As God as my witness this is true; at the 1988 Dark Shadows Festival, during the "Q-and-A" session with actress Lara Parker, some very nice lady in the audience, asked her (and, remember, now, this was 18 years ago): "How did you like, working with a 'pretty-boy' like that Sky Rumson character?" (She may have even mentioned that tall, dark and handsome actor's real name!)
Anyway, Ms. Parker, just raised her eyebrows, as the audience (including yours truly and my then-girlfriend) just about fell out of our chairs in paroxysms of laughter!!!
Hopefully, there are several other cousins out there, who were, indeed, at the 1988 Festival in the World Trade Center to verify that I am NOT going completely senile in my dotage. Oy vey, that lady, must have had a "few" at McSorley's Pub, just off of lower Broadway before "sauntering-over" to the Fest!
I recall a similar incident. It might have been all the way back at one of the Newark Fests. LP was asked about Geoffrey Scott and she replied that he was very good-looking but a terrible actor.
My vote for most fast-forwardable character? The Eagle Hill Cemetery caretaker. In general, I loathe the "young actor acting old" routine, and all of his scenes felt like filler, as if the episode came up short so the writers decided to have the caretaker ramble and moan to add the necessary 1 minute and 15 seconds to the running time. Even though I've seen these episodes many times, I still hope that Barnabas will kill the old geezer.
ClaudeNorth,
I was never at any of those Dark Shadows Festivals, in "beautiful" downtown Newark (as Rowan & Martin used to say). However, I
have seen videotapes of the Collinsport Players (?) from that Fest.
One young woman was absolutely terrific as Angelique a la "Ms. Peggy Lee," singing "Fever." (I think that she appears at many of the festivals.) Yet, the funniest performer, had to be this guy in drag, wearing a red wig, full makeup, and a doctor's white uniform. I recall that he "recreated" an obviously angst-ridden Dr. Hoffman, pursed-lips and arms flailing about, as he/she cried out for her beloved Barnabas, during Angelique's "Dream Curse"! Let me tell you, the tears of laughter were flowing freely after
THAT memorable performance!
(I don't think that I'll
ever be able to keep a straight face, when the late, great Ms. Grayson Hall, begins to wail on videotape/dvd: "Oh, Barnabas, help me! Where are you, Barnabas?"
As to the venerable (not to mention, "eccentric"?), "Eagle Hill Cemetery Caretaker," I have to take polite and respectful disagreement with you. Oh, what utter joy, to hear that white-haired gentleman, with his hair parted in the middle (just like Clem Cadidelhofer sp?), and with that depressing undertaker's (?) suit on, say to Roger, Vicky or whomever was present (or
wasn't present with him there in the cemetery): "You must go! This
IS a frightening, evil place!"
Oh, just think, how great it would gave been to have seen that enigmatic caretaker, sitting in the back of the Collinsport Inn Coffee Shop, sipping his fifth cup of coffee (he probably only
had to pay about a quarter for one cup of "joe," back then) as we watch the winsome and burgeoning (yet, ill-fated) romance of the lovely Maggie Evans and her hunky boyfriend, good guy/young-man-of-the-sea, "Gentleman" Joe Haskell?
(No doubt, the caretaker, would sit there quietly, just wistfully remembering his
own short-lived, bittersweet romance with "Miss Rockport of 1905"!)
Of course, I would have also liked to have seen the caretaker (perhaps, better known to the longtime residents of Collinsport, as "Mr. Electricity"!), sitting in the great Bob Rooney's convivial gin mill, "The Blue Whale," and nursing a gin and tonic as Mr. Frank Sinatra intones "It Was A Very Good Year" on the jukebox. Quick, I need a Xanax, at the very thought of that lonely and prince-of-a-man, sitting there all alone and reliving his own youth as "Frankie-boy'" waxes oh-so-nostalgically about all the girls/women he had known over the years!
I could go on, but you see, I think that in the case of that solitary cemetery caretaker, there was a veritable font of moving and heartrending stories. Excuse me, while I turn on Regis Philbin, and listen to "Reege" interpret an especially sad "saloon song" as only "Old Blue Eyes and, possibly, "Drunky" Dean Martin could have done, before Regis discovered his Jerry Vale-like talent, so late in the autumn of
his own oh-so-busy life...
Sadly (if not, lugubriously) yours,
Bob the Bartender