It is ironic that weeks before Tim Burton's feature Dark Shadows is to open, actor Jonathan Frid passes away. In the classic 1960's TV series, Dark Shadows, he portrayed the vampire Barnabas Collins, a relative who moves in with the Collins clan's house atop Widows' Hill. The supernatural themes were certainly unusual for a daily soap opera format. Created by the legendary Dan Curtis (a familiar name among TV-horror buffs of the 1960s and 1970s), this show spanned 1225 episodes from 1966 to 1971, one of the largest numbers for any fantasy-themed television show.
Jonathan Frid was born in Hamilton Ontario, on December 2, 1924. He moved to the United States in 1954, and studied at the Yale School of Drama, where he received a Master of Fine Arts degree in Directing, and also began a stage acting career. Although he will always be remembered as Collins, he also appeared in the TV-movie The Devil's Daughter (1973), and the horror film Seizure (1974) (in which Oliver Stone made his directorial debut). When the television and film work subsided, he continued in radio and theatre. Last year he filmed a cameo for Tim Burton's upcoming adaptation. The actor passed away last friday at a hospital in his native Hamilton, Ontario.
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