Victoria Winters
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The character Victoria Winters as portrayed by Alexandra Moltke, served as the Gothic heroine in the cult classic series Dark Shadows, which aired on ABC-TV from 1966-1971. After Moltke left to raise a family in 1968, actresses Betsy Durkin and Carolyn Groves briefly replaced her, before Victoria was written out completely. Vicki had been left at a founding home in New York City, and thus, never knew her true parents -- although monthly sums of money began to arrive mysteriously when she turned two. Vicki received her surname from the season in which she arrived in New York.
Evidently, Vicki attended some college before accepting the offer of a governess position in Collinsport, Maine. Upon her arrival in Collinsport, she met the brooding Burke Devlin (first played by Mitchell Ryan, later briefly portrayed by Anthony George), with whom she would eventually become romantically involved. During the first episode, she also met a young waitress named Maggie Evans (Kathryn Leigh Scott) at the Collinsport Inn. Although Maggie derided Vicki for accepting the job at the Collinwood estate, the two girls eventually became good friends.
Victoria Winters quickly became indispensable to Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (played by (Joan Bennett), although her initial quest to learn her true identity dismayed the family matriarch. Unsurprisingly, Mrs. Stoddard did not wish Vicki to learn the truth because in all likelihood, Vicki was her illegitimate daughter (although never acknowledged or explained). Vicki also became important as family peacemaker, not to mention a stabilizing influence on Elizabeth's daughter, the rebellious Carolyn Stoddard and on the troubled David Collins, son of Elizabeth's brother, Roger.
Victoria also helped heal the breach between Burke Devlin and the Collins family; she and Burke became engaged before Devlin went on an ill-fated plane trip to South America in 1967. Vicki believed that he had somehow survived when they could not locate Burke's body. Unfortunately, all these character-driven subplots were overshadowed by the significant presence of vampire Barnabas Collins (as played by Jonathan Frid).
During the second year of Dark Shadows, Vicki became unwittingly involved in Barnabas' sinister plans. After a seance to contact Barnabas' sister, Sarah Collins, Vicki was magically transported to an alternate past in 1795. Exchanging places with governess Phyllis Wick, Vicki arrived at the Old Collins House, meeting Collins ancestors who looked just like the family she knew, but with different personalities and names.
During this storyline, viewers learned the truth behind Barnabas's unwilling transformation into a vampire. Unfortunately, Victoria made the classic time traveller's mistake of describing the future, to the denizens of the past, whereupon she was seized by the fanactical Reverend Trask and accused of witchcraft (although this was an anachronism - witch trials were actually a thing of the previous century). Despite lawyer Peter Bradford's best arguments, Victoria was sentenced to hang. However at the time of her "execution" she was returned to the exact moment she'd left 1967, once more exchanging places with the hapless Phyllis Wick, who died in Vicki's place.
During the subsequent Dream Curse/Adam sequence, Victoria Winters and Barnabas Collins were involved in a car accident after seeing a man (Roger Davis) who resembled her 18th century defender Peter Bradford. Now known as Jeffery Clark, he became involved with Vicki before learning his true identity. Together, Jeff/Peter and Vicki journeyed to live in 1795, where Barnabas rescued them both from the machinations of Reverend Trask and the evil witch Angelique. Subsequently, the character of Victoria Winters lived out her life in the past, never returning to Collinwood; her position as governess went to the former waitress, Maggie Evans.
