Orson Welles (1915–85)
“I passionately hate the thought of being ‘with it.’ I think an artist has always to be out of step with his time.”
Orson Welles (1915–85)
Actors
Amanda Fitton & Angelique Bouchard
On 15 November 1990, I fell in love.
Mystery! debuted the second season of Campion (1989–90) with an adaptation of Margery Allingham’s Sweet Danger (1933), the story that introduced Amanda Fitton, a character that would have recurred, had a third season been forthcoming. In the television version, she was played by a wide-eyed, red-headed English actress who delivered great swaths of exposition in rapid-fire R.P. that left the viewer breathless when she was done. Her energy was irrepressible, her enthusiasm uncontainable, and her depths of feeling—in the slow moments, when she was watching Campion and we were watching her—were unplumbable.
When Diana Rigg came on at the end of the second hour and detailed Campion’s matrimonial future with Miss Fitton in Allingham’s books, I understood completely, because I was besotted with her as well, but…
I’d not been home, KUHT had been slightly off-schedule, and the credits ran after my tape stopped recording. I had no idea who’d played Miss Fitton. I just enjoyed the rest of the season, re-watched my VHS tape of “Sweet Danger,” and hoped season three would bring more of Amanda.
On 8 February 1991, I fell in love for the second time.
A séance had sent governess Victoria Winters back to Eighteenth Century Collinsport. Taken in by the ancestors of the family she served in 1990, she began to uncover the origins of the Dark Shadows (1991) haunting the Collins family, a curse wrought by a jealous servant girl, Angelique Bouchard, in love with her mistress’s fiancé.
Having appeared a few episodes earlier in spectral form, Angelique scared the hell out of me, but in the flesh I couldn’t understand why Barnabas Collins would favor Josette du Pres over her maid, who was easily her better in every category short of station and—arguably—sanity. (Sure…Angelique nearly wiped out an entire family, framed an innocent woman for witchcraft, and turned the man she loved into an undying monster, but she had valid reasons. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.)
Angelique was played by a smoldering blonde French actor who terrified and excited me in equal measure. I knew her name because a) it was in the front credits, and b) I was home to tape them all, and the season finale set her up for some serious year-two evil.
I re-watched the tapes incessantly, reading about plots from the 1966–71 incarnation of Dark Shadows, and wondering which Angelique-centric stories would be updated for the 1990s… but the Gulf War tanked the ratings and I’m pretty sure we knew Dark Shadows (1991) had a stake in its heart by May.
And that’s when Mystery! started its summer reruns.
Somewhere in the summer of 1991, thirteen-year-old Jason Davis realized that Amanda Fitton and Angelique Bouchard had been played by Lysette Anthony, and for something like six to eight months, I hadn’t realized that the two most beguiling actresses on television were the same woman. If there’s a better complement for her work, I can’t think of it.
(While I’m not fooled by Clark Kent’s glasses, I’ve failed to identify close relatives who’ve had a haircut or gone gray since our last encounter, so I blame it entirely on the hair.)
(I dated two women because they reminded me of Anthony’s Amanda Fitton performance, and I married one of them.)
David Bowie (1947–2016)
“I don’t know where I’m going from here, but I promise it won’t be boring.”
David Bowie (1947–2016)
A Riddle
Riddle me this: What sounds like a Wolverine but looks like an ENigma?
Frank Gorshin (1933–2005), singing “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’” in a Toluca Lake parking garage.
If you’d told me as a child that I’d pull into the lot of the Oakwood on Barham around 9am on 11 June 1999 in preparation for an internship at The X-Files and that the first human being I’d encounter in Los Angeles County would be the man who played the Riddler…I’d only care about the Riddler bit because none of the rest of it would make any sense to a child.
Even as an adult—in retrospect—I only really care about the Riddler bit. Having Frank Gorshin welcome you to L.A. with Rodgers & Hammerstein really sets a ridiculously high bar.
Peter Cook (1937–95)
Did you know it’s the eighty-fourth anniversary of Peter Cook’s birth? That’s why we all spend 17 November imitating his voice, despite the nasty things our spouses say after the first two or three hours…
“I’ve always been after the trappings of great luxury. But all I’ve got hold of are the trappings of great poverty. I’ve got hold of the wrong load of trappings, and a rotten load they are too, ones I could have very well done without.”
Peter Cook (1937–95)
Uma Thurman (1970–)
“I used to be more paranoid and stressed, constantly worrying about my Plan B, but the truth is I don’t have one.”
Uma Thurman (1970–)
David Gulpilil (1953–2021)
“We are all one blood. No matter where we are from, we are all one blood, the same.”
David Gulpilil (1953–2021)
Richard O’Brien (1942–)
“Don’t dream it.
“Be it.”
Richard O’Brien (1942–)
Glynn Turman (1947–)
“Acting is about truths, and the more truths you’re able to tell and share with your audience, the more connection there will be.”
Glynn Turman (1947–)
Sarah Polley (1979–)
“I think that cynicism can often be mistaken for wisdom.”
Sarah Polley (1979–)
