In a recent post, I mentioned that movie director / producer Tim Burton has adopted the old “Dark Shadows” TV series into a movie. I just found out, though, that the star of the original show, Jonathan Frid, died in his native Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, on April 13. Frid had been an obscure Broadway actor when “Dark Shadows” producers tapped him to play the vampire Barnabas Collins after the series’ year. The character added a supernatural element to an already gothic soap opera that attracted a generation of high school and college students and eventually developed a cult following.
Born John Herbert Frid on December 2, 1924, he served in the Royal Canadian Navy during World War II. He then trained to be a stage actor at both the Yale School of Drama and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. He earned a master’s degree in directing from Yale in 1957.
Even after “Dark Shadows” ended, Frid couldn’t escape the role of Barnabas. He reprised the role in the 1970 feature film “House of Dark Shadows,” and the few other screen roles that came his way tended toward the ghoulish. He starred opposite Shelley Winters in the 1973 TV movie “The Devil’s Daughter,” and played a horror writer in “Seizure,” Oliver Stone’s first feature the following year.
As critical as he was of “Dark Shadows,” Frid was equally critical of his performance in it. “I’d get this long-lost look on my face,” he told The Hamilton Spectator in 2000. “‘Where is my love? Where is my love?’ it seemed to say. Actually, it was me thinking: ‘Where the hell is the teleprompter? And what’s my next line?’ ”
Frid leaves behind no survivors.
Chief Writing Wolf 