“Dark Shadows” star Jim Storm and his Multiple Talents

Prolific and charismatic, charming and disarming, actor Jim Storm is probably best known as the mysterious Gerard Stiles from classic TV’s legendary gothic soap opera Dark Shadows.

Shadows, originally airing on ABC from 1966 to 1971, dramatized the lives and deaths of witches, warlocks, werewolves, specters, and vampires interpreted by a cast of respected actors including Jonathan Frid, Kathryn Leigh Scott, David Selby, Lara Parker, Grayson Hall, and countless others.

In its final season, the cult-classic was injected with a troika of new blood in the way of eclectic on-screen performers such as Kate Jackson, Virginia Vestoff, and Storm.

Storm’s Gerard, like Jackson’s Daphne, initially debuted as a silent ghost in one era (1970) of the time-shifting show, only to speak in another period (1840) when he was party to a love triangle with Vestoff’s Samantha and Selby’s Quentin Collins.

Storm recalls how he was cast into the Shadows: “I had sublet my apartment and I was on my way to Munich to play guitar in the streets, and the phone rang, and it was my agent and she said, ‘You can’t go anywhere because [casting director] Linda Otto wants to see you for this TV show.’ I met Linda and then she said, ‘You have to meet Dan Curtis, and read for him.’