Earlier this week, Joe Caldwell, a writer on the 1960s gothic soap opera Joe Caldwell, died of a “massive stroke,” per his friend Bob Issel. He was 97 and born October 2, 1928.
Together with fellow writer Ron Sproat, Caldwell created the most enduring part of Dark Shadows: Barnabas Collins, the vampire that’s since become the face of the series. To avoid cancellation, creator Dan Curtis tasked the two with introducing a vampire. Enter Barnabas, who debuted in the April 1967 episode “211” as played by Jonathan Frid. Thanks to an additional shift to a 3:30 PM timeslot to reach teenagers, the show was a ratings juggernaut, with Barnabas as its center as more supernatural elements were introduced.
According to his 2019 memoir In the Shadow of the Bridge, Caldwell and Spoat based Barnabas on their pre-Stonewall experiences as gay men living in New York. While drinking at a Manhattan gay bar, they reportedly settled on a reluctant vampire that hid his impulses and true nature from his family and others in their orbit. And as Curtis was allegedly homophobic and considered firing an actor for being gay, Caldwell felt “a particular glee in savoring the realization that Curtis had his greatest success with his most famous character, Barnabas Collins, a vampire, a man knowingly created by two gay men, who in their own way were dramatizing their own plight.”
Following Barnabas’ debut, Caldwell wouldn’t be credited on screen until weeks later with May 1967’s “245.” From there, he was credited for penning over 60 episodes, ending his tenure a year before the show’s end with 1970’s “1102.” Prior to Shadows, he wrote episodes of Strange Paradise and Matinee Theater, and his final writing credit appears to be in 1972 for the show The Secret Storm. He’s later said to have written several novels, including a book called The Pig Did It, which spawned two sequels.
Caldwell’s death comes weeks after Warner Bros. announced plans to adapt Dark Shadows for animation. Over the decades, the soap opera became a franchise with a pair of sequel films, a revival show in 1991 (also spearheaded by Curtis), and a pilot in 2004 for a second remake that was never made. Its most recent onscreen entry was the 2012 theatrical film directed by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp as Barnabas, picking up the mantle from Ben Cross (in the 1991 remake) and Alec Newman (2004 pilot).
[via Deadline]
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