"Vampire Excites Wives, Young Set," 1968 interview

 

Jonathan Frid got an unpleasant taste of stardom after taking the role of Barnabas Collins. He expected the vampire to be a curtain call for his acting career, which he'd decided to abandon in favor of teaching. Instead, Frid found himself nationally famous and receiving some interesting fan mail. In this interview published by The Des Moines Register in April 28, 1968, he says:

"I don't know if it's the charm of the vampire role or the sickness of the country. The letter-writers joke around, of course, and they write facetiously, but it's still there — lots and lots of letters asking to be bitten. It's the whole business of suppressed sexual desires. One woman writes me regularly, and really had a very sad life. She writes beautifully, but she is obviously very far off her rocker. In a strange way she weaves her life into the story of 'Dark Shadows.' It's rather awful.

"Another woman wrote that she had suddenly realized during a seance that she and I—or she and Barnabas—had been lovers in Spain in 1533, and to jog my memory she sent a picture of herself, nude."