Curtis, who began his career selling "terrible" syndicated shows to local stations, did much of his best-known work for the currently beleaguered Alphabet web.

These include the mid-1960s Gothic soap "Dark Shadows"; the mid-1970s TV movies "The Night Stalker" and "The Night Strangler" (but not the short-lived series that followed them, "Kolchak: The Night Stalker," for which "Sopranos" creator David Chase wrote eight episodes); "Trilogy of Terror," a 1975 TV movie whose most memorable segment starred Karen Black; and the mammoth 1980s miniseries "Winds of War" (18 hours) and "War and Remembrance" (30 hours), both based on Herman Wouk's World War II novels.

Also evident in the reel was Curtis' love of filmic scope (he admitted to shooting one huge WWII battle scene several times just for the fun of it); his willingness to tackle brutal subjects such as the Holocaust head-on (as he said to ABC's standards and practices division, "Six million Jews died. You're going to worry about pubic hair?"); and his versatility. Curtis tackled everything from horror to westerns ("The Last Ride of the Dalton Gang") to serious drama ("When Every Day Was the Fourth of July") to romance ("The Love Letter").

Among those giving standing ovations to Curtis were friends and colleagues Peter Graves ("The Winds of War," "War and Remembrance"), Dean Jones ("When Every Day ..."), Karen Black, Kathryn Leigh Scott ("Dark Shadows"), David Selby ("Dark Shadows") and John Karlen ("The Winds of War," "The Last Ride of the Dalton Gang," "Trilogy of Terror," "Melvin Purvis: G-Man," "Dark Shadows").

Over the course of a lively Q & A, the witty, self-deprecating Curtis related how he broke into show business (golf and bravado), how "Dark Shadows" began (with a handshake); how he cast Jonathan Frid as vampire Barnabas Collins in "Dark Shadows" (from an 8-by-10, black-and-white photo that showed him in a cape); how he became a director ("I was tired of telling directors what to do"); his first reaction to adapting the Wouk novels ("It's impossible"); and his new "Dark Shadows" pilot for The WB ("It looks pretty good.").

In May, The WB will announce whether it has picked up the "Dark Shadows" pilot, which Curtis is doing with producer John Wells ("ER," "The West Wing") and "Smallville" writer Mark Verheiden. Curtis recalled how the whole thing began back in the '60s with a dream about a girl on a train, hired to be a governess in a remote locale. By morning, the idea seemed like rubbish, but his wife liked it.

So Curtis proposed it to ABC head Brandon Stoddard, and 40 years later, the network geared for the 12-34 demographic is bringing it back -- albeit with a much younger Barnabas, played by Scotsman Alec Newman. In a TV business run largely on fear, it's a bold, improbable move, but that's nothing new to Dan Curtis.