Dark Shadows: The Queer Connection (1)

A few years ago, I started writing the outline for a book on Dark Shadows and GLBTQ themes and tropes within the stories and productions by examining the concept of "the monster queer." Here's a run-down on the DS characters we know and love, viewed, as much as possible, through a queer lens:

Welcome to Collinsport, Maine: A Who’s Who Guide to the Ghoulies, Ghosties, Long Leggedy Beasties, and Things That Go Bump In the Night

Monster Mash

Dark Shadows’ success was assured after the introduction of vampire Barnabas Collins. After Barnabas cut his fangs on various members of the cast the series became more bold, introducing a multitude of ghosts, the concept of time travel, witches, warlocks, werewolves, a phoenix, a staircase that traveled through time, and a race of super-monsters out to convert humanity to its less-than-wholesome cause. Here we’ll examine the major players of the monster set, the queer creatures who drew in enough audiences to make Dark Shadows a bona fide hit, and the men and women who are in love with (or obsessed with) them.

Barnabas Collins: Just Because You’re A Vampire Doesn’t Mean You’re a Bad Person (Jonathan Frid)

Before Anne Rice’s ghouls were conducting interviews and pouring out their tortured souls (and making explicit the connection between vampirism and queerness), Barnabas became the first majorly recognized reluctant vampire. He does terrible things, and often to the people who love him most, but he always feels really, really bad about it. As is the case with many of literature’s greatest villains, part of his appeal lies in the audiences’ desire to rehabilitate him. The other part, surely, comes from watching him fang people. That’s always hot.

The only son of the wealthy Collins family in the late eighteenth century, Barnabas is introduced to TV audiences as an initially disposable character, a big bad vampire meant to last for a few weeks of storyline, kill a few characters, scare the bejeezus out of housewives and school kids, and then go the way of most his undead brethren: stake through the heart. Nice and simple. However, due in part to Jonathan Frid’s appeal to the housewives he was supposed to be scaring and his interpretation of Barnabas as a guy with an alcohol problem rather than the typical monster, Barnabas was spared the stake, and instead audiences were transported back to 1795 to find out how Barnabas became the remorseful blood-sucker of 1967.

Barnabas was madly in love with comely, doe-eyed Josette DuPres, also a daughter of wealth and the jewel of French colonial society on the island of Martinique, where Barnabas’ father has sent him to conduct business with Josette’s father. However, unfortunately for him, Josette, and the entire Collins family in various centuries Barnabas conducted some business on the wrong side of the sheets … with Josette’s maid. Who turned out to be a witch. A very powerful, very obsessive witch. Whoops. Barnabas was eventually cursed to live forever as a doomed, loveless vampire, eternally seeking redemption, and his Josette, whom he saw in every young ingénue Collinsport had to offer in a variety of times, parallel and otherwise.

Quentin Collins: Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? (David Selby)

Dark Shadows’ other main staple sex symbol began his work on the series as a ghost, “borrowed” by Dan Curtis from Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw. Dark, brooding, and initially silent, the uneasy spirit of Quentin Collins haunted Collinwood until the entire family was forced to flee their ancestral manse. It became up to Barnabas, seeking redemption for his past misdeeds, to save his family. He unintentionally time traveled back to 1897, when Quentin was a sexy nogoodnik with a letch for every lady at Collinwood. Because of his constant philandering Quentin’s wife Mad Jenny Collins earned her name for real and was locked away in a tower. She didn’t stay there for long of course, and after he killed her (to be fair, after she tried to kill him a few times) Quentin found out that Jenny was really Jenny the gypsy, and her sister Magda had some magical gypsy tricks of her own up her sleeve. Much like Barnabas, Quentin was cursed, but he became a werewolf instead, and the audience was reminded once again: keep it in your pants, dude!

Angelique Collins: Bewitching, Bothersome, and Bewildering (Lara Parker)

Determined to prove once and for all that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, Angelique the witch serves as both cautionary tale for those who would fool around with a woman who makes Glenn Close’s character in Fatal Attraction look like a girl scout, and also as a symbol of empowerment to anyone who has ever felt cast-aside or ignored by the object of their affection. Angelique is never one to sit back and take rejection lightly: if she isn’t strangling a doll with a stolen handkerchief and causing some poor unfortunate person to choke, she’s haunting her beloved through three or four centuries to prove that she’s the one for him. Even if she has to kill his entire family and everyone who dares to love him to do it.

Originally Josette’s ladies’ maid in 1795 Martinique (or maybe she was really a Puritan woman named Miranda DuVal; Angelique’s history is somewhat tangled), Angelique Bouchard made the mistake of falling in love with Barnabas Collins. Though he cast her aside in favor of his beloved Josette, Angelique had the last laugh when she cast a love spell that turned Josette into the arms of Barnabas’ best friend and uncle. Unfortunately her laughter didn’t last long, as Barnabas found out her dark secret and shot her. She retaliated by cursing him to become a vampire. He re-retaliated by strangling her. She re-re-retaliated by following him to the twentieth century, donning a black wig and changing her name, and setting out to prevent his cure from taking effect through an intricate Dream Curse that tortured nearly all his friends and family. Ain’t love grand?

Dr. Julia Hoffman: Physician, Heal Thy Vampire (Grayson Hall)

If Dr. Julian Hoffman had come to Collinwood to cure a vampire, as originally planned, and had fallen in love with him, Dark Shadows would have broken ground thirty years before As the World Turns introduced the first on-air gay romance in a soap opera. As it was, due to the slip of a typist’s finger, “Julian” became “Julia,” and the doctor who discovered Barnabas’ secret and attempted to cure him became a woman. She also fell in love with him, but because this was the mid-1960s and Julia was a forty-something woman devoted exclusively to medicine, and because Barnabas was a born skirt-chaser with a letch for dark-hair ingénue-types, Julia’s love for her vampire patient remained (mostly) unspoken. Though Barnabas spent most of their first year together threatening to kill her, they soon became the closest of friends. Julia’s love for Barnabas remained ever-unflinching, even in the face of his unconditional rejection of her. This never stopped her from trying to save him from himself or other threats, such as an alien horde of shapeshifting monsters determined to use him to take over the world. Whether she followed him backwards, forwards, or sideways in time, Julia was always there for her vampire beloved with a hypodermic and her trusty medical bag at her side.

Family Portraits

There had to be some characters on the show who didn’t possess supernatural powers, foils to the monstrous denizens of the great house and the town below it. In its first year Dark Shadows focused on the unhappy Collins family’s mortal components who were caught up in exciting intrigue such as blackmail, attempted murder, attempting to cover-up murder, and frugging relentlessly every night at the Blue Whale.

Elizabeth Collins Stoddard: How to Stay Glamorous While Your Family Is Being Taken Over by Monsters (Joan Bennett)

The matriarch of the Collins family in the twentieth century, brought to glamorous life by silver screen legend Joan Bennett who injected a shot of class to what was, initially, a foundering soap opera based on increasingly wheezy gothic tropes. Elizabeth maintained her class and her cool even when she was being black-mailed by ne’er-do-well Jason McGuire, who convinced her that she had killed her husband and buried him in the basement, thus keeping her a prisoner in her own home for eighteen years.

Roger Collins: I Married a Phoenix and a Witch and All I Got Was This Lousy Snifter of Brandy (Louis Edmonds)

Elizabeth’s boozing younger brother, Roger displayed a tendency to marry supernatural divas like immortal phoenix Laura and wicked-witch-in-disguise Cassandra/Angelique while constantly ignoring his son, scion to the Collins fortune, disturbed ten year old David Collins. His parallel time counterpart, ostensibly in love with Angelique, was queerer than queer with his bitchy, catty comments designed to torment poor Maggie Collins, as well as his series of ascots.

Carolyn Collins Stoddard Hawkes: Poor Little Rich Bitch Girl (Nancy Barrett)

Under all that blonde hair lurked a resilient heart of gold. Carolyn, Elizabeth’s rebellious teenage daughter, started the series as the poor little rich girl trying to find herself, but soon enough she found herself a continual victim of every supernatural baddy who paraded through Collinwood’s haunted halls. If she wasn’t falling madly in love with a Frankenstein creature or a werewolf, she was being sent out as a vampire or warlock’s spy, and to top it all off she eventually married the leader of the Leviathans, a demonic group devoted to world domination.

David Collins: Brat Prince of Collinwood (David Henesey)

Little David Collins was one of the storyline focal points when the series began its run. His disturbed nature is the reason that series original heroine Victoria Winters begins her voyage of self-discovery at Collinwood. David claimed to play with ghosts before there were any official ghosts haunting the great estate. Eventually he came under the protection of the ghosts of Josette and Sarah Collins, Barnabas’ fiancé and little sister respectively. David’s adventures were enviable: his mother was a supernatural phoenix, his best friends were ghosts, he fell victim to Barnabas’ vampiric ire, and he was possessed by the ghosts of Quentin and Gerard Stiles, in two adaptations of James’ Turn of the Screw.

The Brides of Barnabas Collins

Barnabas wouldn’t be Barnabas if he wasn’t obsessed with some sweet young thing. His love for his precious Josette forced him to seek her out in every dark haired young woman who passed his way. Governess Victoria Winters and Collinsport townie Maggie Evans both earned his attention and affection, which usually meant dressing them up in Josette’s wedding gown and hypnotizing them into agreeing to marry him.

My Name Is Victoria Winters … (Alexandra Moltke)

In its original conception Dark Shadows revolved around a dark-haired young woman named Victoria Winters, played for the first three years of the show by Alexandra Moltke. Victoria acted as a guide for the series’ viewers; her quest for identity that led her into the world of the Collins family to act as little David Collins’ governess invited the audience to search with her. The prototypical gothic heroine, poor Vicki found herself kidnapped, haunted, and nearly hanged as a witch when she was thrust unceremoniously backward in time two centuries so that Dark Shadows could explore Barnabas’ back story. Though she wasn’t the brightest bulb – despite overwhelming evidence, Vicki never quite figured out that the Barnabas of 1967 was the Barnabas she had met in 1795 – Vicki remained sweet and brave until the very end, when pregnant Alexandra Moltke left the show, and Victoria Winters disappeared into the eighteenth century for good.

Maggie Evans: Number One Contestant in the “I Look Like Josette Collins” Vampire Beauty Pageant (Kathryn Leigh Scott)

Originally a waitress at the ubiquitous Collinsport Inn’s coffee shop, local latte slinger Maggie Evans nearly became the bride of Barnabas Collins because of her resemblance to his eighteenth century love, Josette DuPres. As the show progressed and as more and more monsters popped up on the Collinwood grounds, whenever a victim was required Maggie was always readily available. Kidnapped and mentally tortured by Barnabas, nearly sacrificed on the alter of a black mass after she caught the eye of warlock Nicholas Blair, bewitched by Angelique into falling for Quentin, chomped on by queerly tinged vampire Roxanne: eventually poor Maggie had it and was shipped off to Julia Hoffman’s private asylum for a good long rest.

Other Baddies

As Dark Shadows explored various centuries and other worlds, its stable of monsters expanded accordingly.

Laura Collins: Mommy Dearest Is Really Mommy Dearest (Diana Millay)

As ruthless and relentless as Angelique in her ability to upset the Collins family, Laura Collins was nevertheless there before that particular witch hexed her way into the Collins’ lives. Laura has the distinction of being Dark Shadows’ first official monster. An icy blue-eyed blonde who liked to play with fire, Laura Collins was a phoenix required to marry a mortal, bear his children, then burn with them in a blazing inferno in order to sustain her own existence. No wire hangers indeed!

Adam: Patchwork Man Seeks Patchwork Lady for Moonlight Walks on Widow’s Hill, Long Term Romance, and with No Aversion to Scars (Robert Rodan)

The Dark Shadows writers dipped back into their pantheon of movie monsters and, logically, followed up their vampire story with their own take on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Adam was constructed from corpses by the mad Dr. Lang, and brought to life by the reluctant Julia Hoffman using Barnabas’ life force. Ultimately Adam lived while subsequently curing Barnabas of his vampirism (temporarily). Swayed over to the path to the dark side by nasty warlock Nicholas Blair, Adam’s inability to manage his anger and his daddy issues destroyed his potential romance with Carolyn, and he left the show forever after vowing to have his scars removed.

Nicholas Blair: The Little Devil (Humbert Allen Astredo)

Charming, natty, horrifically misogynistic and with a yen to convert the world to Satanism, warlock Nicholas Blair came to Collinwood to rule Angelique with an iron fist, but decided to stick around to use Adam to build a master race devoted to Lucifer. Eventually he lost his heart to Maggie Evans and, betrayed by Angelique, went up in flames.

Tom and Chris Jennings: Identical Twins, Very Different Monsters (Don Briscoe)

Though granted a limited role on the series, hot handyman Tom Jennings chewed a lot of scenery (and actress Grayson Hall) when Angelique turned him into a vampire. Although he was staked by a then human Barnabas, Tom would be revived a few months later as the slave of Nicholas Blair. Actor Don Briscoe was popular enough to return after Tom’s demise to play his twin brother Chris, who came out of the closet soon enough: as a werewolf.

Count Petofi: The Man Loved His Unicorn (Thayer David)

The very queerest of all the Dark Shadows villains, Count Petofi was a sorcerer whose power was concentrated in one magical hand (!). His obsession with his regrettably deceased pet unicorn (he killed it himself while suffering under a lycanthropic curse) rivaled that of Harmony Kendall on Dark Shadows’ descendent series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The Count took a shine to hottie Quentin, and wanted his body … quite literally. After he tricked Quentin into a body-swap, it was up to Barnabas, Angelique, and Julia to drive out the demon and return Quentin to “normal.”