Barnabas Collins

Barnabas Collins is one of the feature characters in the ABC soap opera serial Dark Shadows, which aired from 1966 to 1971. Originally played by Canadian actor Jonathan Frid, Barnabas Collins is a 175-year-old vampire who is in search of fresh blood and his lost love. The character of Barnabas Collins was introduced to the serial in a last-effort attempt to resurrect the flagging ratings. The role of Barnabas Collins was originally intended to be a brief one, to run but a mere 13 weeks, but the popularity of the character and the quick spike in ratings resulted in him continuing on and becoming virtually the star of the show.

Barnabas Collins was a member of the late 18th century-era Collins family, from the fictional town of Collinsport, Maine. He was the son of Joshua Collins (Louis Edmonds) and Naomi Collins (Joan Bennett), and had a little sister, Sarah Collins. In 1795, he intended to marry a beautiful heiress from Martinique named Josette du Pres (Kathryn Leigh Scott), although he also had an affair with Angelique (Lara Parker), Josette's maidservant. Unbeknownst to him or Josette, Angelique was actually a powerful witch, well acquainted with voodoo and the black arts.

After Barnabas decided to end his affair with her, Angelique cast a spell on Josette to make her fall in love with Barnabas's uncle, Jeremiah Collins (Anthony George). After Jeremiah and Josette eloped, Barnabas challenged Jeremiah to a duel. Jeremiah lost, dying shortly after being shot. Later, Angelique tricked Barnabas into marrying her by placing a curse on Sarah, so that she suffered an incurable malady. After Barnabas agreed to marry her, Angelique removed the spell on Sarah, but claimed to have cured her through a medicinal remedy. When Barnabas discovered that Angelique was responsible for the marriage of Josette and Jeremiah, and other strange happenings at Collinwood, he shot her. With what she believed to be her dying words, she took revenge on Barnabas by summoning a vampire bat from hell to attack him. Barnabas fell extremely ill and died. Angelique survived and attempted to rescind the curse, but was unsuccessful.

Shortly thereafter, Barnabas rose as a vampire. He immediately killed Angelique (the only witness to his rising from his coffin). Later, he frightened his aunt Abigail Collins (Clarice Blackburn) to death, and entombed witch-hunter Reverend Trask (Jerry Lacy) in the Old House basement. Sarah saw her deceased brother roaming Collinwood and hid from him in the cold dark woods all night; because of this she contracted pneumonia and died. To add to Barnabas' grief, his mother Naomi Collins developed a drinking problem and also died, (indirectly due to all the grief caused by Angelique). Barnabas also attempted to transform Josette into a vampire. At first, she was willing, if not quite fully cognizant of what this would entail. But then Angelique (who had become far more powerful after her death) revealed to her a vision of what she would become. Fleeing from Barnabas, Josette leapt to her death off the cliffs of Widow's Hill, (in a later episode in the series where Barnabas confronted Angelique, he told her he would never forgive her for bringing about the deaths of both Josette and Naomi).

Unable to bear what he had become, Barnabas asked his father, Joshua Collins, to kill him. However, Joshua was unable to murder his son, and so he ordered Barnabas’s devoted servant, Ben Stokes (Thayer David), to nail a crucifix to the inside lid of Barnabas' coffin and to wrap chains on its outside, forever imprisoning the vampire in the secret room of the family mausoleum.

In 1967, Willie Loomis (John Karlen) was foraging in the Collins family crypt in Eagle’s Hill Cemetery for the family's "lost jewels". He stumbled upon the chained coffin in which Barnabas slept. Believing the coffin to contain the lost riches of the Collins family, Willie accidentally released the vampire. Barnabas attacked Willie and turned him into his unwilling servant.