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"I
had to force myself to look at the reruns, but once I did, I realized
I wasn't bad."
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Jonathan
Frid Appeared in: 594 episodes First episode: # 211, April 18, 1967 Last episode: # 1245, April 2, 1971 Born: John Herbert Frid; Hamilton, Ontario, Canada; December 2, 1924 Biography During World War II, Jonathan served in the Canadian Navy. In 1948 he graduated from McMaster University and in 1949 was accepted at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London. Over the next few years, he appeared in stage and radio productions-as well as some early Canadian Broadcast Corporation TV programs. He moved to the U.S. in 1954 and enrolled in the Yale School of Drama. He earned a Master of Fine Arts Degree in Directing in 1957. Throughout the 1950s and '60s, he performed in regional theater and on television and Broadway. In 1962, he changed his stage name to Jonathan Frid.
In 1966, he took what was intended to be a 13-week role as Barnabas Collins on Dark Shadows, but it lasted until 1971 and rocketed him to worldwide fame. He became a pop culture icon as spiky-haired, spiky-toothed reluctant vampire. His image was everywhere-on everything from magazine covers to wristwatches. Jonathan was a frequent guest on such talk shows as The Tonight Show and The Mike Douglas Show, and he received thousands of fan letters each week. Jonathan starred in House of Dark Shadows, but he refused to be involved in its sequel. Once the TV series was canceled, he hung up his cape for good. However, he wasn't able to walk away from the horror genre entirely. Over the next few years, he made a couple of movies, including The Devil's Daughter, a 1972 TV movie starring Shelley Winters; and Seizure, the surreal 1974 directorial debut of Oliver Stone. For the most part, into the 1980s he took time off, mostly dividing his time between his New York apartment and his native Canada. "I'm
not at all ashamed of my work in Dark Shadows," he told
a reporter in the '80s. "I had to force myself to look at the
reruns, but once I did, I realized I wasn't bad. I overplayed. I
could have used a little more finesse, but I think I caught the
essence of what I wanted. The show was actually a very ambitious
project and even though it was often amateurish, we aimed high.
Sometimes we'd have two, three weeks of terribly bad shows, then
a very good one the daily routine was wearing, but it was a rewarding
experience." Jonathan returned to Broadway in a popular production of Arsenic and Old Lace. Also in the 1980s he created and starred in several one-man "readers' theater" shows, reading aloud classic tales of horror, satire and humor. He performed these first at the Dark Shadows Festivals, and later throughout the country. Working with former DS costar Marie Wallace, Jonathan made his directorial debut in 1993, on the stage play Lion in Winter at the Georgia College Theatre in Milledgeville, Georgia. In 1994, he semi-retired and left New York to return to Canada. Several years later, he again began performing his readers' theatre again in the U.S, and in June 2000, he appeared in the play Mass Appeal at the Stirling Festival Theatre in Stirling, Ontario. For several years, Jonathan attended Dark Shadows Festivals, but he has not done so since moving to Canada. The life-long bachelor has chosen not to discuss his private life with the press.
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