R.I.P. Lara Parker, Dark Shadows’ Angelique
The soap star who also went on to write multiple Dark Shadows novels was 84
Lara Parker, the actor and novelist best known for her role as the villainous witch Angelique Bouchard on gothic horror soap opera Dark Shadows, has died. This comes from Deadline, which says the news was confirmed by a statement from Dan Curtis Productions (the production company founded by Dark Shadows creator Dan Curtis), which said that she died earlier this month in her sleep “following a battle with cancer.” Parker was 84.
Parker, born Mary Lamar Rickey in Tennessee in 1938, studies philosophy in college and earned a master’s degree at the University Of Iowa, and after living with her then-husband and two young children in Wisconsin for a short time, she decided to move to New York in 1967 to try becoming an actor. Deadline says she was cast as Angelique in Dark Shadows “within days,” and her family moved to New York to join her.
Originally introduced for a flashback storyline to explain how Jonathan Frid’s character Barnabas Collins had become a vampire (Barnabas having just been recently introduced to turn the moody soap into a full-on horror series), Parker’s Angelique was so popular with fans that she remained with the show until it ended in 1971. After Dark Shadows ended, she moved to Los Angeles in hopes of launching a film career—though Hollywood wasn’t particularly interested, with Deadline citing the movie business’ “antipathy to soaps.”
Still, Parker had a handful of small roles in stuff like Kung Fu, The Six Million Dollar Man, The Rockford Files, and Kolchak: The Night Stalker. She had essentially retired from acting as the years went on, becoming a teacher and novelist, and in 1998 she published her first book: The Dark Shadows tie-in Angelique’s Descent. She followed that it up with three more Dark Shadows books, The Salem Branch, Wolf Moon Rising, and Heiress Of Collinwood, and she regularly attended Dark Shadows conventions with other cast members from the show.
In Tim Burton’s 2012 Dark Shadows movie with Johnny Depp as Barnabas and Eva Green as Angelique, Parker and some of the other original cast members made cameo appearances. Parker is survived by her husband, three children, and one grandchild.