THE BEWITCHING LARA PARKER ON TV AND FILM

Jeff Thompson

 

 

          In the 1960s and early 1970s, much of America was bedazzled by a witch—or two.  For eight years at night, viewers followed the antics of Samantha Stevens (Elizabeth Montgomery) on ABC-TV’s Bewitched.  For four years during the day, fans of Dark Shadows (also on ABC) were bewitched by Angelique, the vengeful yet vulnerable sorceress played unforgettably by Lara Parker.

          Although Dark Shadows began in mid-1966, it was not until late 1967 that Parker as Angelique debuted as an adversary for Jonathan Frid, whose portrayal of the vampire Barnabas Collins had saved the show from cancellation.  Dark Shadows creator-producer-director Dan Curtis considered Barnabas and Angelique his “big guns” and usually kept their storylines—and the Angelique-Barnabas-Josette love triangle—at the forefront of his Gothic serial.  Between 1967 and 1971, Angelique cast spells on Barnabas’s family members, caused the deaths of several of them, married Barnabas, cursed him with vampirism, lured Josette to her death, subjected Barnabas and others to an elaborate Dream Curse, bit Barnabas (when she briefly was a vampire herself), blackmailed him, saved his life, lifted the vampire curse, and much more.  Frid and Parker continued playing Barnabas and Angelique until January 1971 when they began portraying the combative lovers Bramwell and Catherine until Dark Shadows ended on April 2.

          “In 1966, I auditioned for the role of Victoria Winters,” Lara Parker  revealed.  “I didn’t get it, but Dan Curtis remembered me when the role of Angelique came up.”  She continued,

 

          I had been on Dark Shadows for several weeks, and I was doing

          a ‘tearful scene’ of heartbreak and rejection.  Jonathan [Frid] said

          to me during rehearsal, ‘You should stop trying to be the heroine.’

          I was shocked to receive this bit of criticism.  ‘Stop crying,’ he said.

          ‘You’re the villain!  You have the plum role!’  When I insisted that

          I was not ‘the jealous type,’ he simply said, ‘Dig deeper.’  He gave

          me the best advice.  I learned to play deeper, and as a result, I played

          Angelique with a vengeance.  His presence in my life was a gift.

         

          Parker added, “The whole show was about yearning and longing for love.  Even the ‘monsters’ on the show wanted love.”  Nevertheless, Parker still desired to play the heroine and got her wish somewhat as a more sympathetic Angelique near the end of the series and then definitely as the long-suffering Catherine Harridge Collins in the final episodes.  “Finally, after five years,” she said, “I was being allowed to play the heroine, but it was not as satisfying as I thought it would be.  I experienced discontent because I missed the Angelique character.” 

          Lara Parker had one more chance to play her signature role on the screen.  In late March 1971, she, David Selby, Grayson Hall, and other Dark Shadows cast members began filming Night of Dark Shadows (MGM, 1971) at the historic Lyndhurst estate in Tarrytown, New York.  Parker played a different Angelique Collins, who disrupted the Collinwood of 1810 and who may or may not have been a witch. 

          Now, with her TV and movie witch roles apparently behind her, Lara Parker (born Mary Lamar Rickey in Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1938) appeared in films occasionally and on television almost constantly.  Throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s, fans of Parker could barely turn on their TV sets without seeing her on Barnaby Jones, Emergency, The Fall Guy, The FBI, Hawaii Five-O, Highway to Heaven, Kojak, Medical Center, Police Woman, Quincy M.E., Remington Steele, The Rockford Files, The Six Million Dollar Man, S.W.A.T., Switch, and other dramas (Kung Fu) and at least one comedy (Alice).  She also appeared in made-for-TV movies (Desperate Voyage, My Darling Daughters’ Anniversary) and briefly on other daytime serials (Capitol, One Life to Live), as well as in four of the seven episodes of the 1981 CBS-TV series Jessica Novak, starring Helen Shaver 

          Fans of Dark Shadows and sci-fi/horror in general especially remember Lara Parker as another witch—Madelaine Perkins, a fashion model who is using her powers to eliminate her competition—on Kolchak: The Night Stalker; as Laura Banner, David Banner’s late wife, seen in flashbacks in quite a few episodes of The Incredible Hulk; and as Shirley Blore, a party guest who dresses in black as a vampire in a two-part episode of Galactica 1980 (also guest-starring Dark Shadows actor Roger Davis).  In the years after the cancellation of Dark Shadows, fans were always thrilled to see Lara Parker turn up on Baretta, David Selby on The Waltons, Kathryn Leigh Scott on Little House on the Prairie, Jonathan Frid in The Devil’s Daughter, and more. 

          I met Lara Parker at various Dark Shadows Festival fan conventions in the 1980s and early 1990s.  The Festival attendees and I were always overjoyed to meet, reconnect with, and even befriend her.  Then, on 17 June 1994, I conducted a telephone interview with her about Dark Shadows but mostly about her film appearances—Hi, Mom! (a.k.a. Confessions of a Peeping John), Night of Dark Shadows, Save the Tiger, Race with the Devil, Foxfire Light, and a never-released curio.

 

 

Jeff Thompson:  When you made Night of Dark Shadows [1971], were you aware that the film was going to be in a different tone or have a different mood than the TV series?

 

Lara Parker:  No, I didn’t.

 

JT:  Did you feel that it would be more or less a continuation of your Angelique role on TV?

 

LP:  Yes.  Yes, but I guess I realized that [director] Dan [Curtis] might be trying to do something new with the story.

 

JT:  There were so many scenes that were written in the complete script of Night of Dark Shadows but that did not appear in the finished film.  Do you remember working on any specific scenes that did not make it into the picture?

 

LP:  Yes.  One of the things I do remember is that Dan was often quite apologetic because he had indicated to me that Night of Dark Shadows would really be about Angelique.  Then, as the writing of the film and the filming itself progressed, it changed, and he built it more around Kate [Jackson] and David [Selby]’s roles—their relationship and their romance.  I guess he felt that that would draw a bigger audience.  Several times, he apologized to me because I guess he felt that he had led me to believe that my role was supposed to be bigger.  I was often called to the set, and then I didn’t work.  I’d get into makeup and costume, and I’d stay there all day.  So I made as good a salary as I thought I would, but the part did turn out to be smaller.  However, I don’t remember being particularly distressed about it.  I don’t know why!  I think it’s because when you’re working on a film and you’re on the set, it’s amusing.  There’s a lot to see and be involved in.  The time went fast, and it was a lot of fun to work on the movie.  Maybe, Night of Dark Shadows wasn’t as well received because it was different from the TV show.  I don’t know whether this is true or not, but I think the same thing happened when Dan [Curtis] did the new series [the 1991 nighttime Dark Shadows, which featured Krull star Lysette Anthony as Angelique].  Dan was always drawn toward making Dark Shadows more romantic.  I guess the ironic thing about Dark Shadows was there was a campy element to it, and the more romantic and realistic you made it, the more that [the campy element] seemed to disappear.  As Dan matured and his tastes matured, I think he wanted something more adult.  But I think the thing that really appealed to people about Dark Shadows was its peculiar personality, which was not really very realistic.  It was more of a strange mixture.  The romanticism was there, but so was the horror.  So were a tongue-in-cheek quality, an investment of humor and kink, and absurdity—all those things that people who talk about the show tend to deny.  They say it was very moralistic and it used great horror themes, but when you watch those episodes, there is a tendency to be amused, to be tickled, to see the absurdity as well as being caught up in the story.

 

JT:  Right.  It does work on several levels.  You can become completely emotionally wrapped up in it, or you can notice the little funny things and the ironic things.

 

LP:  It had an outrageous quality.  Dark Shadows was a little bit off the deep end.

 

JT:  Yes, it was very excessive, extreme, overwrought… 

 

LP:  We played it that way, too!  We were encouraged to play scenes fully and very, very strongly.  If we tried to be subtle, the directors would say, “I want more.”  Actors are always trying to be realistic and subtle—that’s part of the craft, to try to make it real and believable—but the directors would say, “No, no, no; you have to give us more!”  In the world today, there is a tendency to respond to things that have a certain unique personality, and that’s what Dark Shadows had!  There are so many things that are just realistic or just romantic, and [in 1990] I actually spoke to Dan—I don’t think he paid any attention to what I said because why should he?—but I said, “You’ve got to make [the new Dark Shadows] kinky.”  I was thinking about how much I liked Twin Peaks—the ability to present something that’s absurd and astonishing.  [gasps]  “Can you believe that?!”  That kind of feeling.  But I think Dan really wanted a very strong, emotionally true, romantic, deeply involving show.  What he wanted was true Gothic horror. 

 

JT:  I think Night of Dark Shadows approaches that more so than the [1966-1971] TV show.  That’s why I said that Night of Dark Shadows had a slightly different tone.

 

LP:  But Night of Dark Shadows wasn’t successful.

 

JT:  That is debatable.  It’s entertaining and well done, but it would have been a much better movie if all of those missing scenes had been reinstated and, of course, if your part had been bigger.

 

LP:  Thank you.

 

JT:  In Night of Dark Shadows, were those scenes, when you were up on the high platform and hanging from the tree, physically difficult or even dangerous to do?

 

LP:  No.  A stunt person showed me what to do, and I was in a harness.  Those things are done with a full-body harness, like a flying harness.  The rope was really attached to a hook in the back of the harness.  I twisted my body in an effort to look like I was hanging, but I was hanging from a flying apparatus.  I was perfectly safe, and I practiced it several times.  It was really a lot of fun.  There was a stuntman there who had done a lot of hangings in Western movies, and he told me what to do!  I just remember thinking it was a lot fun.  [At the Lyndhurst estate on 26 June 2024, a strong windstorm blew down Angelique’s old “hanging tree.”]

 

JT:  What about Race with the Devil [1975]?  Were there any scenes that were physically demanding, frightening, or dangerous for you in that picture? 

 

LP:  We spent most of our time in that motor home.  It was a real vehicle, and a lot of the movie was actually shot while we were moving.  The scene that was the most remarkable was the one with the snakes!  They had a snake wrangler who, first of all, had to warm the snakes up or they don’t even move!  It’s very hard to get a snake to strike.  If rattlesnakes bite you, it’s dreadful, but they don’t tend to bite that easily.  I think they filmed a whole reel just trying to get those snakes to strike.  They milked the glands behind the snakes’ fangs and removed the fangs and sewed up the mouths so that only the tongue could come out, so the snakes were completely safe.  Once again, it was a real kick working with a rattlesnake being thrown on me and my grabbing it and trying to get both the snake’s head and its rattle in my close-up while I was screaming! 

 

JT:  You had a marvelous part in that picture and got to do a lot of really good emoting—not only the screaming and the fear but also the scene when your dog was killed.  That was a poignant scene.

 

LP:  I worked very hard, and I had a good time doing that film.  It was interesting that it was about witches.  I had a problem with the ending…

 

JT:  How did you feel about that downbeat ending?

 

LP:  I thought that my character, Kelly, should have disappeared since she was the one that was the most suspicious.  She should have vanished without a trace or in a pile of ashes or a pile of clothes.  That would have been a more interesting ending, in terms of something that would leave you thinking.  I suggested that to [writers] Lee Frost and Wes Bishop, but they didn’t take the suggestion.  They had gotten it into their heads that they wanted this “ring of fire” to end the movie.  At that time, B-horror movies were about car chases, motorcycles, and special effects.  One of the interesting things about that film is that a different driver did each part of the chase.  They’d bring in a driver who knew how to do a flip, and they’d bring in a driver who knew how to drive on two wheels, and they’d bring in a driver who knew how to do another thing, and they put them all behind the wheel and cut it all together.  All of those things, like skidding a motorcycle, were done by different people who had those areas of expertise.  It might be different now, but I found that very interesting.  I was aware that Race with the Devil was not supposed to be high art…

 

JT:  Well, there again, it definitely was a success because it is one of the scariest, most nerve-wracking movies I’ve ever seen!

 

LP:  I still think it would have made much more sense for my character to have disappeared because she was the only one who kept saying, “Don’t be silly.”  To me, it would have had a stranger logic.  They still could have done the “ring of fire” but had them survive.  They loved the idea of the “ring of fire”; I thought it looked ridiculous. 

 

JT:  Another terrific film in which you co-starred is Save the Tiger [1973], starring Jack Lemmon—and coincidentally, [your Dark Shadows co-star] Thayer David was in the film as well.  You played a prostitute, and he played a professional arsonist!  Did you ever cross paths on the set?

 

LP:  We saw each other at the screening but not on the set.  I worked only two days on that movie.  My scenes were shot in the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.  David Selby [also of Dark Shadows] was working on another film, also at the Biltmore, with Barbra Streisand.

 

JT:  Up the Sandbox [1972]!

 

LP:  He and I ran into each other in the lobby of the Biltmore.

 

JT:  Five years later, all three of you—David Selby, Thayer David, and you—were reunited on Washington: Behind Closed Doors.

 

LP:  That’s right.  You certainly are up on your fandom.  That’s wonderful!

 

JT:  I remember that you and David Selby did have scenes together [in that 1977 ABC-TV miniseries], but did you and Thayer David have a scene together?

 

LP:  No, I don’t think so.

 

JT:  Was Night of Dark Shadows your first theatrical film?

 

LP:  Well, before that, I did part of another one that was never released…

 

JT:  April in the Wind [1970]?

 

LP:  Yes, very little of it was filmed.  We worked about two weeks.  It was a strange time.  The script just made no sense at all!  It was a fantasy, and I was hired almost entirely for my “look.”  I was placed opposite a male model, and we shot some hysterical scenes!  We shot one scene in a “swan boat”—a boat that was completely covered with white feathers—that we hitched up to cables and dragged across a lake in Central Park in the early-morning mist.  They pumped fog over the water so it would look like something ethereal and heavenly—maybe something out of Swan Lake—and we sat there and looked beautiful!  [laughs]  Then, they filmed me under a tree with an incredible amount of eye makeup to create some kind of sensational “look.”

 

JT:  Who was the director?

 

LP:  I don’t remember.  I don’t remember.  I just remember there were a couple of people who got it into their minds to make this movie, but the script could not be understood.  [The director of April in the Wind was Allan Foshko (Land of the Lost).  Lara Parker would have co-starred with Keith Charles (The Secret Storm) and Helen Gallagher (Ryan’s Hope).]  Then, something happened—they lost their backing, or they ran out of money—and it was never finished.

 

JT:  I wonder if that footage of you still exists somewhere…

 

LP:  I don’t know.  When you’re a working actress, you just move from one thing to another and don’t think about things like that.  And then I was also in Brian De Palma’s film…

 

JT:  Hi, Mom! [1970]?

 

LP:  Yes.  That was shot in New York when I was on Dark Shadows. That was all improvised—there was no script.  I did four or five scenes in that movie that didn’t make it into the final print.  I did a scene in a bathtub.  It was a bubble bath, so I was desperately trying to keep my bra and panties from showing through!  That never made it into the film, and there were several other scenes that didn’t make it.  Once again, I was supposed to have a really big part, but I didn’t.

 

JT:  Did the scripts for Night of Dark Shadows, Race with the Devil, or any of your other films call for nudity?

 

LP:  No.  Just that Hi, Mom! scene.  There was a time when people were nude on the screen and on Broadway.  It wasn’t as unusual as it would be today.  It’s funny how we’ve returned to a certain amount of conservatism.  But people were really testing the waters there for about a decade!

 

JT:  What about Foxfire Light [1983]?  Where did you film that movie?

 

LP:  I filmed that in Branson, Missouri.  It was a really pretty area.  Foxfire Light was written by Janet Dailey, who writes romance novels.  It was just a little romance; that’s all it was.  The man whom I had the romance with was Leslie Nielsen.  It was a boring little movie that didn’t have any conflict at all.  Janet Dailey has written dozens of romance novels, but she didn’t know anything about screenwriting.  The scenes were so hard to play because they were so static; nothing was going on.  There was never any conflict, so there was never anything to play! 

 

JT:  Speaking of writing, I’d like to know about your own writing.  What are you working on?

 

LP:  I’m working on another screenplay—my fourth.  I have not had very much success yet, but I’ve learned a lot.  I really enjoy writing.  It’s been a process of growth for me because when I started, I expected it to be a lot easier!  I thought, “I’ve read so many scripts and I’ve played so many scripts that it shouldn’t be very hard for me to write scripts.”  But I had to start from scratch!  People who write—and only people who write—know that it’s not as easy as other people think it is.  There is a lot of rewriting—cutting, changing, doing it over, weighing every word.  Screenplays are a real challenge because they’re really, basically, pictures.  What you’re doing is writing for a picture to be taken, so you really have to learn to visualize.  At the same time, screenplays demand structure.  People have expectations when they sit in a movie theatre.  Certain things have to happen or else they get bored.  There’s a lot of that technique that I had to develop an awareness of, and I still don’t think I have it all down.  I’ve really enjoyed it. 

 

JT:  Do your scripts’ plots deal with suspense or horror?

 

LP:  The second one did.  It was an adventure about two women who went with their families on a camping trip and lost their husbands in a deadly waterfall and then had to find their way out alone and were stalked by a group of unsavory characters.  It’s an action/adventure story for women—one woman saves the other woman’s life.  It wrote it four years ago [1990], and it got me an agent.  It was sent out to a lot of areas, and I got quite a bit of interest and letters back, but it was always, “It’s not really what we’re looking for.”

 

JT:  When you write scripts, do you ever visualize specific actors or actresses as your characters?

 

LP:  Yes.  That’s one of the things you’re supposed to do.  You’re supposed to make your parts castable.  Often, one of the ways to get a project done is to send it to an actor or actress who would then commit to it.

 

JT:  Do you ever picture yourself as some of your women?

 

LP:  No.

 

JT:  I understand that you’ve been teaching school lately, too.  Is that right?

 

LP:  Yes.  I was a student teacher [of high-school English] for three semesters.

 

JT:  Did you enjoy teaching?

 

LP:  Yes.  I’m sending out resumes to schools.   

 

JT:  Do you have any acting projects coming up?

 

LP:  My agents were hit very hard by the [17 January 1994 Northridge] earth-quake, and I haven’t heard from them!  I think the building was damaged, and everybody’s pictures, tapes, and resumes were lost!  I know that this is distressing to fans, but I don’t have very much interest in acting any more.  There are very few roles.  It’s very competitive.  It’s very hard even to get an audition.  It starts not to make sense to keep “beating your head against a wall.”  But at some point, I might do something.   [Four months after this conversation, Lara Parker reunited with Jonathan Frid on 50 Years of Soaps: An All-Star Celebration on CBS in October 1994.  Parker and Frid had been a soap-opera “supercouple” before there was such a thing.]

 

 

          “Do something” Lara Parker certainly did—in education, in literature, and on film.  She built on her student-teaching experience and taught English courses at several high schools and colleges.  Almost none of her students, in their late teens and early twenties, were aware that “Angelique Collins” was their English teacher!  When I saw Lara again at Dark Shadows Festivals in  2005, 2008, 2009, and 2010 and at a Dark Shadows fan’s birthday party in 2012, she and I usually did not discuss Dark Shadows or her movies.  We compared notes about which poems, grammar exercises, and writing techniques we were using with our students!

          Meanwhile, Lara Parker earned her Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing from Antioch University and continued her literary pursuits.  Her master’s thesis involved Sigmund Freud’s “The Uncanny,” her own ideas and experiences about the creative-writing process, and even a mention or two of Dark Shadows and her former boss Dan Curtis.  She wrote,

 

          When I look back over his many Gothic films, I can see that he

          always had an original vision, steeped in his love for the genre,

          with repeating motifs: obsession, its attendant guilt and madness,

          the power of dreams, evil children and housekeepers, graveyards

          and ghosts.  What a privilege it was, seeing him bring these images

          to life.

 

          Parker made her own mark not only on the screen but also on the page.  She wrote four HarperCollins/TOR novels based on Dark Shadows, often spotlighting her own Angelique character—Angelique’s Descent (1998), Dark Shadows: The Salem Branch (2006), Dark Shadows: Wolf Moon Rising (2013), and Heiress of Collinwood (2016).  She made audiobook recordings of her novels, and she again played Angelique and Cassandra from Dark Shadows in a series of Big Finish audio dramas (including Blood and Fire, The Crimson Pearl, The Death Mask, Final Judgment, The Tony and Cassandra Mysteries, and many others) in the 2000s and the 2010s.

          Finally, Lara Parker returned to films in the last dozen years of her life.  In June-July 2011, she and her Dark Shadows co-stars Jonathan Frid, Kathryn Leigh Scott, and Daid Selby traveled to England to appear as guests in an elaborate party scene in Tim Burton’s seriocomic 2012 film Dark Shadows, starring Johnny Depp as Barnabas and Eva Green as Angelique.  Parker then starred alongside Jerry Lacy, Scott, Selby, and other Dark Shadows actors in five of the Rondo Award-winning auteur director Ansel H. Faraj’s films: Doctor Mabuse (2013), Doctor Mabuse: Etiopomar (2014), Theatre Fantastique (2014), The Job Interview (2016), and The Great Nick D (2024). 

          Faraj remarked, “When I had the honor of directing Lara in my Doctor Mabuse films and a few other projects, we enjoyed several loooong discussions about writing and acting and filmmaking in general.  She was down to earth and wittily sarcastic and just so incredibly patient and kind with me.  She was genuinely interested in people.  While she was a teacher, she was truly an eternal student of life, always inquisitive and absorbing.  She wasn’t Angelique.  She was funny and sharp and didn’t put on airs, and she thoroughly enjoyed her craft—both the writing and the acting.  I miss her.”

Her final entertainment projects were the recording of her Heiress of Collinwood novel, her participation in some Dark Shadows-themed documentaries and online Zoom meetings, and her appearance in the poignant final scene of The Great Nick D.  After an illness, Lara Parker died at her home in California on 12 October 2023, just 15 days before her 85th birthday.  Several Dark Shadows stars attended her memorial service, but most of the people there were friends and relatives who knew Lara Parker Hawkins as a wife, mother, writer, educator, or humanitarian.

On 5-6 July 2024, Dark Shadows stars and fans gathered in Los Angeles for a weekend-long remembrance of the life of Lara Parker and the 100th birthday of Jonathan Frid (1924-2012).  On Friday night, July 5, a program called “Celebrating the Life of Lara Parker” took place.  Dark Shadows Festival chairman Jim Pierson showed clips from Parker’s TV shows and movies, Dark Shadows star James Storm played and sang “Red Light Green Light” and “Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” and other Dark Shadows stars (including Kathryn Leigh Scott and David Selby) and fans (including Janet Meehan and Ansel Faraj) spoke about Parker.  Fans rewatched Night of Dark Shadows afterwards. 

The next day, in addition to a Jonathan Frid tribute program and a Q&A with five Dark Shadows stars, a charity auction of Lara Parker’s memorabilia was held, with proceeds going to Peace4Kids, an organization that provides programs and services for young people, ages 4 to 24, in foster care.  Among the items auctioned were Parker’s photographs and books, galley proofs of her novels, posters from her book signings, and Parker’s annotated script of her 7 January 1976 episode of Doctors’ Hospital, in which she plays a former model, now a drug addict, who undergoes brain surgery. 

When people learn that I am a Dark Shadows devotee, they start conjuring their own memories of the show.  They always mention the names Barnabas, Quentin—and Angelique.  Many of them remember what “big, beautiful eyes” Angelique had.  Lara Parker made an indelible impression on an entire generation of baby boomers and their parents.  Thanks to reruns, physical media, and streaming, Angelique—and Parker—haunt the screens and the dreams of all subsequent generations.

         

         

 

 

 

Dr. Jeff Thompson taught English at Tennessee State University in Nashville from 1985 to 2020.  He returned to the classroom at TSU and Nashville State Community College a few years later.  Jeff, a former radio announcer who discusses Dark Shadows and horror on podcasts and at academic conferences, is the Rondo Award-nominated author of The Television Horrors of Dan Curtis (McFarland, 2009, 2019), House of Dan Curtis (Westview, 2010, 2019), and Nights of Dan Curtis (Ideas, 2015, 2020).  He writes book chapters and forewords about television, film, and comics for Hermes Press, McFarland Books, Midnight Marquee Press, Syracuse University Press, and others.