I never imagined back then that I'd be the published author of four vampire novels, but I have to say that the complex characterization of Jonathan Frid as Barnabas Collins certainly influenced the way I view vampires.
Twenty-two years later, I was on the "Dark Shadows" fan page and who do I see posting on the board but Nancy! I messaged her, and we re-connected. Sadly, Mr. Frid passed away shortly after that. I thought my readers might enjoy hearing Nancy talk about her friendship with this wonderful actor and approached Nancy with the idea. To my great pleasure, she agreed, and now I'm proud to introduce Nancy Kersey to you!
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| Nancy with Barnabas' signature wolf's head cane. |
Nancy:
When I was nine years old, one of my favorite pastimes was watching a creepy soap opera in the afternoon before “Wee Willie Webber” cartoon hour came on. The show was called “Dark Shadows” and my young curiosity honed in on it’s vacillating vampire, Barnabas Collins. I couldn’t get enough of the character and at one point I wore red boots much like the character did during the famed 1795 time period when the show went back to explain how the tortured vampire came to be.
When I was nine years old, one of my favorite pastimes was watching a creepy soap opera in the afternoon before “Wee Willie Webber” cartoon hour came on. The show was called “Dark Shadows” and my young curiosity honed in on it’s vacillating vampire, Barnabas Collins. I couldn’t get enough of the character and at one point I wore red boots much like the character did during the famed 1795 time period when the show went back to explain how the tortured vampire came to be.
For most of us, fantasy is an important component in our
existence; it is that mind trip outside of ourselves and our daily routine that
centers on a character, series of characters or an environment. It was a lot of fun to slip into the town of Collinsport and further
into the home of its namesake the Collins family, also known as
Collinwood. “Dark Shadows” furthered my
budding interest in horror movies and Gothic stories. Haunted houses? I already lived in one so
that wasn’t anything to pursue. What I
did decide to pursue was the theater because the actor who played Barnabas
Collins, Jonathan Frid, had trained to become an actor, worked on the stage and
now was creating this fabulous and forever intriguing character. I knew his background from reading the
magazine articles I spent my allowance on every month.
My love of writing and play acting started before I was even
in school. I didn’t realize you could
actually get paid for doing such things until I read everything I could about
Jonathan Frid and his theatrical background.
I decided that I wanted to work in the theater. I would write scripts and I would act in them
too.
On the way to doing all that, I discovered that “Dark
Shadows” was being shown in syndication on a public television station in New Jersey in the early
1980s. I would watch the show when I
could and in mind gave it a nod for steering me into the direction I was now
heading in my career. One day, I
discovered that Jonathan Frid was going to appear at what was called a “Dark
Shadows” festival in New Jersey . I had often wondered what had become of him
and when I learned he would be performing some material there, I made plans to
go. Long story short: I saw Jonathan do
what was termed a “work in progress” one-man show. Part of the apprehension I did have about
seeing him perform is that I had already learned that what intrigued me as a
child, and what I thought was good, wasn’t necessarily so to my adult
eyes. Well, that certainly was not the
case with Jonathan’s performance. I was
intrigued by what he was doing and wrote up the event in performing arts
monthly in Philadelphia
I contributed to. Serendipity intervened
and within a few months of my having wrote about the wonderful experience
seeing Jonathan Frid perform; I was invited to his apartment in New York to see more of
the work-in-progress. That led to a long
conversation with him afterwards, some more trips up to New York , and finally an invitation to work
with him, his business partner and some other associates in creating a touring
one-man show under the banner of his production company, Clunes
Associates. I accepted. It fit into my plans to move to New York to pursue
theater work. And now I had been hired
as a writer by a new production company for a theatrical project. Perfect.
What I never expected was to actually become friends with
Jonathan Frid. Yes, I was thrilled
beyond measure at the prospect of working with an actor I thought was greatly
talented but already experienced enough in life to realize there was a clear
difference between fantasy and reality.
He was NOT Barnabas Collins. This
was not pretend. This was a business
proposition that could help open doors for me.
It was important for Jonathan too, as it turns out, that I not view him
from the standpoint of a fan nor interact with him that way either. He wanted to work with a professional writer
to develop and edit material for his shows.
My natural “let’s look at this realistically” was going to be
welcomed. It was a good thing that
Jonathan didn’t want “yes men” around him because I was certainly not one of
those. I didn’t cater to people (unless
I was paid to do so) and in business I tended to speak plainly. All of this, plus a shared sense of humor,
culminated into a wonderful working relationship.
As I have detailed in several entries in my blog
nancykersey.blogspot.com, it was a very intense working relationship but there
were many moments of play, including day long road trips. I had a car. I loved
to drive and take trips. Jonathan did
not have a car and loved road trips.
What a combination! We would just
drive up to Connecticut or the Hudson Valley
While on these drives there would be
prolonged silences due to our just looking at the scenery and enjoying
sights. Other times we would ponder
things I wonder if anyone else in the world thought about such things such as
the gender issues regarding the words woman and person. A waitperson.
A chairman or chairwoman.
Jonathan wondered if for women it shouldn’t just be wo-per = a
woperson. Sometimes he would come up
with these crazy combinations that made me laugh so hard I had to pull the car
off the road to catch my breath. He was
one of the funniest people I have ever known.
The common things fascinated him.
When Jonathan retired in 1994 and
moved back to his native Canada ,
I did wonder if he would pursue the friendship.
Out of sight, out of mind. I
helped him move to Canada
and would send him letters now and then.
Jonathan had a loner personality and I would have understood if he
didn’t really keep with me anymore even though we had a grand time working and
doing stuff together. One day in May
1995, Jonathan called “Hello, yes I am still alive,” he said. “When can you come up?”
So for the next decade plus I made
many trips a year up to Canada to visit Jonathan, help work in his beautiful
yard and garden, launch his website at jonathanfrid.ca, and basically just sit
around and talk about 50 things at once.
He was the only person I knew I shared this irritating habit (to others)
, we would go off on tangents. Sometimes
those discussions went on literally for hours and people who had also been with
us when we started talking had disappeared without our realizing it.
Jonathan’s health during the past
two years had been declining. I was told
that he also did not plan to take medications to prolong the decline. He was starting to lose his independence and
finally after a particularly bad fall, succumbed to the complications in his
sleep on April 14th. He went
the way he hoped. When I heard the news
from his nephew, I cried. After drying
the tears I raised a glass to Jonathan’s memory thanking him for the good times
and all the inspiration.
Nancy, I'd like to thank you once more for being my guest here today! Readers, please a comment for Nancy and share your fond memories of "Dark Shadows" and Mr. Frid. Those who leave a contact email or url will receive a free ebook of my vampire short stories Annals of the Immortyls as a thank-you from me!
Nancy, I'd like to thank you once more for being my guest here today! Readers, please a comment for Nancy and share your fond memories of "Dark Shadows" and Mr. Frid. Those who leave a contact email or url will receive a free ebook of my vampire short stories Annals of the Immortyls as a thank-you from me!
