- 11 months ago
Austin's Interview with Kathryn Leigh Scott
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00:00All right. You ready?
00:04I'm ready.
00:06It is an honor and a privilege to welcome to the program a lady whose work I've been following since I was zero, maybe.
00:15No, actually, I was about one and a half or two when the girls at the Price House lady that was keeping me introduced me to Dark Shadows.
00:23And I quickly became obsessed with it. And from the age of two until I was five, it was really all that I thought about on television.
00:32I wasn't watching Star Trek yet. I think I like Batman and Robin.
00:35But anyway, Barnabas Collins and Dark Shadows was it.
00:38And one of the reasons when I got a chance to pick a movie to premiere at the Columbia County Performing Arts Center that I went with House of Dark Shadows,
00:46October 29th, seven o'clock, is that it was the very first horror movie I ever saw in a movie theater.
00:54And five years old, sent me over the top. Loved it.
00:58And Catherine, they will tell you it screwed me up then.
01:02And I've stayed consistently screwed up since.
01:04Catherine Lee Scott, who played Josette Dupre and Maggie Evans and two other characters, Kitty and Rachel.
01:12Right. Right. My goodness gracious. How did I know that?
01:16You were part of a phenomenon that is described in television terms is in those days about the closest thing you could be to the Beatles.
01:26I mean, is that accurate?
01:29You know, it'd be lovely to think that Ringo and Paul and that they were all watching Dark Shadows.
01:36You know, it was.
01:39It did become a huge cult favorite.
01:41It's an afternoon soap.
01:44And we had 20 million viewers.
01:47There are a lot of shows now that are considered a success that would be hard pressed to come up with 20 million viewers.
01:54But I looked it up.
01:55I looked it up.
01:56The number one show last week was 60 Minutes with 6 million viewers.
02:00Yeah. I mean, obviously, everything has changed.
02:05But we were, in the words of NBC and we were on ABC, we were a must-see TV.
02:10Back in those days, you have to remember, Austin, that, you know, and you were there.
02:16They, we only had three channels.
02:19Fox was added later and we had four.
02:21But we had three channels and there was no such thing as DVD or any kind of recording device.
02:30And in fact, we did our show live.
02:33And the only reason why people were able to watch it in California when we did it in New York is that there was,
02:40they actually filmed the TV screen and sent out what were known as, as kinescopes.
02:48They would actually photograph, film, the television monitor.
02:54And those were sent by USPS, United States Mail.
02:58And they went out to Albuquerque and San, you know, everywhere.
03:03And if you didn't watch on a Friday afternoon,
03:09you did not ever know what happened in that show until 10 years later when we had Beta and VHS.
03:20You, you had no way of finding out and actually seeing it for yourself.
03:25That's a fascinating, that's a fascinating thing to imagine in this digital age.
03:30Again, because of the intense popularity of the program.
03:35And here's something you didn't know about Augusta, Georgia.
03:37Jonathan Frid was invited here in 1969 and gathered for the largest single gathering of human beings in this town without a holiday being arranged.
03:47He had a one man parade down Broad Street and then went to a shopping center where they had over 20,000 people show up.
03:54Just for Jonathan.
03:55That was it.
03:56Just for Jonathan.
03:57I've seen the photographs of that.
03:59And Jonathan and I did a number of events together, especially after House of Dark Shadows.
04:05They sent, there were four of us that they sent out.
04:09I think I was sent out to the Midwest because I'm from Minnesota.
04:14Jonathan did a huge circuit.
04:16Nancy Barrett went out.
04:18And wherever we went, it was, it was amazing.
04:22Whatever was happening, we seemed to knock that off, that knocked that off.
04:28By the way, Austin, I have two Airedales and it appears that the mail is being deleted.
04:35Ah, okay.
04:36I thought that was Quentin becoming a werewolf.
04:38I didn't know that.
04:40Or actually, he wasn't the original.
04:42These are the lines of a werewolf, but unfortunately, they're just misbehaving Airedales.
04:48Yeah, Quentin wasn't the original werewolf.
04:50It was Don Briscoe.
04:52Yes.
04:52And, of course, it was Alex, our wonderful, you know, stunt person.
04:59Alex Stevens.
05:00God rest his soul.
05:01It was wonderful.
05:03I mean, that guy had more broken bones and he loved telling you about how he got each and every one.
05:08But there were so many funny stories about Alex, you know.
05:12A lot of us just did our own stunts because we thought, who else is going to do them?
05:19And I had to roll down the stairs at one point.
05:22I have no idea what the episode was.
05:25But it was Alex Stevens who showed me how to do it safely.
05:28And I remember once they hired somebody to do screams and this girl showed up and just a, you know, a young woman.
05:42And she was doing, oh.
05:45And Lila said, that's not a scream.
05:48And she said, but I'm a singer and I don't want to hurt my voice.
05:51And so Lila turned to me and she said, all right, sweetheart, can you do your own screams?
05:57That, to me, said it all because Dark Shadows actors just jumped in and did it.
06:03I mean, when I think of some of the things that we did without even thinking about it.
06:09And Lila Swift was your lady director who was one of the first female directors in network television.
06:15She came out of live television along with Delbert Mann and all of these other wonderful, wonderful directors.
06:23And she'd just been a pool secretary, but she wanted to direct.
06:28And she just worked her way up.
06:30Lila Swift won a Sylvania Award and a number of other awards.
06:35She was the very first television director I ever worked with, male or female.
06:40And it was another 20 years before I worked with another female television director.
06:45I have listened to a number of interviews that you've done over the years and certainly read most of what you've written.
06:51You've done a pretty good job of being historically accurate and interesting.
06:55But you prided yourself on not getting into the personal stuff too much, which I think is professional and everybody appreciates.
07:02Yeah, and there's no reason for it.
07:04But I have to ask you one thing.
07:05I have to ask you one thing.
07:06How in the world did David Ford, who was a great actor, marry Nancy Barrett?
07:12When I saw that he was married to her, it gave me the confidence to ask out a much younger and beautiful woman that I was in.
07:20No way.
07:20It had way over my head.
07:22How in the world did they end up together?
07:24David Ford played Maggie Evans' father.
07:28Nancy Barrett, of course, was Carolyn Stoddard.
07:31They eloped.
07:34I guess.
07:35I mean, there were like 20 years difference between the two of them, at least.
07:39Yeah, but, you know, I know a couple of happy marriages where, in fact, two, one of them, a Dark Shadows actor, woman, 10 years older than her husband.
07:52One of the happiest marriages that ever happened.
07:54I have another friend who's 11 years older than her husband, very happily married.
08:01And I have three, excuse me, girlfriends who are married to men 25 years older.
08:09One of them was Sabrina, who was married to Bob Schiller, who created I Love Lucy.
08:17Yeah.
08:1725 years difference.
08:19He only died at the age of 99 a couple of years ago.
08:23I just thought that was interesting.
08:25My other friend, 25 years difference in their marriage, could not be happier.
08:31So I don't think the difference in age is a function of why things don't work out.
08:37I watched that show for so many years, and it blew me away when I read that little tidbit that David and Nancy had been married.
08:44That really threw me.
08:45And again, Nancy's your age at the time, back in the day.
08:49You played young women that were roughly the same age, and David Ford played your father.
08:53Yeah, yeah, well, I don't know how old David was, but he was certainly of an age who could, I mean, he could be my father.
09:04And the original Pops was also an actor who, yeah, was certainly age appropriate.
09:13The reason why both of those actors no longer played the role, and it's no secret, is that they had difficulty remembering lines.
09:25You know, when you have a young brain, and I have a particularly good memory, an eidetic memory, I can just read a page, and I know the lines.
09:37I forget them almost immediately, but they'll see me through an episode of Dark Shadows, or they'll see me through a day on a film set.
09:48But I just have that kind of memory, that the words just go straight in.
09:53And a lot of people don't have that.
09:55And particularly older actors who were more associated with the theater.
10:00Jonathan Frid, to some extent, Grayson Hall, to a greater extent, Joan Bennett, had difficulty.
10:12But they were much older.
10:14And obviously, the David Ford.
10:16That's a different kind of work.
10:18Yeah, David Ford was playing the character, your father, who could be killed off or died off.
10:22Jonathan, they just had to work with, because he was the superstar.
10:25He wasn't going anywhere.
10:26Yeah, well, yeah.
10:29And I mean, he really worked hard on learning those lines.
10:33But to give him credit, he was in almost every single day.
10:39So he was learning a full script worth of dialogue every single day, five days a week.
10:46And after a while, that takes a toll on you.
10:49You know, I've done a tremendous amount of episodic.
10:52And I've also been a regular in a show with Brian Dennehy and Big Seamus, Little Seamus for CBS.
10:59I know what that's like, to be working four days a week and having lines to learn, except you're only doing maybe, even with a tough television schedule, maybe four or five minutes of, you know, that's easy.
11:18We had to learn a half hour's work of rather difficult dialogue while doing an awful lot of stunt work and other things.
11:32And as the epic blooper reels that are out there, and you can even buy them from MPI Video, there were times when things didn't go right.
11:40And you just kept right on going.
11:41My admiration was never ending.
11:43Yeah, but also, another thing, and I don't mean to be defensive about this.
11:46No, no, no, no.
11:47But we did the show live.
11:51We came in at 8 o'clock in the morning.
11:53We did a run-through, a blocking rehearsal.
11:56Then we did a run-through of that.
11:58And then we did a camera blocking.
12:00Then we did a run-through, a dress rehearsal, and the performance.
12:03So we went through a half-hour show in its entirety six times.
12:11That's it, six times maximum, because on days when we had an awful lot of stunts or special effects, it was the dialogue that, you know, you skipped over to get to the, you know, the stunts.
12:25So I don't mean to be defensive about this, but there's, I don't know of a situation today, including Saturday Night Live, that can do what we did.
12:36Come in and do an entire show, live broadcast.
12:42And if a mistake happens, and often it wasn't ours, it was a prop or it was a stage manager's problem or a camera problem, it's our faces on camera.
12:54Our faces had to, you know, keep it going.
13:00It's like when you're doing summer stock.
13:01It doesn't mean what's happening out in the parking lot or behind the set or anything else.
13:08You've had a week to learn a play, and you're doing it in front of a live audience, and whatever happens, happens.
13:14Well, it was amazing that you were as good as you were and that things didn't go wrong or mess up more often than they did.
13:20I mean, it's a really, it's a great testament to the entire company.
13:23It really is.
13:24I kind of think it is.
13:25And God bless Jonathan, because, you know, he came on that very first day.
13:34I was working with him, and I'd already been on the show, you know, quite a while.
13:39I was on the very first episode.
13:41Jonathan came on fully formed.
13:44Maggie Evans took a little while to become Maggie Evans.
13:46No, Barnabas Collins showed up day one with the hair, the cane, the cape, the voice, the mannerisms.
13:56He knew who he was day one.
14:00That's an extraordinary, that's an extraordinary thing.
14:04Having never met us before, having never rehearsed, he came on as Barnabas Collins.
14:11And by the way, not only was this show groundbreaking in so many different ways, but Barnabas Collins, to our knowledge, became the world's first reluctant vampire.
14:21That has become a familiar theme in the format since then, but he was the very first.
14:26I think Dark Shadows coined that phrase, reluctant vampire.
14:30And there was a reason for it.
14:33It's one thing to see, you know, Bela Lugosi and whoever, Christopher Lee and Vincent Price and so on, on the big screen.
14:42Jonathan Frid as Barnabas Collins came into your living room, and he was there with your children.
14:49He was there when they had just awakened from naps.
14:52He was there no matter what, if it was a birthday party or whatever was happening.
14:58He was this scary guy who came into your living room.
15:01And I think Jonathan realized early on that he wanted to make that character more layered, you know, show the vulnerability, that he wasn't just this, you know, bloodthirsty creature, paranormal creature.
15:17He was somebody who had been victimized.
15:22And because we were doing Dark Shadows as a serial, we could play out that whole story.
15:27Let me shift gears and go straight to the movie, because you were at the end of your television run.
15:32You had done your five years.
15:34You were not going to sign another contract.
15:35You were about to go off to Europe and have the adventure of a lifetime.
15:38But Dan Curtis specifically wanted you to do the movie.
15:41I think you were surprised, if I remember this correctly, in reading what you've written, to learn that you had such a prominent role in the film.
15:49While some would argue that Carolyn Stoddard and Nancy Barrett kind of stole the show a little bit because she actually got to become a very, very iconic vampire figure in that movie.
16:00You were in the film from beginning to end, and you were the center of Barnabas's universe.
16:05You were the one thing that kept driving that force.
16:08Did it surprise you when you first read the script?
16:10Holy cow, Maggie Evans is the whole reason Barnabas is going through what he's going through here.
16:16No, Austin.
16:17It never occurred to me.
16:18I don't think it occurred to Nancy.
16:21We had been working together as an ensemble for four years, and Dan Curtis made it very clear that we were an ensemble.
16:29It is true that in the beginning, Joan Bennett was sort of our lead actor, and then when Jonathan came on, because of his popularity, he was clearly a lead actor.
16:40We didn't function that way.
16:42We functioned as a repertory unit, and there was no star.
16:47And I promise you, when I read that script, it was just like reading another Dark Shadows script, and oh, Maggie's got more lines than the others today.
16:57And that always happened.
16:59I mean, one day it was, I don't know, whoever, Grayson Hall, who had most of the lines.
17:08So I have to tell you that when I was doing House of Dark Shadows, it never occurred to me that I had the lead role.
17:17I meant more.
17:18It was Leonard Moulton.
17:20It was Leonard Moulton, years after I did House of Dark Shadows, and he became a really close friend.
17:29And I remember he said to me, you realize you have more lines than Jonathan Frid.
17:35You have more screen time than Jonathan Frid.
17:37You realize you're the star of that film.
17:40And I said, no.
17:41That was years after doing it.
17:44I promise you, it never crossed Nancy Barrett's mind that she stole the show because she became this vampire in a beautiful way.
17:54Yeah, not only did she become a vampire, that thing she was wearing.
17:58I've got it on Blu-ray and 4K, and I have stopped it and looked at it from every angle.
18:03But I'm telling you, from an actor's point of view and from who we were at that time, Dan Curtis created such a spirit of family that nobody on that show thought that they were...
18:21Oh, I'm sure, I'm sure.
18:24It never occurred to me that I had the lead role in that movie until Leonard Moulton and I talked about that.
18:29I'm guessing that was a good 10, 11, 12 years, maybe.
18:34It seems to me that in watching the film as many times as I have, that you guys were really able to stretch your legs and get a very good pace going.
18:44Unlike the television show where you were constantly having to move and change, you were actually able to spend time, rehearse, invest yourself in the lines.
18:52And everyone from Louis Edmonds to Nancy Barrett got their fang time in.
18:57Even Thayer David, for Pete's sake, had his fang time in.
19:00So it was really amazing to watch you go through that.
19:03Well, fortunately, the young actors had the benefit of Joan Bennett and Grayson Hall, who were, you know, an Academy Award nominee, right before she came on Dark Shadows.
19:17They knew how to work on film.
19:20None of us did.
19:22And when you're doing live, you're protecting yourself.
19:31You go out full out with the character and all the rest of it.
19:36But there's a part of you that is always very conscious that you cannot make a mistake because this is live.
19:43You've got to get one in the camp.
19:45You've just got to get that one that's as clean and perfect as it can be.
19:51So when we started doing the feature film, and I write about this in, I think it's the House of Dark Shadows movie book.
20:00I think I mentioned it in Return to Cullenwood.
20:04That when we were doing, when the young actors went on camera and we did a master.
20:12And then we did, you know, all kinds of coverage with close-ups and everything.
20:16And I remember Joan Bennett taking me aside and saying, don't move your eyes too much.
20:23Only look at that, only look at one eye and look at the upstage, at the downstage eye.
20:29And, and then she also, she gave me a couple of other little tips as well.
20:35Um, and, and, and she also said, you know, uh, save yourself for that close-up.
20:41It's coming all your, all your work with the master and everything else until you do that close-up is, you know, finding, finding the rhythm to that scene and getting to the emotional level.
20:54And then there's your close-up and that's the money shot.
20:57And there were so many things that a, a legendary Hollywood actress who grew up in that star system, that studio system, uh, would know.
21:09Not, not, not kids straight out of drama school.
21:12So I remember, uh, even Dan saying, uh, Katie, we got, you know, we've got more to do here.
21:20Um, I would do the master and go, huh, well, we got that one.
21:24No, we didn't.
21:26Um, it was an exquisite piece of work.
21:30You have to be proud of it after all these years.
21:32It's when I learned to, it's really when I learned, uh, to work on camera.
21:37And unfortunately, you know, um, I learned by doing.
21:42And I, I've seen the film now a couple of times and I know which scenes were shot first.
21:48And I know which ones, um, uh, uh, uh, you know, I, I was, I still had a lot to learn.
21:58Well, again, it holds up and it's so great to see those familiar faces.
22:03Like I said, stretching their legs a little bit.
22:05I, I've read Jonathan Fred, uh, on many occasions said, finally, he was able to shoot a scene as Barnabas Collins without having a fear of either a light falling down or him forgetting a line.
22:17Because you, you did have the luxury of stopping and doing it again during the film.
22:21That was absolutely, uh, critical to somebody like Jonathan Fred, um, and Thayer David, uh, and some of the other actors, uh, for the, for the young ones, um, it was initially mystifying.
22:39Well, I, I can't tell you how thrilled I am that this film is coming back to Augusta for the first time in 53 years, something like that, 52 years.
22:48Uh, it's been an honor to talk to you.
22:50I, I, I wonder sometimes because you get stopped even today, people recognize you and they see you at conventions and such.
22:57What does it mean to you when someone comes up and says, Catherine Lee Scott, you've been a hero of mine since I was 10 years old.
23:05Well, when it comes to dark shadows, uh, when I get a letter or when somebody comes up and says, you know, you and dark shadows saw me through the worst time of my life.
23:16I was a kid. There's a latchkey kid. And, um, and I remember, uh, the best part of the day was going to the neighbors and sitting on the couch or sitting with my grandma and, uh, watching dark shadows.
23:29Because my feeling is that, uh, you know, school is hard. Uh, playground is hard for any kid.
23:36And, uh, no matter what happened to you that day, at least you weren't bitten by a vampire at school and you could go home and sit on the couch and, and let it all drift away.
23:46Because whatever happened to you wasn't as bad as what was happening to those people.
23:51So I, you know, it makes me feel, it makes me feel very good.
23:54And the fact that something I did 55 years ago, you know, when I was straight out of drama school would have that, um, uh, that kind of impact on people.
24:05That's a joy. That's completely wonderful.
24:08Well, not only that, but you've, uh, left a mark on Star Trek The Next Generation.
24:12You played an iconic Romulan character there and one of my very favorite episodes of Hammer House of Horrors.
24:18Oh, really?
24:20Yes.
24:20I've always wondered, and I just did an interview, uh, with some Brit company, uh, about that.
24:27And I, I never saw it until about three weeks ago before I did the interview and I discovered it on YouTube.
24:34So I watched it and, uh,
24:37By the way, do you still have the negligee? I have to ask.
24:40Ha ha ha.
24:40Uh, uh, oh, that one, the white one?
24:44Yeah.
24:44Yes.
24:45Yeah.
24:46Uh, you know, oddly enough, I think I do.
24:50Um, you know, it's really, it's, uh, it all came back to me.
24:54Um, working with Simon Corkendale and, and with the director and, and the other people in the show.
25:00Uh, I always wondered where, where that stood in that pantheon, I think of 13 Hammer House.
25:07I think it was.
25:08Thirteen episodes.
25:08I've got them all on DVD.
25:10Yeah.
25:10I, I only just saw it the first time three weeks ago.
25:13I have no idea.
25:14I mean, look, the plot didn't hold together.
25:17It made absolutely no sense at the time.
25:20The only way to play that character, Penny, was to just go, you know, from, from the beginning, she starts on a high note.
25:31Because, what, the shooting happens in the first frames.
25:35Well, I was going to say, no spoiler alerts, because I want people to see it, but, uh, for the first time in a while, you get to be.
25:40But, unless Penny, unless Penny starts here, and goes higher, uh, there, none of it makes sense.
25:48Nothing that you.
25:49You're too hard on yourself.
25:50It was a great, very spooky TV case.
25:51Well, to me, what I always find, uh, as a silly trope, is, you know, when you find, you watch a horror film, and the idiotic woman, in the middle of the night, gets up in her jammies, opens the cellar door.
26:06It's dark, and she wants to find out what's at the bottom of the steps.
26:11This never makes sense.
26:12It never, ever, ever makes sense to me.
26:15At least carry a flashlight.
26:19Nothing made sense about it, and that made me, it made me crazy, although I loved doing it, and I loved the people I was working with.
26:28Catherine Lee Scott's got a tremendous website, CatherineLeeScott.com,
26:33and you can, uh, find her, her, uh, photographs there, from all of her work that she's done through the years.
26:39You can even, uh, check out some of the, uh, books that she's put out.
26:42I think most of them are still available online, aren't they?
26:45They are, and, and, you know, it's, it's fun.
26:47Uh, you, you can leave me a message on it, or whatever, but it's www.CatherineLeeScott.com, and there is a marketplace.
26:54And people tell me what photographs they really want, uh, and I, I put them up there.
27:01There's one from Space 1999, there's stuff from Hammer House, and, uh, Nuria, and Star Trek, and certainly Dark Shadows.
27:09Also, one of my favorite roles was in Police Squad, um, with Leslie Nielsen.
27:14I love doing comedy.
27:15Uh, so all of those pictures are on there, and then all of the books, including Dark Shadows Return to Cullenwood, Dark Shadows Memories, all of the books about, uh, Dark Shadows, so.
27:26And the, and the play, and the bunny years, of course, which is our first interview that I did with you about 10 years ago.
27:31I was a Playboy bunny before I was on Dark Shadows.
27:34And, um, and one interesting thing that I will tell you, because, um, one of my oldest friends is Susan Sullivan, who, uh, I actually got her to play a ghost in episode 156 of Dark Shadows.
27:47Um, Susan is presenting me with a Career Achievement Award at the Saturn Awards, and those will be broadcast live October 25th in Los Angeles.
27:59And it's a Career Achievement Award, uh, which feels really odd, uh, but Susan and I are going to make it a lot of fun, um, and they'll be showing a little, uh, video clip, uh, and, of course, I'll be among my Dark Shadows family.
28:16All of it is about Dark Shadows.
28:17I, uh, you know, there's, I think, genre rules, don't you, Austin?
28:22Absolutely, and congratulations on the Lifetime Achievement Award.
28:25And, uh, we're, we're, we're so thrilled that we were able to spend a little time with you on the 29th of October, wherever you are in the world.
28:33Think about Augusta, Georgia, watching you in all your glory, 50 feet tall on the big screen.
28:37You know, are you going to be showing what we have just done at, on any occasion?
28:42Um, this, this video right here, you mean?
28:45Yeah.
28:45Yeah, it'll be on our website, so people will see it, of course.
28:48Um, and it's going to play on the air shortly, uh, before the event and promotion.
28:52Oh, that's lovely.
28:53Would you mind sending me a link?
28:55Absolutely, I will, of course.
28:57Absolutely.
28:58What a pleasure it is to, uh, talk to you again.
29:01A thrill and a privilege, and we will see you in the movies.
29:05Thank you, Austin.
29:09Can't thank you enough.
29:10Wonderful, wonderful.
29:12And you are, you are too hard on yourself.
29:15That hammer, that hammer segment was great.
29:17Send me that link, and I can put it up how soon?
29:20Um, I will get my people to, I will get my people to, uh, excuse me, I just had a little
29:26note pop up.
29:26I'll get my people to put it in format, and I'll send it to you as soon as I can.
29:30Lovely.
29:30Thank you so much.
29:31God bless.
29:32Bye.
29:33Bye-bye.
29:33Bye-bye.
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