The Church, along with his Dark Shadows–loving grandma, Myrtle, provided Murphy with the heightened reality and grand sense of theater he craved as a pre-pubescent boy.



“Myrtle was the best. Everything I have in my life, in terms of my imagination and my ambition and my drama -- the love of all that -- comes from her 100 precent,” Murphy says. “She put on a lot of makeup and jewelry and loved the color purple, so she wore it every day.” On afternoons, Myrtle would sit her young grandson in front of the TV to watch the paranormal soap opera Dark Shadows “just to toughen me up,” Murphy says. “I went as Barnabas Collins, like, three Halloweens in a row, and my dad was thrilled because it was the first time I wanted to be a boy; I usually wanted to be a witch or something like that.”

When a familiar cane made an appearance in the last season of AMERICAN HORROR STORY, a lot of people were left wondering if it was an intentional homage or just a happy accident. An interview with the show's creator RYAN MURPHY pretty much puts the mystery to bed, as the writer admits a long-standing love for DARK SHADOWS. Murphy, who also has shows like GLEE and NIP/TUCK on his resume, tells OUT MAGAZINE You can read the entire interview is online HERE