55 years later, Kathryn Leigh Scott keeps spirit of Dark Shadows alive

(Photo: IMDB)

When Kathryn Leigh Scott reunited the cast of the supernatural soap opera Dark Shadows in December 2021, 50 years after the show ended, she fulfilled a dream from the drama’s late creator that had been decades in the making.

Dark Shadows, available to stream for free on Tubi, continues to spellbind fans spanning generations. Scott is still hearing from fans as young as nine years old who are watching with their grandparents.

In many ways, the anything-but-traditional ‘60s soap, which featured vampires, witches, ghosts, werewolves, time travel, parallel time, and more over the course of 1,225 22-minute episodes, is evergreen in its popularity—a rarity as soap operas become a thing of the past for most television viewers.

Looking back, Scott reflected on how gratifying it is to know that portraying Maggie Evans on Dark Shadows was her very first job as a young actress straight out of drama school and that the program resonates with viewers more than 50 years later.

Scott would go on to play the pivotal role of Josette du Pres, the love interest of fan favorite Barnabas Collins (played by the late Jonathan Frid), as well as Lady Kitty Hampshire and Rachel Drummond, before leaving the show in 1970, months before the final episode of the series.

"Dark Shadows has been a catalyst for so many other good things in my life," she said, noting she would have never become a multi-published author without first writing about her experiences on the show. Scott has run Pomegranate Press, a non-fiction entertainment book publishing company, for 35 years.

Creating a Dark Shadows Christmas Carol

The cast’s virtual reunion marked two decades since the entire cast last got together for a Paley Center tribute to Dark Shadows.

It was at that celebration that the idea for A Dark Shadows Christmas Carol was born.

"That night, Dan Curtis, who was sitting next to me, said, ‘It was always my dream to bring back the Dark Shadows cast every year and do A Christmas Carol live.’ And now, 20 years later, we’re finally doing it," Scott said in a December 2021 interview with The Blueprint.

"What’s really fun about it is that there are five of us in this cast of ten who were on the very first day, rehearsing for Dark Shadows," she said. "That was in April of 1966; the show went on the air in June."

Scott’s reunion with original cast members included David Hennessey (David Collins), Nancy Barrett (Carolyn Stoddard), Alexandra Moltke (Victoria Winters), and Mitch Ryan (Burke Devlin), who passed away in March 2022.

Returning to Collinwood

In October 2021, Scott returned to Lyndhurst Manor in Tarrytown, New York. The old Jay Gould estate served as the exterior for Collinwood, the mansion and central setting of the daytime soap, in two spin-off films based on the show.

"I got to stay in what’s known as Josette’s room," Scott recalled. "It’s a tower room with mullioned windows and ivy growing up the sides of the building, and it’s just enchanting."

She brought along two dresses she believes are emblematic of Dark Shadows: Josette’s ball gown worn in the 1970 film House of Dark Shadows, and a ball gown gifted to Scott when colleague and film phenom Joan Bennett (Elizabeth Collins Stoddard) passed away in 1990. 

After spending a night at Lyndhurst Manor, Scott and her boyfriend drove up to Seaview Terrace in Newport, Rhode Island, where location scenes for the original series were shot.

Scott has plenty of experience documenting the history of Lyndhurst Mansion and Seaview Terrace. She wrote about them in her 2012 book, "Dark Shadows: Return to Collinwood," a personal favorite shared by Scott and this author. The book covers five decades of the show with an overview of the entire series, an episode guide, behind-the-scenes photos, and tidbits about the short-lived 1991 primetime NBC spin-off and the 2012 Tim Burton feature film. 

In addition to penning books about her days on the set of Dark Shadows, Scott has published five novels, along with several other non-fiction books about caregiving. 

"As an actor, you're always conscious of all five senses, and in writing, you have to do the same thing," she explained. "It's not just what you see and hear and touch, but it's what you smell and taste and all of those things to bring a scene to life have to be there."

Since COVID-19, Scott admits she’s had a lot of trouble concentrating, an issue a lot of her writer friends are also experiencing. So instead of working on her latest novel, she’s ventured into the world of journalism. Her work has appeared in The Daily Beast, and Scott is a regular freelancer with AARP’s The Ethel.

While filming Dark Shadows, Scott formed an off-screen friendship with her handsome on-screen love interest, Joel Crothers (Joe Haskell).They dated for a bit but remained close friends until he tragically died from AIDS in 1985 at the age of 44. 

Crothers may be gone, but his spirit has lived on through Scott’s writing. He was the one who inspired her to put pen to paper, after all. After Crothers' and fellow co-star Grayson Hall's closely timed deaths, Scott wrote a magazine article about the both of them and then just kept writing.

Before long, Scott published her first book, Scrapbook Memories of Dark Shadows, and began her publishing company. The rest is history.

"I have such wonderful memories of him," she said of Crothers. "He was really very special."

She recalls Frid's Shakespearean nature and the times Bennett would pull her aside to impart wisdom to Scott.

"I am still getting letters from people saying, ‘I'm 62-years-old now, and I have to tell you that you got me through a terrible childhood. My best memories are racing home from school and sitting on the couch with my grandmother and watching Dark Shadows,’" Scott said.

It’s messages like those that remind Scott what makes Dark Shadows special.

"I realized that our show was entirely about outsiders," she said. "And I’ve always thought: ‘Here are these young kids being bullied and being given a hard time by the school teacher. But no matter what happens on the playground, at least you weren't bitten by a vampire.’"

A Dark Shadows Christmas Carol is available to stream for free anytime on YouTube.