Kate Jackson in "Night of Dark Shadows" [1971]

I've done quite a few posts on this blog about actresses from Alabama, so I guess it's Kate Jackson's turn. This piece is similar in focus to the one I did on Cathy O'Donnell's Perry Mason appearance in the 1961 episode "The Case of the Fickle Fortune." 

Jackson was born in Birmingham on October 29, 1948. The family lived in Mountain Brook, and she attended the Brooke Hill School for Girls before leaving for college. She spent freshman and half her sophomore years at the University of Mississippi and finished that year at Birmingham-Southern College. After that she left the south for a theater apprenticeship in Vermont and then moved to NYC to enroll in the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. 

In 1971 she was working as a page and tour guide at NBC's Rockefeller Center when she landed her first TV acting role, the non-speaking ghost Daphne Harridge in 70 episodes of Dark Shadows, the popular daytime soap opera. Over the next few years she appeared in some other TV shows, as well as a string of made-for-television movies such as The New Healers, Satan's School for Girls, Killer Bees, Death Cruise, Death Scream, and Death at Love House. She also began her run as a regular on three successful TV series, The Rookies [1972-76], Charlie's Angels [1976-79] and then The Scarecrow and Mrs. King [1983-87]. In the 1990's Jackson appeared in another string of TV movies and some shows; her final acting credit on IMDB is a 2007 episode of Criminal Minds. 

In this piece I want to spend a bit of time on her very first film role, Night of Dark Shadows in 1971. This movie was the second theatrical release based on the popular TV series. Kate has a different role, and gets to speak! She is Tracy Collins, young bride of Quentin Collins who has inherited Collinwood, the family estate. The movie tracks Quentin's slow descent into the past as Angelique, a powerful time-travelling witch, draws him further into the centuries-long turmoil of the Collins family. 

Night was released August 4, 1971, and filmed at the Lyndhurst Estate, Tarrytown, NY. Director Dan Curtis delivered a cut of the film, and MGM studio head James Aubrey demanded 40 minutes be edited out in the next 24 hours. Curtis complied but an additional four minutes were cut without his participation. The resulting 93 minutes of the released version are pretty incoherent and probably contributed to its box office failure. The first Dark Shadows theatrical release the previous year, House of Dark Shadows, had been more successful.  

I enjoyed this film despite its narrative problems and general hokeyness. We get to see a lot of early Kate Jackson. 

Tracy is awed at the beginning; Collinwood is massive. 

Early on, Tracy is happy at being mistress of the vast house and its estate. 

The good times don't last, however, as Quentin's family past begins to haunt him and pull him back. Tracy has a long scene wandering the halls in her nightgown as she tries to figure out what's going on. 

Jackson has a lot of reaction shots to the ghostly goings on. 

There's just something not right about hanged blonde witches dragging your husband back into the past. Lara Parker repeated her series role as Angelique; David Selby his role as Quentin Collins. Like Jackson, Parker was from the South, born in Knoxville and growing up in Memphis. Selby was from West Virginia.

Jackson has several opportunities to express fear in the film. 

She also has time to ponder what is happening to her husband as he sinks further into the past and the spell of the dead Angelique. 

The film ends with Tracy's scream of pure horror as she realizes the past has recalled Quentin for a final time. 

Kate was given third billing in the closing credits.