After that I went back and got my degree at the university in Hamilton Ontario - a BA.
All fame ever does for you is get attention for the work you really want to do.
Anyway, my face, my voice reflected my emotions of nervousness and tension; I could have done anything at that moment. I think that this is what established the character that first day. I had a whole scene in the Old House, where Barnabas recalls everything in his life.
I have been in this business since 1946, which I guess is about 20 years. I haven't been consistently professional since then.
I have this cozy house here and I get three pensions from the States. I've done nicely.
I never pushed to be on television again.
I served my apprenticeship in Pennsylvania in Milford, in a Summer Stock company there and later went down to New Jersey.
I toured Ontario in the winter of '48, in a touring company of The Drunkard, in which I played the bartender.
I was never starving. I always had money; not a lot but enough to be comfortable.
I went over there to get a classical training and discovered that Canadians, because they are British subjects, are able to work without a permit.
I'm an old curmudgeon and I know it.
I'm constantly watching people. Watching their strengths and weaknesses. I find myself going into theater less and less, let alone horror. I gave that up when I was seven or eight years old.
I'm interested in villainy.
I'm interested in what makes ordinary people, like yourself, tick the way you do. And the way I tick. And the way somebody else ticks.
I'm not interested in horror movies.
If you have millions of dollars you are not going to get to continue doing what you want. You are into a world of commitment to that money and all the people that helped you get that money.
In real life, I find that monsters are people. We are all monsters to one another at some time or other. You catch a friend not telling the truth, or you are suddenly suspicious of them, you all of a sudden see a new glow in their faces - a new look. Now that's what I call a monster.
It took so much of the tension out of me that my friends and family won't see me on this show.
Meanwhile, I had planned to go west and get a teaching job, or do that along with some work in Hollywood, such as television or film.
People think I should be a multi-millionaire if I had gotten the right contract. I'm not getting anything for all that commercial stuff they do. But I would have had to pay for that.
The best theatre I've done, I've done right here in this living room.
They know I hate these fangs, and yet the first four pictures all show me in fangs. I know it's all part of the game.
To me, horror is when I see somebody lying. I mean a person I know. A friend. And he's telling me something that I accept. And then suddenly, as he or she is telling it, there's something that gives them away. They're not telling me the truth.
Twice I had been stopped by these jobs, and I thought the role on Dark Shadows would go on for about three or four weeks. And then, the phenomenon began, the role caught on, the mail started to flood in.
You can share a link to this page with your friend!