Tribute to Dan Curtis

Dan Curtis, the man responsible for so many classic cult TV hits, including Dark Shadows and The Night Stalker, as well as the iconic mini-series, The Winds of War, and its sequel, War and Remembrance, has died of a brain tumour. He was 78-years-old.

Curtis was born (on August 12 1927) and raised in Bridgeport, Connecticut. By the 1950s, he commenced his TV career as a sales executive for NBC and MCA, and later founded Dan Curtis Productions. His first on-screen vehicle was called CBS Golf Classic, which not only occupied his interest in golf, but earned him an Emmy.

In 1966, he partnered with ABC to produce and air Dark Shadows, which went on to become one of the most unqique daytime serials of all time. The show hit its stride when Curtis decided to feature a love-struck vampire named Barnabas Collins (played by Jonathan Frid), which introduced the TV world to empathetic, multi-dimensional "demon" characters long before Buffy, the Vampire Slayer.

Around the same time as Shadows, Curtis produced an acclaimed production of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr Hyde for CBC, Canada in 1967. The TV-movie was nominated for six Emmy awards, including Best Dramatic Programme, and he soon found himself producing and directing two Dark feature films in the early 1970s: House of Dark Shadows, a massive box office hit, and Night of Dark Shadows, a lesser hit.

In 1972, Curtis returned to the small screen, ABC and vampirism with The Night Stalker, a massive TV-movie hit that spawned a second TV-movie, The Night Strangler, and a short-lived series; one, of which X-Files creator Chis Carter has made no bones about how it inspired his own show.

Curtis' other works in the horror genre include the motion micture Burnt Offerings, along with several more TV-movies, like Trilogy of Terror (starring Karen Black), Frankenstein, The Norliss Tapes, Scream of the Wolf and Dracula (starring Jack Palance in 1973, and which was later released abroad as a feature film).

During the 1980s, Curtis co-wrote, produced and directed the epic TV miniseries, The Winds of War and its sequel War and Remembrance (based on Herman Wouk's original novels), both of which earned him an Emmy, a Golden Globe award, a People's Choice award and a DGA award, amongst many others.

In 1990, Curtis produced, writed and directed a new, primetime edition of Dark Shadows for NBC. In 1991, he helmed the miniseries Intruders. Other recent productions have included Trilogy of Terror II and the acclaimed Hallmark Hall of Fame TV-movie The Love Letters.

In 2004, Curtis attempted to ressurrect Dark Shadows once more with a new pilot for The WB, but it failed. His final works as director were the TV-movies, Saving Milly and Our Fathers, both in 2005. Also, in 2005, Curtis partnered with Frank Spotnik (an ex-X-Files writer/producer) for a remake of The Night Stalker, once again, for ABC. But this, too, unfortunately, failed.

Still, more than anything else, it remains Dark Shadows for which Dan Curtis will always be best known.

According to the Dark Shadows Journal website, Curtis made a made rare public appearance in 2001 to discuss Shadows at its 35th anniversary celebration at the Museum of Television and Radio in Los Angeles, commenting:

"I'd show up at this place, [the Dark Shadows ABC studio in New York] and it felt like home. I'd go and eat the donuts and take everyone out to dinner and everyone would get drunk and [have] a great time... The show became this gigantic hit. It stayed on for a long time; we all had a great time, and who would have ever thought we'd still be here today."