Frid/DS Q&A 11/84 Part 1

[Nancy]

Jonathan Frid did a Q&A with fans at the Dark Shadows Festival in November, 1984 at the Gateway Hilton Hotel in Newark, New Jersey.  

If there is any interest in these Q&As, I will post another Q&A, an earlier one in fact, from 1982 at a ShadowCon that was Frid's first convention.  In that Q&A he talks about Dark Shadows, DS cast members, and other items not covered here.

This is part 1 as it is too long for one post.

I'm afraid I don't know where I got this transcription from.


Jonathan Frid Q&A
Dark Shadows Festival
Gateway Hotel, November 1984
Newark, New Jersey

At the time of this Q&A the public television station New Jersey Network had started running "Dark Shadows" in syndication generating a lot of publicity in that television market area. Frid's emergence from his self-imposed hiatus from the limelight
gave the publicity a much needed push as he made himself
available for radio, television and printed interviews in
addition to attending large and small "Dark Shadows" conventions
all over the country. He frequently would make appearances all
three days at the Dark Shadows Festivals - he would do a "Best
of Barnabas" or a "Best and Worst of Barnabas" on the Friday
night opening the Festival. This would be a series of clips from
the series he would comment on plus a Q&A with the audience. On
Saturday afternoons he would do a solo Q&A or, more frequently
as the years went on, a Q&A session with other DS actors.
Sundays were reserved for a performance.

Frid did the following solo Q&A on a Saturday afternoon. Bear in
mind when reading that many of these fans had not seen Dark
Shadows since its original run and there were not the MPI DS
tapes then that there are now available to fans.

Jonathan Frid: Now, who has a question? Anybody?

Question: When you were filming the show, if something drastic
went wrong, did you film it and if so, was an example of that?

JF: Well, there were plenty of examples, I regret to say. But
no, we were not supposed to stop. It cost quite a bit of money.
I suppose it went into the hundreds, if not thousands of dollars
every time we stopped, and that meant we had to take it to the
editing room after the show, after we taped and had to go up to
that special department of ABC and that cost money. Like, for
instance, that Chromokey business -- ghosts would appear or
disappear. Those were special shots and there were a couple of
times when the boss himself directed the show and of course he
would do anything he liked. As a matter of fact, there was one
day with the film -- I can't even remember the story.  We used
the whole studio for somebody to take a long, long walk. Maybe
you haven't seen it, maybe it's a later episode, but I remember
we did it like a movie. Curtis directed it and he did like he
was doing "The Winds of War". It was a very, very involved
thing. We did one little bit and another little bit. But that
was a rare exception. Normally you do it all in one take. Now, I
understand that modern soap operas are so much more advanced
technically that they could stop and correct each scene, because
it's all done right in the cameras. They don't have to go to an
editing room later. I've heard this but I'm not sure.

Q: When you do Chromokey, you're not really in the background?

JF: Where are we?

Q: You're in a black background?

JF: We're in the studio but on a different set. Don't ask me to
explain Chromokey. (Laughter) I know that we had to be in a
different location if we were going to be in the studio. Behind
us would be this blue paper so your figure would blend into
whatever scene was taking place and that blue would disappear.
Let's just skip this subject. (Laughter)

Q: Are there any other places in the US or parts of Canada where
DS is being shown right now?

J: It has been on and off. It was playing on the west coast then
in New Orleans, Dallas, Detroit and San Francisco. They've only
released 2 years of this thing for some reason or another. It
has something to do with Worldvision charging too much. You
know, they just don't want to pay out this kind of money [the TVstations]. I don't know whether they're successfully holding out
for more or whether they've just decided to call it quits. But
anyway, they've only released 2 years and when people run out of
those two years then there isn't anymore at this point. Now, of
course, you know if you go after it.  It's just like elections.
If you go after the local precincts, then force them to go after
so and so . .. Certainly with the healthy activity with DS here
it looks like they might well fight for you [New Jersey Networkpublic television] and go after Worldvision and continue it. I
mean, keep watching it. The only way to do it is to spread the
word and it's on and tell everybody else you know to watch. And
I'm sure the network will at least fifth for you and maybe will
press Worldvision to come forth with some more or at least
strike a bargain. I mean, you know, go after the network. I
understand they're here broadcasting all this while I'm here
telling you - go after the network. (Laughter)

Q: If Worldvision is distributing, who owns the copyright They
would be the ones who'd also be involved.

JF: Well, Dan Curtis, I think, owns the copyright. I don't know
what the whole arrangement was, whether they turned it all over
the Worldvision. I think they're managing the copyright but
whether they own it outright, I don't know how that works, but I
still think it's probably his property, or Curtis Productions or
whatever it is. But don't ask me. I'm just an actor. (Laughter)

Q: Would it help if we contacted him?

JF: No. I think your best bet is to go after Worldvision. No,
he's too busy with his other things. Write this home base (New
Jersey Network). Go after these people. Le them go after
Worldvision. They'll go after Worldvision if they know they have
enough people in New Jersey watching. It works that way. Work the
grass roots. It's the grass roots that count.

Q: Given the complexity of Barnabas and the rush of the schedule
you had to do, what do you credit for the fact that you were able
to get through it, your lines and the make the character . ..

JF: Are you trying to embarrass me? . . . . (Laughs)

Q: I mean, was it your stage experience that sort of got you
through all that and able to hang in there or was it sheer guts?

JF: It was like jumping off a tall rock into water thousands of
feet below. Every morning I had to do it whether I liked it or
not. I pushed myself. No, it was very difficult for me. There
were some of the actors that could go and learn their script
going home in a taxi and go to have a ball the rest of the night
and come back the next morning and not miss a single line. I
don't know how they did it, but there's some people, you know,
who have that kind of mind. I certainly do not. I'd go home and
thought I had HAMLET every night. And I started worrying about
it. I worried through it. You know: what is he doing in here?
(Laughter) So much so that I didn't even know what the plot was
half the time. I was in a fog. I used to make excuses for that
because in real life we don't know the plot that's going on
around us. We're so busy living our lives it's only 10 years
later that we recall and see what we were doing at a certain
time and in the context of a bigger thing called plot. So it
never bothered me very much at the time if I didn't know the
plot particularly well. It's just as well I didn't. The
surprises kept coming.

I'd make good excuses for myself. I didn't know the plot. I just
didn't know the plot. I didn't have time to figure that out. As a
matter of fact, I remember one day Dan Curtis came in and he said
"Jon!" and he as like a kid, very boyish in a way, "I have a
great new idea for a whole new story!" And meanwhile I was
saying "Yes, Dan, yes", meanwhile trying to lean the lines for 5
minutes later I was playing on the set. And he starts telling me
about a story 3 months later. But you know, I was just thinking
- leave me alone, leave me alone. (Laughter) I tired to tell him
but I couldn't. I had to listen to him. I couldn't care less. I
had a plot right there to deal with, that problem right there
for that particular day. I used to know the plot within 2 or 3
days. That's all I needed to get the wheels going,
characterizations going. But it was very, very tough for me.
However, most of my life has been in stock where I've had to
learn lines and with all that experience I just learned. I
learned something really valuable on DS. I always to think "Oh,
if I only had a long run". I had a long run but never in a big
role. But all my big runs were short roles. And I thought "Oh,
if I could only have a year to play a marvelously big role". And
I think probably wouldn't be as good as that because I think I
learned to make the instincts work and I'm when I'm not in too
much control. I think when I get too controlled, you lose
something . That's life, that's one of the ironies of life. When
you think you've got everything you want, it's not all that
great. It's struggling that makes things more electric in life.

Go to next part

[Nancy]

Q: Do you have a memorable or favorite blooper?

JF: Actually my favorite wasn't a line blooper but it was when I
came out with all of my clothes draped over my arm in the main
house. Shirts and socks . .. for those of you didn't see that
episode . . I don't know if it shows in the 2 years that you'll
be seeing it.

Audience: Yes!!!

JF: Oh, it's shown already. Well, one day, you know, when they
are rolling the credits they always take a set and very often it's
the main house, the hallway or sometimes it's the doctor's
office. But they always sort of roped it off so nobody would
cross in to that. Well, we used to do if we had any costume
changes in the show, there used to be a change rooms back where
Mrs. Johnson disappears. So I was back there collecting -- we all
had to collect whatever changes we had and take them back
upstairs after the show and I usually didn't do that. So I went
back there to get all of my things, I went in the back way. And
I didn't know that the front hall had been roped off during the
credits. So I came merrily through that door, walked down quite
calmly. And they're saying "Get out of there! Get out of there!"
And it was too late for that! (Laughter) There I was, as delicate
as ever. But that was my favorite. I supposed I didn't mind that
really because that was not the thing I was in trouble with most
of the time. I used to have such sorry and guilt and all the rest
of it about all my real bloopers. Well, I showed a couple last
night. I tink probably one of the very worst shows I ever did
was indeed aired last week and I regret to say that it happened
2 or 3 days before this Festival began . .but again, that's
life. It was that dreadful scene in the lab with Dr. Lang ƒâ€˜
there's the answer to your question. I mean, there wasn't just
one but a dozen. The early scenes with Lang were working quite
well and then it just disintegrated.

Q: Did Barnabas get away from Angelique's curse?

JF: Did I? Oh, those plots!! If you think I didn't know the plot
at the beginning, forget about the end of the show. They changed
every day. I don't know how anybody followed it. Certainly I
couldn't.

Q: Can we look forward to you doing any work in the near future?

JF: Are you sweet, dear? Well, let me give you a little
background on "Genesis of Evil". It was because of a sessions
like this that I used to do. I started all this about 3 years
ago. The second year I thought, I'd had 2 or 3 sessions like
this and it was getting boring already asking the same questions
over and over again. So I thought "We'll I'm going to have a
little something to freshen things up and I'll put together some
poetry or something". That was the genesis of "Genesis . ." and
that's how that came about. Now, I've found myself so happy with
it that indeed, when this is over, I'm going to repeat the whole
show. Again, this is all of course centered on DS at the moment,
obviously, for good reason. But I want to universalize it for a
general public. I want to continue in the one-man show format
and I might even keep the same title, "Genesis of Evil". I don't
know. It will less oriented towards DS, although it will probably
refer to it in some way or another. I have to watch for copyright
when I get into big business, of course. You have to be very
careful with copyrights.

Q: How would we be able to find about it, where you are?

JF: Oh, you'll hear. This is a plan of the future, and I hope it
starts, as I say, next year.

Q: Who did you enjoy working with on the set?

JF: I liked John Karlen.  He was a pal. We used to have a lot of
fun together. Thayer David was another, God rest his soul. And, oh yes, I had great
fun with Grayson, Lara and Kathryn Leigh Scott. A real fierce scene Lara and I had one
day and it's all full of fire and music and it was because we
had a good row before that (on the set). We stimulated one
another. I like Lara. She was nice. They were all nice people.
As I said last nihgt, my favorite scenes that I saw last night
were all with Anthony George. Not all of them, but a good 3 or 4
were my very best scenes. It's just coincidence or something. We
just instinctively played off one another. But those were some
of my favorite scenes.

Q: I get the impression that Dan Curtis had a lot of control
over this soap opera. Did any actors or actresses have input or
suggestions, like to rewrite part of the script, extend the
characters, bring it down, or change it, or was it the writers .
. . .?

JF: No, I think it was mostly up to the writers. Now, there were
1 or 2 instances where, I think, what's her name? Who played Mrs.
Johnson?

Audience: Clarice Blackburn!

JF: Thank you. For God's sake, I'd be forgetting my mother's own
name. As a matter of fact, I woe a debt to my mother because she
forgot her own name telling a story when I was up for her 95th
birthday this last week. Anyway, she can be allowed that
privilege.

Anyway, Clarice Blackburn wrote a script one time. That was a
special request she made. She wanted to try her hand at it.
She's still doing it now . . . .

Audience: All My Children!

JF: Yeah. She took a couple of cracks at DS, one at least. I
think Joel Crothers did 1, 2 or 3 but that was the exception. As
far as the actors having any participation in the scripts, that's
what you're really asking.

Towards the end, we started to meddle a little bit more because,
like everything else in the show, everybody got lazy. The scripts
weren't as good and some of them were just hopeless, hopeless in
my opinion. We all started to through our two bits in. I
remember when we read the script for the following day, in the
early days, all we did was just edit it for timing. But towards
the last year or so, not only for timing but we couldn't say
such lines or thought we couldn't say such lines. I think we
were all demoralized and maybe the scripts were not as bad as we
thought. But I know there was an awful lot of "How can I say
that" because we were all so tired of cliches already. I mean,
that famous one of mine: "Oh? Did I startle you?" "Do I have to
say that TODAY!" We were constantly doing that in the last year.
So in that sense we meddled. We weren't supposed to.
On television you have to be dead on cue, too. You can't just
fool around with lines. We often did (by accident) but it makes
it hell for the music cue and for cameras. The cameras go on
word cues. Music comes in on the word cue. My classic story
about that is one day I had to say to Grayson, "I'm going to
kill you, Julia!" and then there's the BONG (the music cue).
Well, I reversed it and I said "Julia --- " and then there's the
BONG (music cue) and I . . (mouths the rest of the line obscured
by the music cue). (Laughter) Julia's going: "What's he gonna
do?" That kind of mix-up. That's the danger of television.

(next part)

[Nancy]

Q: That happened with Alexandra Isles, her role, after awhile,
the going all the time "I don't understand, what do you mean".

JF: Well, yeah, but that's not her. You're wondering whether she
just said that because that's the way she felt. No, she could
never do that. That's just the way it was written. But that's
standard on all soaps, at least so in those days. I don't watch
soaps but certainly on our show and any time I was in one or
happened to see one, they're always saying "What do you mean?"
We really hated those cliches.



Q: Do you ever see any of the actors or actresses that you
played with on DS?

JF: No, not too often. Louis Edmonds, I guess, I see as much as
anybody. But again, it's sometimes months, maybe even a year. I
see Joan Bennett ever once in a while every once in a while, not
too often. People move on in the theater ƒâ€˜ you're constantly in a
new theatrical situation. You say "Love you, dear, but I'll see
you in 5 years".

Q: There's a certain episode I always wanted to know what went
wrong. The episode where you were about to kill Nathan Forbes.
As he stabbed you and you got shot in the heart, as you were
about to approach him, and something happened to the audio. It
sounded like your voice was dubbed. What went wrong?

JF: Oh, I don't know. I think I was asked the same question and
I was confused myself. I thought all that was a little
overdramatic, long and drawn out DOM, DOM, DOM . . I thought it
was a little overdone.

Q: Will you dress up as Barnabas during the Festival?

JF: No, I'm taking a long holiday from all of that! As a matter
of fact, I did swipe a costume from the show. It was a nice suit.

Q: Was the character of Julia Hoffman written to be a comic
figure?

JF: Is that the way you think about it??

No, a serious answer to that question. I think I was just
saying that this morning to someone that NBC failed in their
resurrection of the series for that very reason. That very
attitude. They advertised it as a comedy. And all their
commercials they spent about a half a million dollars ƒâ€˜ just
tons of money of it and it failed. Simply, I think, because
they oversold it. I think the way New Jersey Network is doing it
is just right. Just letting you people get it going at the grass
roots level and building from that. If it ever will, we'll do it
this way. They [NBC] came with big guns and sold it as a send-up,
as a farce. All their commercials, if you look at them, were all
me at my very, very worst.

It's all very well and good to watch a bad movie and get a laugh
out of it but after 5 minutes, a bad movie is no longer funny.
It's supposed to be very serious. However, heaven knows that I
laugh about it when I see it. Of course, there are some scenes
that are very moving. It's a very peculiar show. Of course when
I was doing it, I hated it. I hated myself. But looking at it
after all these years, some of it's still very bad in my
opinion. But an the other hand, sometimes it will coalesce into
something absolutely charming that I've never seen on television
anything like it. When everybody works together, the writing is
good and the direction is good an the actors are all on top of
it, in control of it . . It really had a great never-never land
charm. It called it a Gothic Brigadoon. As long as it's Never
Never Land.

The trouble with the movie ["House of Dark Shadows"], by the
way, I thought was there was too much silly violence and all
that cliche stuff you get on any prime-time TV show. But the
series, becaue it was forced to stay away from all those
technical effects, cars crashing and so forth had a lovely
kind of charm to it. As I often said, we reached for the stars
and fell flat on our faces a great deal of the time doing it. At
least though, we reached for the stars which is more than most
soaps ever do.

Q: Have you ever met or corresponded with Christopher Lee and
have you ever seen any of his Dracula movies?

JF: No, I've never met nor corresponded with him. I'm not into
watching the occult movies. I didn't even see "E.T." or the one
ten years before, "The Exorcist". I have no particular interest
in all that. Never did. I've had interest in the kind of drama
that I liked best on DS, which is interior: internal problems of
the mind and in relationships. That's what moves me as an actor.
But as far as the occult, the strange goings-on in the occult.
I hate to disappoint anyone but that's what you all have to
know. I'm an actor. I'm acting a role and I got a great deal of
pleasure out of doing Barnabas. It was all those fascinating
ramifications that affected his life that came from the source
of his problem, being a vampire. It's like an alcoholic. You
can't play an alcoholic for the whole length of a play, let
alone for 4 years. But you can play a man that is plagued with
the problems of adjusting to life under those dreadful
conditions, you see. That's got lots of meat for drama. Ray
Milland's "Lost Weekend" many, many years ago and lots of
pictures on alcoholism since . . . they aren't not playing the
drunk for the whole story, they're playing the dreadful things
that happen to an alcoholic. That's what I liked playing about
Barnabas, what happened to him as a result of this dreadful
condition. As I said last night, I enjoyed going back to the
past in 1795, to get away from playing [the vampire] for awhile.
I played before he became one and that was fun.

Next question -- Yes, I see a hand back there in the dark
shadows . . . (Laughter)

Q: What was a typical day like on DS? Did you ever have to shoot
anything live?

JF: To answer the second question first - I don't know whether
we did. I know we got very close to doing it one time. It was
during that strike, and I think we were right down to a day.
When I first went on the show, it was like 2 weeks ahead. Then
it got closer and closer, and I think we were even going in and
taping Saturdays and Sundays for a couple of weeks to get ahead
again. That was pretty rough going.

In answer to the first part of your question: I suppose the day
begins when you read your script for the following day. That
happens after the taping of the show, the previous day's taping,
which happened around 3:30-4:00 p.m thereabouts. Then we'd have a
break for 15 minutes to half an hour, and then we'd go up to the
rehearsal room, take our scripts. As I said, in the early days
we just edited it very quickly for timing. It would take about
half an hour to edit for 20 minutes of actual playing time. Then
we would go right into blocking out the main moves which we did
up in the rehearsal hall for about an hour sometime around
5:30-6:00 p.m. Then we'd break for the day, go home, learn lines
(hopefully) then report at 8:00 in the morning and do the same
again, up in the rehearsal hall, just refining our movements and
finishing off what we didn't complete the day before. Then we
would finish blocking it, running it a couple of times then we
used to break for lunch at 10:30 which I always thought was
ridiculous. Who wants lunch at 10:30? But that's what we did.
Actually, it was a combination of that and make-up too. You were
supposed to get into make-up at that time. We'd have, I think it
was an hour til 11:30.

At 11:30 we'd go down and then we'd block out the stuff in front
of the cameras. That was very slow, about an hour and a half,
just blocking it out with the cameras. We didn't act or
anything. We just simply said our lines and perhaps jumped to
cue if there was a lot of dialogue and nothing happened. Then
we'd just say it. There were always camera cuts and so forth. We
had a break after that for 10-15 minutes and then do the whole
thing as a 'stumble through" (Laughter). We did it upstairs
earlier without cameras, but now we do the whole thing as a
run-through for everybody's benefit. Then another break to
finish make-up and we got into costumes for dress rehearsal.
11:30 was the camera breakdown and then at 1:00 we would have a
run-through and then at 2:30 we would have a dress rehearsal.
Then we'd have a half hour break depending. Then we taped the
actual show at 3:30 or 4:00. Roughly that was the day as I
remember it. But it was a pretty hectic schedule. We only really
got 1 or 2 run-throughs, you know. When you're doing a theater
play, we have 3 weeks at least to rehearse one show so you have
any number of run-throughs. Not with the soaps. You only get 1
or 2 at the most. And you really have to know it.

Q: In the earlier back and white episodes, there were a few
spotty color episodes. Were they testing it for color and were
there any problems with the transition?

JF: It's hard for me to answer that because I haven't watched
that much. It may even be your television (Laughter). Well, I
know some of the episodes saved by Worldvision - they have
kinies, kinescopes. Other stations had it put on delayed
broadcasts for the network feed. They were taped in black and
white. I guess some of the episodes were missing. They went back
and got the black and whites. I don't know. I'm not sure.

You probably remember we had the van out on the sidewalk. The
whole show for about a month there while we went over to color -
they had to change all the control room and all the equipment. So
we had a temporary van out on the streets. When the director and
all the crew would leave the building and we'd all say "Good
night", and they'd go out into the street, get into the van and
run the show through from out there. So I guess there was a lot
of confusion during that transitional period.

[Nancy]

Q: Do you have any hobbies?

JF: I suppose my hobby has been for the past few years the study
of the Spanish language. I don't speak it very well. I speak it
better than I can hear it. I've been away from it for about 6
months to a year now. I would like to work on the show [thedeveloping one-man show] just the way it is and get it revved up
on Spanish. I have Shakespeare in Spanish and Poe in Spanish -
and that would be quite something - and my commentary. But I'd
love to do it and I imagine in New York, around here, there's a
vast number of Spanish-speaking people that have come from South
America, Puerto Rico or the Caribbean or Mexico where DS played
in Spanish. I think that I could advertise in El Diario or
something, some other Spanish-speaking papers in New York, and
get a crowd for a week. I'm sure I could with all the people who
have emigrated. Anyway, that's been my hobby.

Q: Was there any talk of DS going on from the afternoon to
prime-time?

JF: I heard it mentioned, wishfully, but I don't think there was
ever a serious discussion of it, at least that I know of. Maybe
there was, I don't know. I heard it vaguely talked about, but
not by anybody with the network, or anything like that. Who
knows? I can't really help you on that.

Q: They always showed you rising out of your coffin and in the
very next shot you'd be standing beside it. How'd you get out of
that coffin?

JF: Ever jumped off a table? It's like getting out of a hospital
bed, or getting out of a taxi in New York. As a matter of act, I
asked for that because I thought it was very demeaning to see a
grand vampire climbing out of this thing. I wanted to maintain
my dignity. I thought I'd be pulling on my clothes or taking off
my pajamas. (Laughter)

Q: The character of Barnabas Collins changed quite drastically
before the past and when he was in the present, and when he went
back to the past and came back again. How do you feel about the
character after the past? Did you like him better because of any
change?

JF: An interesting question. That's a problem that happened with
the writers too. No, he should have been exactly the same. I
mean, HE knew. But you people (the audience) had an awful lot
new that you'd just heard about. There was nothing new for
Barnabas when he came back. It was only the insights the
audience had that were new. I think I tried to pick up where I
left off in my own mind. I was like you. I didn't know anything
this either until the writers came up with all this stuff for
1795. When I got back to 1968 or whatever it was after all that,
I knew all this that I didn't know before (but Barnabas did all
along).

I think the magic of the whole show and I suppose all soap
operas, but especially DS is how they dove-tailed all this.
Richie Levantino had a wonderful interview with Ron Sproat a
year ago where he told about how Barnabas invoked Josette
(through the portrait). He had some film of a ghost walking
abound, they had the film and they decided to use that and that
happened to be Josette. But it worked so they developed it.
Another actor playing Barnabas, that may never have happened.
Who knows? They may have gone off on another tangent. But that's
the way soaps are written. The public - you people - are the ones
who determine, very definitely, the way the stories go. They
listen very carefully to how people respond, and that's the
story they develop. It's like a beauty contest, you know. What's
the biggest applause for? Write a story about the person who gets
the biggest applause.

Q: What roles would you have liked to play but never had a
chance to?

JF: Oh yes, there have been. But I've come to dwell on the ones
I've already done that I'd like to do again. I'd like to do
RICHARD III and MACBETH again. I know there are other roles I'd
like to play.

Q: In the theater, have you done any musicals? Do you like to
sing?

JF: Yes. I had a ball cutting up in a thing in Montreal at His
Majesty's Theatre back in 1955-4-3 ...it was like an English
pantomine. They're the corniest things in the world. They're
very like a musical. Wayne and Schuster had this version of
MOTHER GOOSE with Eric Christmas. The man plays the female lead
and Prince Charming is played by a lady. I was just in the
chorus. Just 2 of us in the front, 2 waiters or whatever. And
they gave us a number. It was something like "Glamor" and with a
cane!! (Laughter) Somebody in the chorus line behind me knew that
it was my first crack at it, and they were always trying to send
me up. I had great fun.

I always wanted to be in another musical but I never developed
it for one reason or another. I was an amateur about it. It was
fun, but like anything else, you had to work at it very
professionally to make it work in a big way. So I never gave
that much to it. I love to do comedy. Getting back to your
question, there was a comedy role I always wanted to play and
that was Whiteside in THE MAN CAME TO DINNER. I never played
that. I would have loved to have done Benedict in MUCH ADO ABOUT
NOTHING. The comedy roles that I haven't played, I'd like to
play. I like comedy.

Q: Has there been any talk about putting the DS series on VCR
tapes?

JF: To sell professionally? Well, no. I don't think they've
thought about that yet. Of course, everybody has them anyway
now! (Laughter) I think that would be a very expensive
enterprise unless they did a sort of short thing. One time, I
had a notion I wish they'd approached me to do a very edited
version and I'd do like Vincent Price does for a series - you
know, sit in a wing chair and tell the story of DS and
illustrate the story with episodes. I've never examined that
clearly to whether it's really feasible. I suppose it could be
done. No one would ever buy that whole series though. It's
amazing - it's the only soap I know that's had reruns.

Q: You've been credited with the success of DS. Without being
overly modest, how do you feel about that? (Applause)

JF: Pretty good! It gave me a whole new lease on life certainly.
Yes, you're absolutely right. That's all false modesty. As a
matter of fact, it took me a long time to realize it, because I
did seriously think I was perfectly dreadful on the show because
every time I had even a slight hesitancy on the show, I felt
awful about it. I want to be in total command. I tried to pick
out some of the scenes last night were I was in total command. I
think that scene where I was with Devlin at the table (in the
Blue Whale) I think I gained confidence because I was very
nervous when I went into that scene. It was well-written, very
precise. I couldn't afford to make a mistake. The cameras were
right on the 2 of us. No distractions. As we went along, by some
miracle I got through maybe a page of dialogue without a single
mistake and I gained confidence from that scene. I was never
more pleased when that scene ended that I had gotten through it.
But those are the sort of things, when I had even the slightest
hesitancy or lost a beat because I wasn't sure or tripped up . .
it was just agonizing. It wasn't worth all that agony at the
time. However, a bit later on I got a little more confident.

Q: I did notice that your normal speaking voice is quite
different than it was from DS. Did you enhance that quality, the
deep timbre, in your voice?

JF: Oh yes. The older you get more flexible. Mind you, when I'm
sitting around in my own apartment, it's just that much worse.
All my life, my family would say "Speak me! Stop mumbling!" I
used to have an aunt who'd bark at me. So that's probably one of
the reasons I became an actor. As you've probably noticed, I'm
not very good at completing sentences or thoughts and actors get
all these smart lines to say and then you get a lot of attention.
I like to have somebody write my dialogue instead of having to
rely on what I say. I've gotten a little better at it but for
years I had a terrible time and consequently I mumbled. When my
mother and father first came to see me in THE RIVALS when I was
16, playing Sir Anthony Absolute, a man of 65 or 70. I was so
nervous. Finally, when it came to my first line, it just boomed
out. I practically shook the whole building! I foudn that I had
this great voice and life changed from right there. However, I
could go right home and an hour later I was mumbling away. I have 3 levels. An
apartment level, a kitchen level and a bathroom level, that's
high opera. I get to sing in the shower. You have those
different levels. The older I get the more aware I am of it.

By the way, that is one of the reasons I love Barnabas so much
because I was able to use a great range of voice in it. That
scene with Angelique in the coffin room. I was using a great
grrrrrrrrrrrooooooooooowwwwwwwling whatever it was in that
scene. I'm making a farce of it now but I had a wonderful timbre
there that I never used that often. So that was a chance to use
it. And then there's the break in the voice over a scene of
grief. You play your voice like an instrument and it's fun to do.

End of Q&A

[Birdie]

Thank you Nancy,
                              I truly enjoyed reading the Q&A with Mr. Frid.  Bravo, thanks for sharing.

Birdie

[RingoCollins]

Thanks Nancy!  Hope that was a cut and paste job - or you have been stroking yer keys as much as I have been stroking my guitar case lining today! [see post after todays Robservations]


any thing right from those 'hissing lips'  - love to hear him talk!

How do you like it? How do you like it?
More, more, more!

[Nancy]

Thanks Nancy!  Hope that was a cut and paste job - or you have been stroking yer keys as much as I have been stroking my guitar case lining today! [see post after todays Robservations]


any thing right from those 'hissing lips'  - love to hear him talk!

How do you like it? How do you like it?
More, more, more!

Yes, it was a cut and paste job.  I have a couple of diskettes full of Q&As and interviews of that nature. If people want, I give.  There is another Q&A from Frid's First Festival (say that three times fast, I dare you) in 1982 which talks about DS and is pretty informative for DS fans.

Nancy[crazd]

[Josette]

Thank you, Nancy!  Those were wonderful!!

[Birdie]

Thanks again Nancy,  

I for one would enjoy reading more.

Birdie--Who is humming "Give My Regards to Broadway".
TCM is playing Yankee Doodle Dandy.   A favorite of mine.  My grandfather knew George M.  when he lived in the Brookfields.  

[Raineypark]

Thanks, Nancy, for taking the time and trouble to share that with us.  I don't think I've ever heard or seen an interview with Johnathan Frid and it's wonderful to hear his sense of humor...poor Barnabas Collins was so rarely allowed to have one.  

Raineypark

[Tanis]

A wonderful job.  Really good reading.

Give us more.

Cocoa

[Darren Gross]

Thanks, Nancy. That was great!

I'd love to read the one from 82!...

[VAM]

THANKS Nancy-Please do post m re!

[MikeS]

Thanks for posting this very enjoyable Q&A.

I would really like to read more!

[Gothick]

Thanks for that, Nancy, that was very interesting, especially for all the fans who have never had the chance to read one of these.  

I was curious about the date, 1984.  Now, I was living abroad during much of the 80s (specifically, I lived in Taiwan from 1982-86) and boy, did I feel like a foreigner when I came back to live in the US.  Anyhow, in one part of this interview (in answer to the question whether Julia was written to be a comic character!) he alludes to the failure of the NBC revival.  This makes me wonder whether part of this may not date to 1991 or 1992?  I would guess Summer of 1991, since the NBC series was canceled that Spring?  Just a thought.

Also, it's interesting to see him mention the part that was done "like a film, bit by bit"--I think he must mean the part when Maggie finally does escape from Barnabas, in the 1967 storyline, with Sarah's help.  I think most of that show was done on film which accounts for why they were able to start and stop.  I was fascinated by the much earlier episode from 1966 with Roger stalking Vicki through the West Wing, where they clearly had some footage spliced in with a stand-in for Louis Edmonds (where you would only see the legs and the footwear).  

Thanks again for posting this.

Steve