John Herbert Frid (born December 2, 1924, in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada) is a theater, television and movie actor. He was educated at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. He is most famously known for the role of vampire Barnabas Collins on the first incarnation of the gothic U.S. cult television serial Dark Shadows.
Frid was initially brought on Dark Shadows to help rescue flagging ratings. The role of Barnabas Collins was originally intended to be a brief one, but the popularity of Frid's vampire character and the improvement to the ratings resulted in the character continuing on and becoming one of the "core" characters of the cult show. He also played Bramwell Collins toward the end of the show's run, when he said that he would only continue on the show if he were neither Barnabas Collins nor a vampire.
He later reprised his role as Barnabas Collins in the 1970 big-screen adaptation, House of Dark Shadows. This time, Barnabas surprised audiences expecting their vampire with a soul by being a blood thirsty monster, killing off all the Collins family except David Collins and Elizabeth Collins Stoddard. When asked to film another Dark Shadows movie he said no. The movie Night of Dark Shadows ended up starring David Selby .
In 1973 Frid appeared in the TV movie The Devil's Daughter starring Shelley Winters, and the following year starred in Oliver Stone's directorial debut, Seizure (aka Queen of Evil). He also continued to work in theater.
He began performing readings at Dark Shadows fan conventions in the 1980s, which led to the development of his one-man reader's theater shows that were performed throughout the 1990's. In 1986, he appeared in Arsenic and Old Lace, which also starred '70s television actresses Marion Ross and Jean Stapleton.
Mr. Frid is currently enjoying retirement in Ancaster, Ontario, just outside of his birthplace of Hamilton.
Jonathan Frid's career in drama began when he first "offered his soul" to the theater as a young boy at a preparatory school in Ontario, Canada. Following his graduation from McMaster University, he attended London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and later earned a Master's Degree in Directing from the Yale School of Drama. Mr. Frid was a leading actor in English and Canadian repertory and went on to work in many of the most celebrated regional theaters in the United States, including the Williamstown Theatre Festival, the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, and the American Shakespeare Festival under the direction of John Houseman (I), performing with Katharine Hepburn in "Much Ado About Nothing". He has appeared in major roles on-and-off Broadway, in such productions as "Roar Like A Dove", "Murder in the Cathedral" and "Wait Until Dark". But, it was Mr. Frid's portrayal of a complex, conflicted vampire on ABC-TV's daytime drama series "Dark Shadows" (1966) (co-starring with Joan Bennett (I)) and in the subsequent motion picture House of Dark Shadows (1970) that earned him a place as an icon of American popular culture. His other film credits include co-starring roles in Devil's Daughter, The (1973) (TV) (with Shelley Winters) and Seizure (1974) (Oliver Stone (I)'s directorial debut). In 1986, Mr. Frid joined the Broadway production of "Arsenic and Old Lace" (co-starring with Jean Stapleton). He won critical acclaim for his villainous turn as the homicidal nephew and spent ten months with the play's national tour. That same year, Mr. Frid founded his own production company, "Clunes Associates", to create and tour a series of one-man readers' theater shows across North America. Mr. Frid continues to perform his one-man shows, now under the banner of "Charity Associates", to raise money for a variety of charities. Combining the arts of his voice and his zest for entertaining", as one critic put it. In June of 2000, Mr. Frid returned to the traditional professional stage in the play "Mass Appeal" at the Stirling Festival Theatre in Stirling, Ontario.
