Any opinions on Anita Bolster

I've just got DS tape#44 (1795) and within Joshua collins and Countess Duprey summon the good witch, Bathia Mapes, to help rid Barnabas of his curse. I was so impressed with this actress that I did a web search and saw a Dark Shadows discussion stating how really baaad she was. I was stunned, because I found her to be excellent. Granted, she missed some lines and evidently couldn't see the monitor and I did hear someone off-screen shouting them to her, but geez she must have been over 70yrs old.

I wonder if Spielberg saw these episodes because this character kinda forshadows the future Poltergeist ghostbuster Tangina Barrons and she's just as good. Any opinions?

Honestly, I think Anita Bolster was quite good as Bathia Mapes.  However, her involvement in that famous blooper has unfortunately led many to label her as a bad actress, which she wasn't.  I remember watching those episodes for the first time in years and being surprised by how good she was, because every discussion of her in fandom focused on the blooper and how "bad" she was.

i remember very little about the character...wasn't she just on an episode or two?what was this blooper?

i remember very little about the character...wasn't she just on an episode or two?what was this blooper?

If you were watching the DVDs, you would not have heard the blooper because it was dubbed over.    Bolster was supposed to tell Joshua, "Go to the house of the curse," but instead was silent for a long moment as she tried to remember her line.  Somebody off-stage yelled the cue: "Then go to the house..." and she repeated it.  An unfortunate, but IMO hilarious blooper.  Apart from it though, Bolster honestly wasn't bad.

ProfStokes

why they dubbed it over i don't know it was funny! she was good and i think
she was old i loved her!

jennifer

If you were to look at some of Joan Bennetts scenes from DS, and never seen her in previous movies, you would think she wasnt very good either. Heck, you could say that for any actor on the show, they all had their turn with flubs. If they are eliminating bloopers from the DS CDs, they wont be getting any of my $$. to me, it was an important part of the overall show, good stories with flubs to look forward too. 

If nothing else, at least Anita Bolster actually LOOKED the part of the local Wise Woman......

She had quite a respectable career as a character actress.

Even with the standards of editing and daytime drama, any other show would have done retakes on the more noticeable flubs. You can't tell me that things like The Guiding Light and As the World Turns were this bad. Even the contemporary articles about DS bring up the bloopers. They wouldn't have done that if it was the norm.

You can't tell me that things like The Guiding Light and As the World Turns were this bad.

They could be worse.  I'm old enough to have "been there" for live broadcasts of soaps.  I was watching with my Mom the day "As The World Turns" character Paul Stewart lost his toupee in a fight scene. 

Me and Mom, screaming with laughter at that poor man's expense........It's one of my most cherished childhood memories.....

GMTA, Rainey. Right after I read Luciaphil's post and just before I read yours I was thinking about the day I was watching The Edge of Night when one of the actors experienced what was probably one of his worst live broadcast nightmares. His bad guy character was sitting at a desk in his apartment and browsing through some of his incriminatiing papers when another character, who would have liked nothing better than to catch him with those papers, suddenly knocked at the door. Apparently the bad guy was supposed to open the desk drawer and put all the papers in it before opening the door - but the thing was, he couldn't get the drawer open. The panic-stricken, deer-in-the-headlights expression on the actor's face worked perfectly for the scene, but it was clear from the other actor's face that something was happening on the other side of the door that wasn't supposed to be, and watching both actors trying to figure out what to do about the mishap was both horrifying and hilarious. Though not quite as hilarious as how the problem was solved because the bad guy finally just shoved all the papers down his shirt. (I suppose that in the panic of the moment it never occurred to anyone on set that perhaps he could have simply put them in an unseen room in the apartment  ). And after the other actor's character was finally let it, the scene progressed as it probably should have, but with one glaring difference: despite the fact that it was really quite obvious that papers had been shoved down the actor's shirt, so obvious that anyone seeing him couldn't help but mention it, not one word was made of that oddity by the other actor's character. And what made everything worse was that their entire scene was an argument over those papers. Talk about the audience REALLY having to suspend their disbelief that day! 

Ah, the "fun" of working on live TV. And as bad as some of the bloopers on DS may have been, absolutely none of them rank as bizarre as that TEoN blooper.    (I wonder if a videotape copy of it even survives. Proctor&Gamble has often been criticized for destroying the videotaped copies of their soaps that were used later in the day for the West Coast. Though, if at all possible, one might hope that TEoN would have retaped the scene for the other half of the country...)

I just adore Anita Bolster as Bathia Mapes... in her efforts to rescue Barnabas from his curse, her every move was meaningful even that slight pause gave the scene a much more dire feel to it. 
The person who gave a shout spoiled that scene   not Anita.

 

I agree with the Ghost of Sarah Collins: Anita (Bathia Mapes) was great in the role - blooper or not, and methinks the person who yelled out her line (rather than allow the actors to stumble through it) exercised the impulse due to the actress' advanced age. Ageists on DS... humph!!

Love MB's recollections of THE EDGE OF NIGHT - I watched that one too during the DS years, and its "presented live" telecasts gave it an "edge" (no pun intended) similiar to Dark Shadows. It also had some "spooky" elements (remember the insane woman, Stephanie, who quoted Macbeth, sent spiders and poisoned chocolates to a character named Nicole, and crept around wearing a stocking over her head? Shades of Angelique vs. Josette to be sure). 

I just adore Anita Bolster  as Bathia Mapes... in her efforts to rescue Barnabas from his curse, her every move was meaningful even that slight pause gave the scene a much more dire feel to it.

I agree. I thought her performance was gutsy and extremely creative. Fluid, surreal yet commanding. Her mannerisms reminded me a little of the great silent film actresses. It could be that her interpretation was so mystically intense and her acting style so different people, in general, didn't know what to make of her. Her advanced age might also have turned people off. Personally, I find the blooper irrelevant.

I also felt (personal opinion only) that, sadly, Ms. Bolster and JF's acting style did not mesh well. This was one of the few times I did not admire JF's performance in 1795. I wish he had toned it down a bit to accomodate this amazing presence (Anita Bolster) his artificial drawing out of words and moans didn't really work that well in those scenes and his Angelique possession was dreadfully overracted. Louis Edmonds appeared to treat her with great respect.

Hey Cousins!
I have seen Anita Bolster on DS Box Set 6 and I liked her acting style and delivery, especially when she was [spoiler]trying to remove the curse from 1795 Barnabas. [/spoiler]