Farewell, Jonathan Frid

[filkertom]

There's a new movie coming out based on the TV soap opera Dark Shadows (IMDB page). The soap was fairly ordinary, one might even say boring -- it tried to build up a vague sense of unease, but really it was just a Gothic Peyton Place knockoff that had the Collins family, a collection of emotionally damaged rich people being teddibly teddibly overwrought.

Until cousin Barnabas came to town.

Brooding, sophisticated, charismatic. And a real, genuine, no-Scooby-Doo-type-trickery drink-your-damn-blood 200-year-old vampire.

The man who became an international star playing that wondrous character, Jonathan Frid (official site here), has passed away at the age of 87. He was a marvelous actor, already well-respected in Canada, the U.S., and England by the time he landed the role as Barnabas. His arrival heralded all manner of supernatural aspects to the show -- ghosts, magic, werewolves, even time travel -- and he himself brought a level of class hitherto unseen on daytime television, and his tragic adventures capture the imagination to this day.

I was a nut about the show. I watched every day; I got the comic books; I bought at least a dozen of the Novels Based On The Show, written by "Marilyn Ross". (Fun fact! Those novels are AUs, completely isolated from one another. Which means anything can happen, and anyone can die. This was a revelation to a nine-year-old, right up there with carbon-14 dating.) The novelization of the movie House of Dark Shadows was nearly as scary as the actual book, or vice-versa.

Barnabas was one of my imaginary adventurous playmates, along with Julie Newmar's Catwoman. (How can I suddenly feel so old, yet so young?)

Mr. Frid did a lot before and after Dark Shadows, and the one thing I truly wish I'd seen him in was this:

While still developing his first one-man show, Frid along with Marion Ross, Gary Sandy and Larry Storch joined the Brodway company of Arsenic and Old Lace (a 1986 revival) specifically to co-star with Jean Stapleton for the national tour that lasted for a year, followed by a spring (1988) tour of Florida. He won critical acclaim for his villainous turn as Jonathan Brewster. The Philadelphia Inquirer, for example, lauded Frid as "one who captures the eerie madness that is the essence of this nutty piece." The show shattered box office records across the United States for the next year and a half, as it toured all of the nation's major cities.

He seems to have had fantastic attitudes about life and performing, and I don't care how good Johnny Depp is, the same way I didn't care how good Ben Cross was: Jonathan Frid was Barnabas Collins, one of the best actors and most badass vampires ever. Rest well, sir, and thank you.

Comments

[herlander_refugee]

Well, damn it. Like I needed another reason to wear black...

[kshandra]

The first convention I ever worked (which was coincidentally the first con I ever attended) shared space with the annual Dark Shadows convention, and Mr. Frid was one of our guests. He was a delightful gentleman, and the world is poorer for his loss.