Message #263863

[Janelle MacDonald]

KATHRYN LEIGH SCOTT

The actress who played Maggie Evans, the reincarnation of Barnabas' love interest, compares "Dark Shadows" with "Star Trek," which debuted the same year.

Said Scott: "Gene Roddenberry went ahead in time and told universal tales. Dan (Curtis) did the same thing by going back in time and really borrowing from classic literature. The stories had a timelessness."

Another factor: the casting.

"Somehow or other," Scott said, "(Curtis) chose people who kind of rolled with the punches and never balked at doing things. We were almost like a summer stock group."

While on a vacation in the '60s, Scott became aware of the impact of "Dark Shadows."

Recalled the actress: "I went to Africa on a photographic safari. It was 4 o'clock in the morning and I was in the sonar plane watching a flight of lions feeding off a wildebeest. Another land rover pulled up, and there was a family. And a little girl said, 'Mommy! Look! Look! There's Maggie Evans!' "