Dark Shadows Character Profile: Elizabeth Collins Stoddard

Elizabeth Collins Stoddard

That first picture is of her playing Naomi Collins, but it's one of the best ones of Joan Bennett who played Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, the matriarch of the Collins family.

They wanted a big name to start out the series with.  Bennett was Amy (on the right) in Little Women (1933) and she was the mother of the bride in Father of the Bride (1950). Although Elizabeth Taylor's star eclipsed Bennett's and she had some personal troubles, she was still a recognizable force in the first year of Dark Shadows.

Of course, that didn't make the first year of the show any better.  She was brought in as a mysterious recluse. She was the head of the family business, but never left the house, so brother Rodger ran things. Her character was simply there to add to the dark mood of the show and to be Carolyn's mother. Had this been a modern soap opera, they would've perhaps picked a more interesting business than a fishing cannery or at least have made stories about mafia types hiding bodies around the place, but for this show in this day, careers weren't as meaningful to the drama as the relationships so a cannery queen that never went to work was fine. They eventually brought in Jason McGuire as a freeloader who she had to tolerate because he was blackmailing her for murdering her husband Paul Stoddard.  Then it's revealed that she didn't kill him; that she only thought she had all these years when in truth he'd skipped out. That lifts her self imprisonment in the great house and she's seen coming and going often after that.

A few years later they do a follow up and bring Paul Stoddard in to confront her regarding this horrible trick he'd played on her many years ago.  But through it all, she remains the dominate, all-business woman. She has control of the house and not much got done, good or bad, without her permission. Including the inviting in of the vampire, Barnabas Collins.

I will say, she got to play some of the most varying personalities on the show.  In the first past story, 1795, she plays Barnabas' mother who is a sad alcoholic who loves her middle son and has to yield to the rigid temperament of her husband Joshua concerning his banishment. And although her character isn't as prominent as the the others, it's a perceptible departure from the controlled and confident Elizabeth. She wore the costumes the best of course and was another important layer to the character of Barnabas and why he became so beloved by the fans.

Judith Collins, in 1897, was more like Elizabeth - bold and free thinking, but still a little different at the same time. She was sister to the all the Collins men and didn't start out as the head of the family. She became the head of the family when the dying Daniel Collins leaves the entire fortune to her in his will. Drunk with this new power, she bullies her brothers a little and makes some bad decisions, like marrying Gregory Trask.  She also gets to take revenge on Trask later, displaying a coldness that Elizabeth definitely didn't have being a parent and a responsible adult, although it's pretty well justified and we all can stand and cheer for it.  Yes, much different than the mature Elizabeth who could've managed everything much better, but would've made for a much less interesting character in this particular time period.

Cousin Flora Collins in the first 1840's story was different again.  She was free of the burden of being in the direct line of the Collins family, jockeying for control of the business or possession of the fortune.  She had her own money and she fancied herself a writer. She was a free spirit and something of a flake; always cheerful and even quite naïve at times. Yes, Bennett got to do what many of the other characters weren't allowed to do - to be something different than what she started out being. And she did it very well.

Even though Barnabas became the real star of the show, she stayed right in there from beginning to end as the cornerstone of the family, a respected and a beautiful centerpiece. The character of Victoria was originally written to bring rationality to all of the strangeness, but really Elizabeth and her counterparts were better at this. Cheers to Elizabeth Collins Stoddard!