Dark Passages, by Kathryn Leigh Scott; Pomegranate Press, $14.95
In the early 1960s, Kathryn Leigh Scott moved from a small town in Minnesota to New York City with stars in her eyes. Determined to be an actress, the young woman paid for her classes at the American Academy of Dramatic Art by working at New York's famed Playboy Club as a waitress. Dressed in high heels, rabbit ears and a bushy tail, she was known as Bunny Kay.
Scott was able to quit her Bunny job in June 1966, when she was cast as Maggie Evans on a new daytime drama called Dark Shadows. During her four years on the series, she found herself the love object of a vampire, sacrificed on a Satanic altar, haunted by malevolent ghosts, and even died herself, only to return as a zombie.
Now, 40 years after the serial ended its network run, Dark Shadows remains a huge part of Scott's life. Through her publishing company, she's been the Keeper of the Flame. Pomegranate Press offers several behind-the-scenes Dark Shadows books authored by Scott herself.
Dark Passages is an autobiographical novel by Scott. Sort of. Its lead character, Meg, is a waitress at the Playboy Club in New York. She's also an aspiring actress, and soon finds herself cast on a new daytime drama called Dark Passages. Sound familiar? But the delicious twist in Dark Passages is that Meg herself is a vampire.
"I think my timing is right for the publication of Dark Passages," Scott wrote in an e-mail. "It's now the 45th anniversary of Dark Shadows, and Tim Burton is directing a Dark Shadows film for Warner Bros. NBC is doing a new TV series called The Playboy Club, about a cigarette bunny in 1963. I incorporate the world of the Playboy Club, and of Dark Shadows, in Dark Passages ."
Dark Shadows devotees will relish the sequences in Passages that deal with the fictional show's production. It's easy to spot characters based on Scott's real-life co-stars, such as Moira Shaw, Passages' leading lady, a stand-in for 1940s film-noir bad girl Joan Bennett, who capped her long career as Dark Shadows' top-billed star.
"What I wanted to do with Dark Passages was to tell my own story about that time, and combine it with elements of fantasy and romance, and tell a story about a vampire and a witch, and unrequited love," says Scott.
She has just returned from London, where she and three of her former TV co-stars filmed cameos for Tim Burton's Dark Shadows, in which Johnny Depp will portray the vampire Barnabas Collins.
"We were treated like royalty," Scott reports. "Everyone on the set was welcoming, including producer Dick Zanuck and all of the actors. I had the opportunity to tell Johnny Depp how much we appreciated his generous comments about Jonathan Frid's original portrayal of Barnabas Collins. Both Depp and Burton said, 'We wouldn't be here without you.'"
Scott is delighted that Imagine Television has purchased the rights to her book The Bunny Years for possible use on the series The Playboy Club. A new paperback edition, with a foreword by Hugh Hefner, is now available.
Dark Shadows: TV Milestones series, by Harry M. Benshoff; Wayne State Univ. Press, $14.95
Harry M. Benshoff takes Dark Shadows where no author has taken it before: he's done a serious study of the show in the context of late-1960s counterculture. What was it that made this show such a huge hit when other attempts by daytime soaps to present supernatural themes failed to click with viewers? Benshoff argues that it was the time and place in which Dark Shadows was presented.
Barnabas Collins, the show's resident vampire, first appeared in April 1967. A few months later, it was the Summer of Love. The radically different nature of Dark Shadows appealed to audiences who were tuning out the politics, social mores and culture of their parents.
Dark Shadows also had a huge fan-base among gay men. Benshoff suggests that Barnabas, an 18th-century man who suddenly found himself in the 20th-century, was the key to this appeal. Viewers knew that Barnabas was a vampire, but other characters did not. Barnabas had to keep his undead state deep in the closet, often talking in code to hide his actions. To closeted young men in those days that preceded the Stonewall riots, this touched a deep nerve. Barnabas' portrayer, Jonathan Frid, was himself believed to be a gay man, according to the author.
Benshoff's prose can be a little heavy-handed at times. But for those who might have wondered what it was about this weird little show that captured the imaginations of so many, Dark Shadows: TV Milestones is worth a look.