex and interesting flair to his character that Anthony George simply could not do.

It's not that I found George creepy...I just found his version of Burke too bland, and too overdemanding where Vicki was concerned at times. I do say though I loved him as Jeremiah, and curiously enough there was a rapport between Jeremiah and Vicki that I found curiously missing between her and Burke, even though both characters were played by the same actor.

I'm not so sure that Mitch could have pulled off the role Jeremiah, but who knows?

[michaelhacketttodd]

There is no question that Mitchell Ryan was the Definitive Burke Devlin.  The character was his from the very first episode.  Anthony George did the best he could with what he had to work with...probably with very short notice.  There are very few actors on Dark Shadows that really disappoint me.  Perhaps the Rose Colored Glasses are to blame