Barnabas Collins

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Jonathan Frid as Barnabas Collins

Barnabas Collins was one of the feature characters in the ABC Soap Opera serial Dark Shadows. Originally played by Canadian actor Jonathan Frid, Barnabas was a self-loathing yet sympathetic 175-year-old vampire. In the 1991 NBC revival series of Dark Shadows, British actor Ben Cross played the role of Barnabas Collins.

1 Biography
2 Notes
3 Relationships
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Biography

Barnabas lived in the late 18th century (his back story takes place in 1795), when as a mortal he was to marry Josette du Pres (Kathryn Leigh Scott), despite having a brief affair with Josette's maidservant Angelique (Lara Parker). Angelique was a witch, and via the conjuration of dark magic, made Josette fall in love with Barnabas' uncle, Jeremiah Collins (Anthony George), when she was jilted by Barnabas in favor of Josette. After learning that Jeremiah and Josette have suddenly married, Barnabas challenged Jeremiah to a duel. Jeremiah lost the duel, dying shortly after being shot. Upon Barnabas' discovery that Angelique was the witch responsible for tormenting Collinwood, he shot her. With what she believed to be her dying words, she took revenge on Barnabas by summoning a hexed bat to bite him. Barnabas fell extremely ill, and Angelique, who survived her gunshot wound, regretted her decision and tried in vain to keep Barnabas alive. Nevertheless, Barnabas died shortly after his attack, and soon rose as a vampire. At the very end of the 1795 storyline, as per his request, Barnabas’ father, Joshua Collins, was to slay his son. However, he was unable to murder his son, and so order Barnabas’ devoted servant, Ben Stokes to perform the task. Ben was also unable to kill the vampire and instead chained him in a coffin in the secret room of the family mausoleum.

In the "present" of 1967, Willie Loomis (John Karlen) who was foraging for the Collins Family's "lost jewels", found the coffin in which Barnabas was chained, and released him. Barnabas attacked Willie and turned him into his unwilling servant. Barnabas introduced himself to the modern Collins family as a cousin from England - a hard working businessman never seen during the day. Barnabas was originally intended to be on for the length of an average soap-opera storyline, roughly 13 weeks. However, Frid's portrayal of the self-loathing vampire commanded so much popularity that producer Dan Curtis kept him on. However, his feeding frenzy did not go unnoticed. He had captured Maggie Evans, who resembled his love Josette, and was trying to hypnotize her into becoming his dead lover. However, Maggie managed to escape by the help of Barnabas' ghost sister, Sarah Collins. Maggie had regressed into the mentality of a child. She was sent to Windcliff Sanitarium, where Dr. Julia Hoffman, was trying to get her relive her memories and identify her kidnapper. Dr. Hoffman soon found out what she needed to and went to Collinwood, looking for the kidnapper. She found out what Barnabas was and what he had done, but her love for him led her to try to help the vampire. She became one of Barnabas' confidants and helped him many times, even risking time travel to aid her afflicted friend.

The final story-arc of the series concentrated on 1840 Parallel Time, where Jonathan Frid played Bramwell Collins, Barnabas Collins' son in that time stream.

In 1970, MGM released the movie House of Dark Shadows. The story centered on the releasing of Barnabas Collins from his coffin by Willie Loomis. Unlike Frid's original portrayal of Barnabas in the show, the Barnabas featured in the movie was more true to the typical evil vampire; by the end of the movie, he has killed half of the Collins Family, before he himself died when he tried to make Maggie Evans his vampire bride.

[edit] Notes

Jonathan Frid first appeared as Barnabas Collins in episode #210 in 1967. However, the character's hand was briefly seen in the climax to episode #209, prior to Frid's introduction. Production staff member Tim Gordon (uncredited) provided the hand, which was first seen choking the character of Willie Loomis.