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Barnabas Collins

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Barnabas Collins is a fictional character, one of the feature characters in the ABC soap opera serial Dark Shadows, which aired from 1966 to 1971. Originally played by Canadian actor Jonathan Frid, Barnabas Collins is a self-loathing, yet sympathetic, 175-year-old vampire, who is in search of fresh blood and his lost love. The character of Barnabas Collins was introduced to the serial in a last-effort attempt to resurrect the flagging ratings. The role of Barnabas Collins was originally intended to be a brief one, to run but a mere thirteen weeks, but the popularity of Frid's vampire character and the quick spike in ratings resulted in him continuing on and becoming virtually the star of the cult show. In the 1991 NBC revival series of Dark Shadows, British actor Ben Cross played the role of Barnabas Collins.

1 Biography
2 Other Appearances
3 Personality
4 Powers
5 Notes
6 Relationships
7 References
8 Further reading
9 External links

Biography

Barnabas Collins was born in the 18th century, one of the children of the wealthy Collins family in the fictional town of Collinsport, Maine. In the year 1795, the then-mortal Barnabas Collins intended to marry a beautiful heiress from Martinique named Josette du Pres (Kathryn Leigh Scott), despite having a brief affair with Josette's maidservant Angelique (Lara Parker). Angelique, a witch well acquainted with voodoo and the black arts, cast a spell on Josette in an attempt to make her fall in love with Barnabas's uncle, Jeremiah Collins (Anthony George), after Barnabas decided to end the affair. After learning that Jeremiah and Josette have suddenly married, Barnabas challenges Jeremiah to a duel. Jeremiah loses the duel, dying shortly after being shot. Upon Barnabas's discovery that Angelique was responsible for the marriage of Josette and Jeremiah and other strange happenings at Collinwood, he shoots her. With what she believes to be her dying words, she takes revenge on Barnabas by summoning a vampire bat from hell to attack him. Barnabas falls extremely ill and dies. Shortly thereafter, however, Barnabas rises as a vampire. Barnabas then attempts to transform Josette into a vampire. She is willing, if not quite fully cognizant of what this would entail, at first, until the Angelique, who has become far more powerful after her death, reveals to her a vision of what she would become. Fleeing from Barnabas, Josette leaps to her death off the cliffs of Widow's Hill. Barnabas, unable to bear what he has become, asks his father, Joshua Collins, to slay him. However, he is unable to murder his son, and so he orders Barnabas’s devoted servant, Ben Stokes (Thayer David), to perform the task. Ben is also unable to kill the vampire and instead chains him in a coffin in the secret room of the family mausoleum. In the "present" of 1967, Willie Loomis (John Karlen,while foraging for the Collins Family's "lost jewels", stumbles upon the chained coffin in which Barnabas sleeps. Believing the coffin to contain the lost riches of Collinwood, Willie accidentally releases the vampire. Barnabas attacks Willie and turns him into his unwilling servant. Barnabas introduces himself to the modern Collins family as a cousin from England - a hard working businessman never seen during the day. Thirsty for new blood, Barnabas makes victims of several of Collinsport's residents. He eventually meets Maggie Evans (Kathryn Leigh Scott), who resembles his lost-love Josette du Pres. He kidnaps her and attempts to make her his vampire bride. However, Maggie manages to escape, but not unscathed. The traumatic emotional distress of being kidnapped, and by a member of the undead, no-less, cause Maggie to regress to the mentality of a child and to forget all that has happened to her. She is sent to Windcliff Sanitarium, where Dr. Julia Hoffman (Grayson Hall) tries to make her remember what happened to her in an attempt to identify her kidnapper. Dr. Hoffman soon finds out that the answers lie somewhere in Collinsport, specifically at Collinwood. She discovers who and what Barnabas Collins is and what he has done. However, she falls in love with him and attempts to cure him. She becomes one of Barnabas's confidants and helps him many times, even risking time travel to aid her afflicted friend. Another doctor cures Barnabas of his affliction. The newly rehumanized Barnabas undertakes several trips through time in order to save friends (like Collins' governess Victoria Winter) and family (such as Quentin Collins). Along the way, he meets up with reincarnations of Josette: much of the romance centers around his attempts to find her again.

Other Appearances

In 1970, MGM released the movie House of Dark Shadows. The story centers 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, is killed when he tries to make Maggie Evans his vampire bride.

Personality

Barnabas often blamed his moments of cruelty on his transformation into one of the Undead or "nosferatu", but throughout the series,other characters revealed that Barnabas was not as reluctant a victim as he saw himself. While in a drunken stupor Ben Stokes admitted that Barnabas, prior to his change "...weren't no good then, neither!" When the vampire tried to kill his own father to silence his cries for help, an astonished Joshua Collins proclaimed Barnabas must have hated him all along, "No curse could have made you change so quickly!" In later interviews, Jonathan Frid admitted this was part of the character's success, "...the lies he told himself". Barnabas saw himself as a romantic, but he was always dangerous. If anything, Barnabas Collins followed the tradition of "dark heroes" that have always been a part of gothic fiction. Characters such as Dracula, "Wuthering Heights'" Heathcliff in addition to Stanley Kowalski and even J.R. Ewing, seem to blend menace equally with "sex appeal".

Powers

Barnabas' abilities mimic those of the classic vampire Dracula which include extra strength, hypnotism and the ability to transform into a bat. However, Barnabas has been known to use sorcery. Although unclear in the series, Barnabas mentions that he studied "magic" in his travels before becoming a vampire. On some occasions he seems to vanish or appear at will as well as to project horrific images and voices from a distance in order to frighten his victims.

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.

Johnny Depp may fulfill a childhood dream with his next project: a big-screen remake of the 1966-71 spooky TV soap Dark Shadows. Depp will produce and likely star in the adaptation of the vampire series, which Depp has repeatedly called his childhood obsession. The show, which ran for more than 1,200 episodes, revolved around "vampire patriarch" Barnabas Collins and his cohorts, which included altogether ookie characters like vampires, monsters, witches, werewolves, ghosts and zombies. The cult-classic show still boasts a rabid fan base, with annual Dark Shadows conventions held around the world.