Every week is Jonathan Frid Week

A young Jonathan Frid co-stars with Katharine Hepburn in Much Ado About Nothing.

 Last weekend, I had planned to follow Joan Bennett Week with another themed week, this time devoted to Jonathan Frid. Rather that jump-starting the idea with a few hasty posts (and then scrambling the next few days for relevant content) I decided to delay it for a short while as I dug up more material. And besides, when you run a Dark Shadows blog, every week is Jonathan Frid Week.

Of course, I had no way of knowing that Frid had already passed away. I'm not one to get hung up on idols, but Frid's passing, while not exactly unexpected, has bothered me in a way that's been surprising. I hesitate to use the name Kurt Donald Cobain here, but that was the last time I was actually this upset by the death of someone I knew only through their public image.

Frid's theater work in New York City is well documented, because it was just that kind of town in the 1960s. Newspapers were obliged to run notices and reviews of stage productions, with cinema reviews appearing only when space was available. If you're willing to hit the library, you can find all kinds of oddities in NYC theater reviews, including a notice about one "Sylvester E. Stallone" appearing in a "nude sex play."

Frid's resume was a bit classier than that, fortunately. Below is a notice about Don Carlos, a classic historical tragedy set in 16th century Spain. I've read enough vintage theatrical reviews to know that critics of yore were determined not to enjoy anything, no matter how it was presented to them. So the notion that Don Carlos got a fairly favorable review in The Village Voice in 1962 is a little surprising. You can read it below. If you're interested, there is also a notice about Don Carlos from The New York Times available elsewhere on this blog (LINK.)