Willie Loomis, played by John Karlen. He was the most major supporting character of the show.
He wasn't always played by Karlen though. When the character was first introduced as a thug side-kick of Jason McGuire he was played by a different young man, James Hall, who definitely had the greasy, reprobate look down pat. But looking back on it he doesn't seem right. A little too handsome and even a little too mean spirited and violent.
But he wasn't in it very long (5 episodes) before they brought Karlen in. He was a punk too, but he had a much more expressive face that betrayed a hint of innocence as well and didn't seem as slavishly devoted to Jason even though his allegiance was about to change. This Willie wasn't as much of a creeper as the first one. He was merely eaten up with greed for money and jewels. The old Willie is the first to see the Barnabas portrait and be mesmerized by his ring. They have Karlen mooning over the ring too just before the introduction of Barnabas.
And history was made. Barnabas was introduced and Willie was changed forever.
When the Barnabas story was thought up, it was just going to be a quick copy of Dracula and was only meant to run for a few weeks, ending in the staking of the vampire. Willie was written in as the Renfield character to Barnabas' Dracula. At first he was indeed crazy from the bite he received from Barnabas. (On the arm of course.. lol.. a man biting a man on the neck in the 60's would probably have been a little weird.) Karlen poured a ton of energy into the character too. He fell right into the over the top melodrama like he'd been there all his life and was one of the very best at always delivering his lines without too many mistakes. You could believe Barnabas was beating him mercilessly with his cane even though it didn't look very real while it was happening. The other characters noticed a change in his demeanor too.
And his character's personality also evolved. Although Barnabas had him doing all of his dirty work in kidnapping Maggie and building her prison and keeping her there, he protected Barnabas loyally in spite of this use and abuse, and he also became a kind of conscience to Barnabas the longer they kept this story going. .
Always in the servant role, you almost couldn't have Barnabas without Willie as well. They sent his character away to an asylum after Victoria Winters was removed into the past to see the history of Barnabas play out so that his best foil, Julia Hoffman could come in to try to cure him of his vampirism. But once that failed they retrieved him and he never left again. How could he?
Once it became impossible for Barnabas to be a bad guy again, Willie was a servant, but a willing servant like Julia. They became the greatest team on the show in any time period.
The best job they did of changing his character up a little in the Parallel Time story. They made him an unsuccessful, alcoholic writer who was unhappily married to Carolyn and then they as a married team became Barnabas' slaves. Carolyn was much more eager of course and bored with her husband as the sexualizing of the vampire bite was becoming more acceptable. But he wasn't as engaging like this. Not as high strung. And it was that high strung quality that made him so appealing.
He was later paired with Carolyn again as Kendrick Young and he did eventually get "promoted" to a Collins in 1840 as Desmond Collins. And he starts out serious but becomes slightly crazy because of the head of Judas Zachary which gives him that "Willie" personality we all loved. Obviously, like all of the others, he wasn't used to his fullest potential and I have no doubt he would've done fine acting without the underlying crazy tendencies of all the characters, but the familiarity was comforting in this case. His character was supporting but it was also main since the stories wouldn't have been the same without him.
Willie may be my favorite character on the show. He was vital to the magic that it produced and the fan base it created.
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