Julia Hoffman

Julia Hoffman is a fictional character played by Grayson Hall in the 1966 ABC soap opera ''Dark Shadows''. A self-serving and conniving doctor in the fields of psychology and rare blood disorders, she is also head of the Windcliff Sanitarium, who moved into Collinwood and discovered the vampire Barnabas Collins. Initially, Julia represented a threat to Barnabas' undead existence, but eventually she became one of his most staunch allies. Together, Julia and Barnabas worked to assist the Collins family in the past, present, future, and in Parallel Time.

First brought onto the show to be as a type of Van Helsing character focused on destroying the vampire, instead, as the story line developed, Dr. Hoffman fell in love with Barnabus, bringing a twist of tension to the narrative.

In addition to her role as a character who investigated and later helped Barnabus, Dr. Julia Hoffman also functioned to slow down the storytelling and build in elaboration. “One of her signature lines, spoken in tentative, leading tones was “You mean …,” thus allowing another character to restate a bit more of the story and flesh out each episode.” Provided by Wikipedia