Willie Loomis was a surly, unkempt handyman who lived above the stables at Collinwood. He had probably not been there long before he made himself unpopular governess Maggie Evans, in particular, was upset by his drunken advances, and repeatedly told him to leave her alone. One night in 1970, Roger Collins walked in on such a scene, and Willie was promptly fired.
Willie could care less - he had come across an old poem written on moldy parchment, which he was convinced was a cryptic clue to where the long-missing Collins family jewels were hidden. Following the strange directions, he discovered a secret room in an old mausoleum in the cemetery - and within, a chained coffin. Assuming the jewels were inside, he broke the chains, and set free the long-entombed vampire, Barnabas Collins.
Once bitten by Barnabas, Willie became his servant, helping to restore the decrepit Old House to its former splendor. Though still a shifty, unstable character, his personality had been drastically changed; he now felt guilt over his part in Barnabas's marauding and concern for the unsuspecting Collins family - and especially for Maggie. When Barnabas viciously attacked Carolyn, Willie was so horrified that he actually tried to physically protect her, leading Barnabas to slash Willie's face with his exposed fangs. Helping Carolyn back to Collinwood, Willie begged her to never go near Barnabas again. But it was too late - Carolyn was already dying, to return as one of the living dead. And when Barnabas ordered Willie to stand guard over her, the hapless servant became a victim of the girl he had tried to save. Only Carolyn's destruction that same night saved Willie from becoming the slave of two vampires.
As Barnabas's obsession with Maggie grew, so did Willie's fears for her safety. He tried to somehow warn her without giving away Barnabas's secret, but Maggie could make no sense of his incoherent pleas at all. In desperation, he ran to the one person he knew that was an expert on vampires, Prof. T. Eliot Stokes, and told him everything.
When Barnabas learned of Willie's betrayal, he beat him severely. Indeed, it is surprising that he didn't kill him, for Willie had started a chain of events that, within 24 hours, would lead to Barnabas's exposure and make him a hunted fugitive.
Nonetheless, Barnabas took Willie with him to his new hideout, a ruined mansion on St. Eustace Island, and placed him in charge of guarding the kidnapped, entranced Maggie. Willie was broken-hearted, but not enough to aid Jeff Clark when he came to her rescue. Instead, he treacherously clubbed him from behind.
Willie escorted Maggie to the mansion's ghostly chapel, and watched as Barnabas prepared to make her his "bride". But at the last moment something snapped, and he ran forward to stop Barnabas, screaming - just in time to be impaled by the crossbow bolt that Jeff had intended for the vampire's heart,
Willis fell to the floor, gravely wounded, and certainly not helped when Barnabas roughly ripped the arrow out of his back. But the shock had finally freed his tortured mind, and while Barnabas was preoccupied with his other victims, Willie staggered to his feet and groped for the discarded arrow. Taking Barnabas by surprise, he plunged the shaft into the vampire's back with all his strength - then died beneath the strangling hands of his nemesis.
There is the possibility that Willie's story did not end here. As he and Barnabas lay dead on the chapel's fog-shrouded floor, a large bat rose up from the mist and flew away. Barnabas's body was still quite visible as the bat departed. But Willie's was hidden by the fog. Or was it?
