This is a video of part of the 1980s production of Lillian Hellman's playThe Little Foxes starring Elizabeth Taylor (in a truly ghastly faux Southern accent). It was obviously shot by somebody with a camcorder in the audience. Humbert Allen Astredo appears, somewhere around the five minute mark I think. I haven't had the chance to do more than have a glance at it--he is debonair and flawless, as always.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_yi-Ga6Iy4&

G.

Another play in the same series... the bizarre story DARK OF THE MOON in which Tryon plays a lustful "Witch-boy."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2bGUZoWRz4

G.

My friend posted a photo of himself holding a CD of the Barnabas Collins recording. I do not know if he got hold of a pre-release, or if the discs are coming out in advance of the online drop. I don't really have the interest to try and find out.

As I have commented frequently, the cover photos were the best part of those "books" for me. It was nice to see in my friend's photo that the disc art featured what seemed to be a decent color scan of the 1968 book cover.

G.

Most if not all of the outrageous prices cited in that article (which seems to have been written by a non-English speaker--or possibly assembled by a robot) are the result of a practice known as "bookjacking." It has extended now to media--DVDs, CDs, and other, including old VHS tapes. It's quite unlikely that any "collector" would pay those prices unless they literally had more money than brains. As noted in this article (there are several others available online--check your favorite search engine), the prices often do not even represent a vendor who has the actual item in hand to sell.

https://www.zubalbooks.com/article-bookjacking.jsp

Caveat emptor!

G.

Well, another friend who loves classic horror and DARK SHADOWS turned it off after 10 minutes, he told me. So it's hard to predict.

G.

Fans might get a kick out of this old skit from the Carol Burnett Show. There are a couple of others on YT.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSR26q244p8

G.

That's pretty funny. I can only imagine that Kathryn has never read any of the books and simply prepares each one shortly in advance of the recording, the way she would handle any similar voicework assignment.

Perhaps what she was trying to say was that for fans, since she will be doing the readings--and doing them, judging from the one excerpt I heard, with considerable flair and liveliness--this will have the effect of the stories being narrated from Maggie's point of view. Or at least, that is how she presumes a classic DS fan would hear her performances.That would kind of make sense and I can see her thinking something like that.

G.

This is the point where David Selby had to have an emergency appendectomy (if I recall correctly) and was in the hospital, so they had to re-write how they had intended to conclude the entire storyline.

My speculation has always been that DC wanted the series ended before he had to go out to Tarrytown to shoot Night of DS. He may have actually negotiated just how many more shows the series would run before they switched to Password. Lela was producing so the network may have set up the logistics of the final weeks with her. It would be interesting to know definitely just how it all played out.

G.