1993 Q&A Lara Parker and Jonathan Frid
JFridShow
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1993 Dark Shadows Festival New York City, Marriott Marquis Hotel This Question
and Answer session on Sunday, August 22nd, followed separate performances by
Jonathan Frid in a short presentation from his one-man show and then Lara
Parker performing ""Sorry, Wrong Number."" By 1993, Lara Parker had attended
about 14 DS conventions since 1980; Jonathan Frid had attended almost 20 - the
most of any DS actor. 1993 was the last appearance Frid made has made at a Dark
Shadows function to date. Where the audio is inaudible to transcriber, there is
a blank. Thanks to Kitty and Marlene MacKinnon for the transcription.
Jonathan Frid and Lara Parker enter to a standing ovation, and dance together a
bit on stage before taking their seats on stage.
Jonathan Frid: Okay, who has the first question? Lara will have to point - I
can''t see. [laughter] I don''t know if you can even see us. [fans start to
line up at a microphone stand in the audience]
Audience: Yes, we can! Fan stands up at mic.
JF: Are you the first one? I can vaguely see you. By the way, I''ve got
contacts in to read so you are all a blur [audience laughter]. But I can
vaguely see forms, I can''t see eyes . . I see people.
Fan: I have been __________ by the both of you for 20 years and it''s very
exhilarating to see you both on stage. [applause]
JF: Well, thank you very much. [applause]
Fan continues: I also want to say to both of you that you''re not getting
older: you''re getting more fantastic! [big applause from audience]
Fan: I was curious to know what your favorite charities are?
JF: Now, I can''t think of the name of it. They deliver to food people at home
. .wheels on wagons or something like that [audience laughs] Audience: Meals on
Wheels?
JF: No . .I can''t think of the name. I give to others too . .Oh, and AIDS.
LP: I give to several of them. ____________ and I give - I don''t want to get
into trouble - but to a number of women''s groups [applause]. N.O.W I suppose
is my favorite charity because I feel women should decide what happens to their
own bodies. [applause]
Audience: I have a question: Is your name pronounced Lara or Laura?
LP: A lot of people say Lara for some reason.
JF: It''s not Laura, it''s Laura. [teasing. audience laughs]
Fan: Mr. Frid, for old times sake _____________. I''m still watching you and I
have a favor to ask. Would you bite me, please . . please please .
. JF: [doesn''t hear/understand the question, and asks LP if she heard it]
LP: I think spell your name . .
JF: Spell my name?
Fan: No, bite my neck! [audience laughs] PLEASE ! PLEASE!
JF: (laughs and points to the other side of the room) Over there, over there,
later. [audience laughs and applauds] Let''s get some questions for Lara.
Fan: Mr. Frid, I want to ask you the one question every woman in America wants
to ask. But, the best thing about these conventions is our chance to tell all
the actors how dearly we love their work. And how well you have aged.
[applause] For an actual question, would each of you tell me as much as
possible - in a very brief period of time - about making the transition between
stage and screen. Thank you very much.
JF: On stage, louder.
LP: Well, it''s very different because emotions have to be very loud and
strong; body movement is an important part. For the camera, it''s imprint not
to move your face as much because the camera tends to read your mind. It''s
different technique in terms of strength of the performance. Stage, of course,
is done all the way through. In a play you get to experience the entire thing
that night - the whole story - and gathering the energy of your performance
works in your favor. If you get into it, it becomes strong for you. Whereas in
film, it''s in little pieces. You often do the last scene first and you hardly
ever do the scenes in order so there is a lot of preparation. You have all the
technical problems. You can do your best possible scene and they will need to
redo it to get the sound right or the lighting right, and then you do it over.
But the nice thing is at the end you can get a good performance whereas in the
theater, whatever happens, you come back the next night and you do it all over
again. They're both wonderful.
JF: I have not had much experience making movies. I did make a movie with
Shelly Winters years ago. There was an actress in it - and I''ve got a memory
like a sieve - she was the first actress to ever play the lead in ""Our Town""
. . .
Audience: Martha Scott.
JF: Yes, Martha Scott She was in this playing Robert Foxworth''s mother and
they had a scene at her home. They were never able to finish that scene at the
Big Sur. In fact, we had to go back to Hollywood to finish it. I don''t know
why. The money to shoot those scenes on location is astronomical. It''s like
moving an army. Anyway, what they did was to take pictures of the set (at the
Big Sur location) of the set. And on a Monday afternoon (back in Hollywood)
Martha Scott was simply on a lounge. And they said, ""Oh Miss Scott, would you
mind doing that scene now?"" and they had it set up. Robert Foxworth couldn''t
be there because he damaged his eye or something over the weekend. So the
script girl read his lines to Ms. Scott. It was a very emotional scene. How
they pulled that all together in the end I still don''t know. It was magic.
Anyway, her scene was edited in and we saw the rushes a few days later. They
had put all this together - and so help me - her performance was matched within
an inch of its life to what she had done at the Big Sur a week before. It was
absolutely perfect! So really, to be a good screen actor you have to remember
exactly what you did in the last take and reproduce it. It was magic what she
did. I was in awe of the experience. Days later in another location, she was as
cool as a cucumber as she had been the week before. I knew I could never claim
to have that kind of talent. Mine was pretty much the theater. Of course, I did
television. When we were doing Dark Shadows it was done like theater in a way
unlike the soaps now which are done like movies. I''m not very good for soaps -
I mean, I can do them, just not terribly well.
Fan: This question is for Lara: I wanted to know if you will be touring the
college circuit or plan on publishing any of your one-act plays such as the one
you did this afternoon?
LP: I didn''t write that.
Fan: Oh, you didn''t write it?
LP: No, it was Louise Fletcher . .Louise Fletcher?
Audience: Lucille.
LP: Yes, Lucille, thank you. It''s a very old play. Barbara Stanwyck did it.
JF: It was written originally as a radio piece.
LP: Touring, no. I don''t have any plans. I am writing and I hope to - and I
have my fingers crossed - because my second screenplay is now getting some
interest. I would love to get something sold and to find some work writing.
I''ve been working at it for eight years now, and it''s getting discouraging. I
also started teaching. I taught school last summer - high school English.
[applause]
Fan: In the future will you two collaborate on something together?
LP: Oh, wouldn''t that be fun! [JF smiles]. Did you notice that we collaborated
today?
Audience: Yes! LP: Yes, Jonathan was the murderer. [applause]
JF: I was cast just this morning! We did it in about two seconds, right?
LP: He had to have his motivation first. ""How do you want me to say it?""
JF: Sorry, wrong number! [in ominous voice]
LP: ""She''s a crazy fiend, right?"" No, Jonathan, He''s a murderer. ""Oh, I
see, he is somebody who comes y and picks up the telephone."" No, Jonathan,
He''s a murderer. ""You mean he is trying to trick the operator into thinking
He''s an operator?"" No, Jonathan, he''s a murderer. [audience laughs] ""Oh.
Well, how do you say it like a murderer?"" You''ll be able to do it.
JF: Next question?
Fan: Hi Jonathan and Lara. I''m very excited to be here. I have wanted to meet
you for years. You made high school bearable. My question is was there ever
anything in the show that really scared you? Was getting in and out of the
coffin ever scary? Did the lid ever shut . .(inaudible) [audience laughs]
JF: No. You people were the doing all the acting, that''s what I''ve always
claimed, reading into things. What scared me was not knowing my lines everyday.
I was nervous almost every day. It was absolute hell for me for that first
year. Certainly for a long while. I''m such a slow study. I''m not really good
for soaps - at least how they were done in those days. It was very much weekly
stock and you had to learn the lines overnight and not in a week. So, I scared
myself . . .
LP: We were too scared to be scared. (addressing fan who asked the question)
Were you scared right before you asked your question?
Fan: Was I scared?
LP: Yes. Were you scared?
Fan: Well, yeah.
LP: Yes, scared. That''s how it eels when you act. I mean, you don''t care that
you are in a coffin. [laughter] You''re thinking: ""Oh my god, it''s going to
be my turn"" [laughter and applause]
Fan: My question is really for Jonathan. First of all, it''s wonderful to see
you in person after admiring you for over 20 years. However, my question is
really about Alexandra Moltke who is another favorite of mine on the show. I am
curious as to why they used two substitutes knowing that she was pregnant and
was going to leave? Why didn''t they end the storyline with her and wasnt''
there a general clamor among the fans to have her back? She was popular . .
JF: I remember that happening. I was asking the same question at the time. Why
not up it up knowing she was leaving . . I can''t remember how much they knew
in the front office. Sometimes with an actor something can happen so quickly
that you can''t change. I don''t have the answer, maybe Lara does.
LP: Ours is not to reason why.
JF: She just moved on . .
LP: Alexandra Moltke wanted to be off the show very, very badly. She did not
want to do it. She refused to wear makeup, she hardly bothered to comb her
hair. She did not want to be there. If you watch the tapes towards the end you
can see that she didn''t wear makeup. A lot of times - as opposed to the rest
of us who were plastered with it - she would do the least possible. She had a
contract and she stuck by it but she wanted to leave. She didn''t enjoy it. So
when she got pregnant, they finally let her go. That''s all I remember. I
remember liking her very much.
Fan: It was strange to have a substitute for such a short time but with the
pregnancy issue I can understand. Thank you. [applause] Fan: Back to stage
versus screen performances - what kind of stage genre did you feel like you
were doing on the show? Restoration, tragedy . (inaudible). What was it like
for your moment to moment performance.
JF: Rephrase your question, I didn't follow . .
LP: I think he wants to know the style of DS - restoration . .. .
Fan: Most of you had performed in genres on stage . .
JF: Well, let me answer that in a round-about way. My favorite section was when
we went back to the past. I was much more at home, I think, in those costumes.
In my first two or three plays in high school they were all classics and
suddenly I had to do light, frothy comedy - playing a guy-next-door type person
in sneakers. I thought I was naked on stage. didn''t have a costume. My
beginnings were in the English tradition of disguising myself. I thought rather
than play my own personality I would disguise myself. So, that''s my style.
Though, ironically, people say ""Oh, you were typecast!"" The greatest romantic
role I ever played was Barnabas. I had the whole gamut to play with that
character over the years, especially when leading up to where this old bitch
got me [nodding towards LP. Audience laughs and applauds. LP laughs]
LP: I think that I my own experience that I call upon a sense of period
restoration feeling. When I auditioned, I remember being thrilled it was
period, that at least it required a certain precision diction - an attitude of
the characters that modern characters lacked - natural acting. A certain
hauteur and strength. While at the University of Iowa, I had done 18th, 19th
century plays so I felt I could certainly tap into that. I think there was
definitely a strength to the performances. Jonathan''s, Thayer David''s, Louis
Edmonds - a lot of them. There was essentially a difference there.
Fan: This question is for Jonathan Frid. I would like to know what future
projects you might have - theater, movies or your one-man show coming up?
JF: I''m thinking very seriously of just retiring and going to sleep. [audience
reacts]. I had an operation this spring (gall bladder) and I enjoyed every
minute of it because I could relax and feel sorry for myself. [audience laughs]
and I recuperated for the longest time. [laughter] Really, all summer. But
I''ll probably get itchy in the fall . .I haven''t really any plans. We don''t
have much booked at this point. Thanks to Mary O''Leary who has been here all
afternoon - she and Nancy have been around setting things up - she and I have
been working together for the last 8 or 9 years. But anyway, we both discovered
that we had to create our own market. There''s no market for reader''s theater.
It''s not as if were selling Campbell''s Soup or Puffed Wheat - we were selling
something no one knows anything about - Reader''s Theater. So, we had to create
- Mary had an uphill battle the whole way. It''s very difficult to sustain the
energy needed to get booked. You don''t count on bookings because of a
so-called name - that goes for naught. You have to fight constantly whether you
are looking for a role or an engagement. Now, Mary''s got too much do over at
Guiding Light - I don''t know the right adjective - but she is a producer of
sorts there. I don''t want to sound disheartening, I''ll be doing something,
I''m sure.
Fan: You only made that one movie outside of Dark Shadows, and it wasn''t very
good. [audience laughs]
JF: I have no ambition to do any more movies, or television for that matter.
Fan: (inaudible about the portraits)
JF: There''s a whole funny story about that portrait - but I won''t go into
that.
Audience: Please tell it!
JF: Oh okay. Well, that portrait of the original Barnabas - they didn''t have
the role cast but they had to have the painting ready. So Bob Costello, the
associate producer, sat in as the model for it. He has a different shaped head
than me and it was like those things on the street corners where you can put
your head through a hole of (another body) [laughter]. Unfortunately, he
didn''t have a lot of hair so the hair he had he pulled across his forehead. so
then, they just painted my face in - not my head - just my face at the last
minute. It was that close - they had to have it ready for the next day. So
hence the bangs - that became my trademark because Bob Costello didn''t have a
lot of hair. [laughter] Of course, my hair is so thick, even now. Anyway,
that''s the story.
Fan: Jonathan, I know you did many shows in the libraries in New York over the
years. I wanted to know if you thought about adding any soundtrack to the
stories.
JF: We did that last fall during my tour across the country. We experimented in
the libraries with the music and it got terribly complicated. I think the music
wound up being all right but it''s a very expensive thing to do. That''s very
expensive equipment. We rented equipment and then we eventually trusted the
college campuses to provide us with the equipment. Sometimes they made fake
promises, sometimes they were quite honest, and sometimes they didn''t have the
equipment at all. Most of the time we didn''t have what we were supposed to
have ready for us. It was a messy business. The only way to do that was to have
our own equipment, a truck which means extra staff which goes into the hundreds
of thousands of dollars to do just what you suggested. We found that out. It
was a very interesting experiment but rather frustrating because time and time
again we got faulty equipment on various campuses. Music would be either ahead
of me or behind me. Once I was on stage, I didn''t care because I was just the
actor doing my stories with the technician responsible for keeping up with me.
It''s a very expensive thing to do and the market doesn''t warrant that kind of
expenditure.
[inaudible quuestion]
JF: What about Kate Jackson - was she in any of those episodes?
LP: She played my sister.
JF: Oh. I must say I liked working with Kate very much. She tolerated me. She
was marvelous - she had absolute tolerance of my shortcomings and I always
loved her for that. She was probably the most efficient actress - I don''t know
whether I should tell this story - well, I''ll tell it - it''s a nice story
about her. It''s at the expense of one of the directors who had misgivings
about her for some reason or other. I don''t really know why. I thought maybe
it was .. well, I won''t get into that . . I said to him, ""I don''t understand
your not liking her or having reservations about her. She''s on time every day,
knows her lines, gives no flack - she just does what she has to, and goes home,
then comes back the next day equally prepared. ""And I did say this at the time
- Ha Ha - ""She will probably go on to be a star in Hollywood because that is
just what they want out there. They want people who can learn lines, give no
flack, and are on time. For no other reason she was marvelous for that. And she
was very kind to me -
LP: As opposed to some of us . . [audience laughs]
JF: Anyway, I don''t remember the storyline very much. I must confess we were
getting a little tired by that point. The plots got changed so often I don''t
remember any of them. The last few years I don''t remember very much.
Fan: It wasn''t a supernatural story; it was more like Wuthering Heights.
LP: I loved it because I finally got to play the heroine. When I see the tapes,
Kathryn is far less interesting. I was very, very happy doing that role. At
last I was doing the romantic lead . . . Fan: Keith Prentice was a very
talented actor. He died last year.
LP: Oh, really? Fan: Yes, Keith Prentice died last year.
JF: It was last Christmas, winter or something. Next?
Fan: Hi! I have a question for Jonathan. Are you married?
JF: No. [audience laughs]
Fan: Okay. [laughter] Which was your favorite role?
LP: Who is she asking?
Fan: Mr. Frid: I want to know some of the Shakespeare plays you were in, and
which were your favorite roles?
JF: Oh, oh. I guess Richard III. However, this is one thing about my one-man
show for the past few years. I''ve done everything. I really wanted to do. So
I''m not frustrated any longer. I even did a Shakespeare show - I did Richard
II, Richard II, Caliban and others, two or three other characterizations like
Don John in ""Much Ado About Nothing."" By the way, if anybody has any interest
in Shakespeare at all, don''t miss ""Much Ado About Nothing."" (film version).
It''s fabulous. Even if you don''t like Shakespeare, go watch it. It''s the
most gorgeous thing you ever saw. It''s beautiful. The best Shakespeare I''ve
ever seen on screen. Anyway, I did all those things, you see, in my one my
shows so I don''t have any frustration. If I want to do Lear, I''ll do Lear.
Fan: I remember your Caliban - how wonderful he was. You gave him such
sympathy.
JF: (inaudible)
LP: Remember the time when you were one Shakespearean play and you burst in
with a speech from another play? [audience laughs]
JF: Oh, yes, that happened occasionally. [laughter]. That happened up in
Stratford way back in the 50s. I was playing a messenger . .and I had been
playing some of the messenger in Othello who brings bad tidings in the first
act. That evening we were opening the ""Merchant of Venice."" and I came on as
Salerio bringing the news to Portia. And I came on and did the other speech. It
had the same rhythm and all - sounded like the same thing. In fact, very people
noticed it, but the people on stage, behind stage were hysterical. [laughter]
And they were falling over the furniture and in the aisles. The people in the
audience just thought it was a bad message. [laughter] (inaudible) all these
iambic pentameter lines. Oh, the things that happened occasionally. Okay, next
question? [laughter]
Fan: Hello Jonathan. What was your favorite episode on Dark Shadows?
JF: There were 2 or 3 in that section I mentioned going back in the past. I had
some loo-loos with Lara, and some with Kathryn Leigh Scott. It was (the scene)
one of favorites and interestingly enough I went up (forgot the line) in the
middle of the scene. I was so upset with myself that I asked the producers -
they didn''t want to change anything - I said, :""Please "" It was my very
favorite scene. It was when Lara had what''s-his-name take Kathryn away from me
and I had this confrontation with everybody in the drawing room. This is too
long ago to really remember details - I had been jilted and why/what was the
cause of all this. It was a very good, well written scene. By the way, I think
this period is when the writing was at it''s best. They were writing beautiful
scripts. Anyway, I went up - I was just a blank in the camera - and there
(inaudible) looking for somebody to say something! [laughter] Anyway, I asked
the producers - they wanted me to meet some VIP that night - and I said, I''ll
do it if you let me go talk to the editors in the editing room that night. They
let me. So we played with all the sound, putting it in the video and changing
it around. But we edited out that horrible moment out, so it remained and
continues to be one of my favorite scenes. There was another one - there were a
couple of scenes with Lara. (to LP) you were gutsy, they were real gutsy
scenes.
Fan: I have to say Lara - you are the most beautiful witch I''ve ever seen.
[audience applauds]
LP: My favorite scene is when I turn you into a vampire. [JF laughs, audience
applauds]
Fan: I''d like to ask you - were you a little jealous when the new Dark Shadows
came out? [laughter]
LP: Yes. [applause] Emcee: I''m sorry to say we only have time for one more
question. Then we will begin the autograph session.
Fan: I would like to say to both Lara and Jonathan - Lara you are so beautiful
and I loved it when you played Angelique.
LP: Thank you.
Fan: And Jonathan, I'd love to see you do more (inaudible). Emcee: Thank you,
Lara Parker and Jonathan Frid! [applause and ovation]