Vincent Price (May 27, 1911 - October 25, 1993)
deb...@comcast.net
Vincent Leonard Price, Jr. (May 27, 1911 - October 25, 1993), born in
St. Louis, Missouri to Vincent Leonard Price and Marguerite Willcox
Price, was an American film actor. He is most well remembered for his
roles in a series of low-budget horror films where his distinctive
voice and seriocomic attitude were well used. In such films, his tall
physique and polished urbane manner made him something of an American
counterpart to the older Boris Karloff.
His father was president of the National Candy Company. Price Jr. was
educated at Yale and the Courtauld Institute, London in art history and
fine art. He became interested in theater in the 1930s, appearing
professionally on stage from 1935.
He made his film debut in 1938 with Service de Luxe and established
himself as a competent player, notably in Laura (1944), directed by
Otto Preminger. He acted as Joseph Smith, Jr. in the movie Brigham
Young (1940).
In the 1950s he moved into horror films, enjoying the role in the
successful curiosity House of Wax (1953), the first 3-D film to land in
the year's top ten at the North American box office. He also starred in
the original House on Haunted Hill (1959) as eccentric millionaire
Fredrick Loren. (The actor playing the same character in the 1999
remake was made to not only resemble, but was renamed after Price.)
In the 1960s, he had a number of low-budget successes with Roger Corman
and AIP including the Edgar Allan Poe adaptations House of Usher
(1960), The Pit and the Pendulum (1961), The Raven (1963), The Masque
of the Red Death (1964); he also appeared in The Abominable Dr. Phibes
(1971) and Theatre of Blood 1973.
He often spoke of his joy at playing "Egghead" on the popular Batman
television series. Another of his co-stars, Yvonne Craig (Batgirl),
often said Price was her favorite co-star.
He greatly reduced his film work from around 1975, as horror itself
suffered a slump, and increased his narrative and voice work. For
example, Price's voiceover is heard on Alice Cooper's first solo album
Welcome to My Nightmare; in Michael Jackson's semi-creepy music video,
Thriller; and, in one of his last major and one of his favourite
feature film roles, as the voice of Professor Ratigan in Walt Disney
Pictures' The Great Mouse Detective.
In the summer of 1977 he began performing, as Oscar Wilde, in the one
man stage play Diversions and Delights. Written by John Gay and
directed by Joe Hardy, the play is set in a Parisian theater, on a
night about one year before Wilde's death. In an attempt to earn some
much-needed money, he is speaking to the audience about his life, his
works and, in the second act, about his love for Lord Alfred Douglas,
which led to his downfall. The original tour of the play was a success
in every city that it played, except for New York City. In the summer
of 1979 he performed it at the Tabor Opera House in Leadville, Colorado
on the same stage that Wilde had spoken to the miners about art some 96
years before. Price would, eventually, perform the play worldwide and
to many, including his daughter Victoria, it was the best acting that
he ever did.
>From 1981 to 1989, he hosted the PBS television series Mystery!. His
last significant film work was as the inventor in Tim Burton's Edward
Scissorhands (1990).
Price was married three times. Price fathered a son named Vincent, Jr.
with his first wife, a former actress named Edith . Price and his
second wife Mary donated hundreds of works of art and a large monetary
gift to East Los Angeles College in the early 1960s in order to endow
the Vincent and Mary Price Gallery there, which stands to this day.
Price's daughter Victoria was born to the couple in 1962. Price's last
marriage was to the actress Coral Browne who appeared with him in
Theatre Of Blood (1973). People have said theirs was one of Hollywood's
great love stories; he converted to Catholicism for her, and she became
a U.S. citizen for him. Friends said Price never recovered from her
death in 1991 from breast cancer.
In his later years, Price spoke out against modern horror films that
glorified violence, pointing out that his films were harmless spoofs by
comparison.
Price was also a noted gourmet cook and art collector. From 1962 to
1971, Sears, Roebuck offered the Vincent Price Collection of Fine Art,
selling about 50,000 pieces of fine art to the general public. Price
selected and comissioned works for the collection, including works by
Rembrant, Pablo Picasso, and Salvador Dali. [1]
Vincent Price died of lung cancer on October 25, 1993, at 82 years of
age, just six days before Halloween and, eerily, just three days before
his biography was aired on the Arts and Entertainment Network. He had
also long suffered from emphysema and Parkinson's disease, which had
forced his role in Edward Scissorhands to be much smaller than
intended.
Vincent Twice Vincent Twice was a Price lookalike character on Sesame
Street.
In 1999 a frank and detailed biography of Vincent Price, written by his
daughter Victoria Price, was published by St Martin's Griffin Press.