Vincent Leonard Price Jr. (May 27, 1911 – October 25, 1993) was an American actor, known to film audiences for his work in thehorror genre, mostly portrayingvillains. He appeared on stage, television, and radio, and in more than 100 films. Price has two stars on theHollywood Walk of Fame, one for motion pictures and one for television.[1]
Vincent Leonard Price Jr. was born on May 27, 1911, inSt. Louis, Missouri, the youngest of the four children of Vincent Leonard Price, president of the National Candy Company,[4] and his wife Marguerite Cobb (née Wilcox) Price.[2] His grandfather was Vincent Clarence Price, who invented "Dr. Price's Baking Powder", the firstcream of tartar-based baking powder, and it secured the family's fortune.[5] Price was of Welsh[6] and English descent and was a descendant, via his paternal grandmother, ofPeregrine White, the first child born incolonial Massachusetts, being born on theMayflower while it was inProvincetown Harbor inMassachusetts.[7]
Price was active in radio, portraying theRobin Hood-inspired crime-fighterSimon Templar inThe Saint, which ran from 1947 to 1951. In the 1950s, Price moved into more regular horror-film roles with the leading role inHouse of Wax (1953) as a homicidal sculptor,[21] the firstthree-dimensional film to land in the year's top 10 at the North American box-office. His next roles wereThe Mad Magician (1954), the monster movieThe Fly (1958), and its sequelReturn of the Fly (1959). That same year, Price starred in two thrillers by producer-directorWilliam Castle:House on Haunted Hill as eccentric millionaire Fredrick Loren, andThe Tingler as Dr. Warren Chapin, who discovered the titular creature. He appeared in the radio dramaThree Skeleton Key, the story of an island lighthouse besieged by an army of rats. He had first performed the work in 1950 onEscape and returned to it in 1956 and 1958 forSuspense.[22]
Outside the horror realm, Price played Baka inThe Ten Commandments, released in 1956. About this time, he also appeared in episodes of television shows such asScience Fiction Theatre,Playhouse 90, andGeneral Electric Theater. In the 1955–56 television season, he was cast three times on the religion anthology seriesCrossroads. In the 1955 episode "Cleanup", Price portrayed the Reverend Robert Russell. In 1956, he was cast asRabbiGershom Mendes Seixas in "The Rebel", and as the Rev. Alfred W. Price in "God's Healing".
In the 1960s, Price began his role as a guest on the television game showHollywood Squares, becoming a semi-regular in the 1970s, including being one of the guest panelists on the finale in 1980.[28]
Price made many guest-star appearances in television shows during the decade, includingThe Red Skelton Show,Daniel Boone,F Troop,Get Smart,The Man from U.N.C.L.E., andVoyage to the Bottom of the Sea. He had a recurring role in theBatman TV series as the villainEgghead from 1966 to 1967. In 1964, he provided the narration for the Tombstone Historama inTombstone, Arizona, which was still in operation as of 2016.[29] He also starred as the host of the Australian TV seriesIf These Walls Could Speak, in which a short history of an historical building (supposedly narrated by the building itself) was covered, and as the narrating voice of the building.
Price was an admirer of the works of Edgar Allan Poe, and in 1975 visited theEdgar Allan Poe Museum inRichmond, Virginia, where he had his picture taken with the museum's popular stuffed raven.[32] Price also recorded dramatic readings of Poe's short stories and poems, which were collected together with readings byBasil Rathbone.
In 1975, Price and his wifeCoral Browne appeared together in an international stage adaptation ofArdèle, which played in the U.S. and in London at theQueen's Theatre. During this run, Browne and Price starred together in the BBC Radio playNight of the Wolf first airing in 1975.[33] Price greatly reduced his film work from around 1975, as horror itself suffered a slump, and he increased his narrative and voice work, as well as advertisingMilton Bradley's Shrunken Head Apple Sculpture.[34]
Price provided a monolog for theAlice Cooper song "The Black Widow" on theWelcome to My Nightmare album in 1975, and he appeared in the corresponding TV specialAlice Cooper: The Nightmare. He starred for a year in the early 1970s in the syndicated daily radio programTales of the Unexplained. He made guest appearances in a 1970 episode ofHere's Lucy, showcasing his art expertise, and in a 1972 episode of ABC'sThe Brady Bunch, in which he played a derangedarchaeologist. In October 1976, he appeared as the featured guest in an episode ofThe Muppet Show. In 1977, Price recorded a cover version ofBobby "Boris" Pickett's 1962 Single recordThe Monster Mash produced by UK record producers Ken Burgess and Bob Newby and released in the UK byEMI Records.
Also in 1977, Price began performing asOscar Wilde in the one-man stage playDiversions and Delights, written by John Gay and directed by Joe Hardy, and set in a Parisian theater on a night about one year before Wilde's death. The original tour of the play was a success in every city except for New York City. In the summer of 1979, Price performed the role of Wilde at theTabor Opera House inLeadville, Colorado, on the same stage from which Wilde had spoken to miners about art some 96 years before. He eventually performed the play worldwide.[5] Victoria Price stated in her biography of her father that several members of Price's family and friends thought that this was his best acting performance.[5]
In 1979, Price starred with his wife in the short-livedCBS seriesTime Express. That same year he hosted the hour-long television specialAmerica Screams, riding on severalroller coasters and recounting their history.[35] During 1979–1980, he hosted the "Mystery Night" segment of the radio seriesSears Radio Theater.
From 1981 to 1989, Price hosted thePBS television seriesMystery! In 1985, he provided voice talent on the Hanna-Barbera seriesThe 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo as the mysterious "Vincent Van Ghoul", who aided Scooby-Doo, Scrappy-Doo, and the gang in recapturing thirteen demons. He was a lifelong fan of roller coasters, and he narrated a 1987 thirty-minute documentary on the history of roller coasters and amusement parks, includingConey Island. During this time (1985–1989), he appeared in horror-themed commercials forTilex bathroom cleanser.
In 1990, Price recorded the narration of the Phantom for thePhantom Manor attraction atDisneyland Paris. However, shortly after the ride opened in 1992, the narration was removed and replaced with one entirely in French, performed by Gérard Chevalier. Only Price's infamous laughter remained on the soundtrack. In 2018, during a major renovation, it was announced that parts of Price's narration would be restored. Since the 2019 reopening, the new tracks are dual-language; Price's original excerpts as well as previously unused material from his 1990 recording comprise the English-speaking portions, while actorBernard Alane voices the Phantom in French.
Price, who studied art history at Yale, was an art lover and collector. He was a commissioner of theIndian Arts and Crafts Board.[42]
In 1957, impressed by the spirit of the students and the community's need for the opportunity to experience original artworks firsthand, Vincent and Mary Grant Price donated 90 pieces from their private collection and a large amount of money to establish theVincent Price Art Museum atEast Los Angeles College inMonterey Park, California,[43] which was the first "teaching art collection" owned by acommunity college in the United States. They ultimately donated some 2,000 pieces; the collection contains over 9,000 pieces and has been valued in excess of $5 million.[44]
Price also spent time working as an art consultant forSears, Roebuck and Co.[20] From 1962 to 1971, Sears offered the "Vincent Price Collection of Fine Art", selling about 50,000 fine-art prints to the general public. Works that Price selected or commissioned for the collection included some byRembrandt,Pablo Picasso, andSalvador Dalí.[45][46] Public access to fine art was important to Price, who, according to his daughter Victoria, saw the Sears deal as an "opportunity to put his populist beliefs into practice, to bring art to the American public." In the 1960s, portraits of Native Americans painted byCharles Bird King were secured forJacqueline Kennedy's White House restoration. Through the efforts of Vincent Price, these five paintings were paid for and donated to theWhite House Collection by Sears.[47]
Price amassed his own extensive collection of art, and in 2008, a painting bought for $25 by a couple fromDallas was identified as a piece from Price's collection. Painted by leading Australian modernistGrace Cossington Smith, it was given a modern valuation of AU$45,000.[48]
Price was a gourmet cook, and he authored several cookbooks with his second wife, Mary. These include:
A Treasury of Great Recipes (1965)
Mary and Vincent Price present a National Treasury of Cookery (1967)
Mary and Vincent Price's Come into the Kitchen Cook Book: A Collector's Treasury of America's Great Recipes (1969)
Cooking Price-Wise with Vincent Price (1971)
Mary and Vincent Price present a National Treasury of Cookery was a five-volume series, packaged in a boxed set and published by the Heirloom Publishing Company. These five books were combined into a single book two years later and published asMary and Vincent Price's Come into the Kitchen Cook Book: A Collector's Treasury of America's Great Recipes. Most of the Prices' cookbooks remained in print throughout the 1970s. After being out of print for several decades, two of their books were reprinted;A Treasury of Great Recipes (in August 2015 by Calla Editions) andMary and Vincent Price's Come into the Kitchen Cook Book (in November 2016 by Calla Editions), both featuring new forewords by their daughter Victoria Price.Cooking Price-Wise with Vincent Price was scheduled to be reprinted by Dover Publishing in October 2017 under the updated titleCooking Price-Wise – The Original Foodie.
The movieHis Kind of Woman has a comedic scene in which Price, having invitedJane Russell andRobert Mitchum to dinner, receives bad news. He plays the entire scene holding a duck in his hand, ready to be cooked "soaked in sherry with only salt, sage, and pepper."
In 1971, Price hosted his own cooking program on British television, calledCooking Price-Wise produced for theITV network byThames Television, which was broadcast in April and May 1971. This show gave its name to Price's fourth and final cookbook later that year. Price promoted his cookbooks on many talk shows, one of the most famous instances being the November 21, 1975, broadcast ofThe Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, when he demonstrated how to poach a fish in a dishwasher.
Price recorded a number of audio cooking tutorials titledInternational Cooking Course. These were titledBounty of Paradise,Classical Spanish Cuisine,Cuisina Italiana,Delights from the Sultan's Pantry,Dinner at the Casbah,Dining at Versailles,Exotic Delights from the Far East,Food of the Gods,Foods from the Austro-Hungarian Empire,La Cocina Mejicana,The Bard's Board, andThe Wok. In addition to those, he recorded an audio wine course titledWine Is Elegance. These audio recordings were released on 33⅓ LPs by Nelson Industries in 1977 and were also packaged in a 12-cassette boxed set titledBeverly Hills Cookbook – Cookbook of the Rich and Famous, Your Host Mr. Vincent Price.[49]
In August 1982, he co-hostedA Taste of China for Thames Television over five episodes. He also prepared a fish recipe onWolfgang Puck'sCooking with Wolfgang PuckVHS, released in October 1987 byWarner Home Video.
Price married three times. His first marriage was in 1938 to former actressEdith Barrett; they had one son, poet and columnistVincent Barrett Price. Edith and Price divorced in 1948. Price marriedMary Grant in 1949, and they had a daughter, inspirational speakerVictoria Price, on April 27, 1962,[50] naming her after Price's first major success in the playVictoria Regina.[51] The marriage lasted until 1973. He married Australian actressCoral Browne in 1974; she had appeared as one of his victims inTheatre of Blood (1973). The marriage lasted until her death in 1991.[52]
Victoria Price's biographyVincent Price: A Daughter's Biography (1999) details Price's earlyantisemitism[53] and initial admiration forAdolf Hitler. According to his daughter: "When he went to Germany and Austria as a young man, he was struck by a lot of things going on during theWeimar Republic and the dissolution of theempire... So when Hitler came into power, instead of seeing him as a dangerous force, he was sort of swept up in this whole idea that Hitler was going to bring German pride back."[54] However, Price became aliberal after becoming friends withNew York intellectuals such asDorothy Parker andLillian Hellman in the 1930s,[54] so much so that he was "greylisted" underMcCarthyism in the 1950s for having been a prewar"premature anti-Nazi".[citation needed] After being unable to find work for a year, he agreed to requests by theFBI that he sign a "secret oath" to save his career.[55][56] Victoria said that her father became so liberal that "one of my brother's earliest memories is whenFranklin Roosevelt's death was announced, my father fell backward off the sofa sobbing."[54]
Price denounced racial and religious prejudice as a form of poison at the end of an episode ofThe Saint,[57] which aired onNBC Radio on July 30, 1950,[58]claiming that Americans must fight against it because such prejudices within the United States fuel support for the nation's enemies.[59] He was later appointed to the Indian Arts and Crafts Board under theDwight D. Eisenhower administration; he called the appointment "kind of a surprise, since I am aDemocrat".[60]
Price was supportive of his daughter Victoria when she came out as a lesbian and joinedPFLAG as an honorary board member. He was critical ofAnita Bryant's anti-gay rights campaign in the 1970s. Price was also one of the first celebrities to film apublic service announcement to help allay public fears aboutHIV/AIDS.[61][62][63][64] In an interview in 2015, Victoria said that her father confided in her hisintimate relationships with men when she came out to him as a lesbian.[63][64]
Price was an Episcopalian by birth, but he made a deal with his third wife, the British actress Coral Browne, that he would convert to Catholicism if she became an American citizen. According to reports, Price took weekly instruction at a local parish, St. Victor, and was received into the Catholic Church sometime after 1987, a few years before his death in 1993.[65] Price was also associated with St. Victor's Catholic Church in West Hollywood, which later held Browne's funeral Mass.[66] Throughout his career, Price appeared in several major films with religious subject matter, includingThe Song of Bernadette (1943),The Keys of the Kingdom (1944), andThe Ten Commandments (1956).[65]
Price suffered fromchronic obstructive pulmonary disease andParkinson's disease. His symptoms were especially severe during the filming ofEdward Scissorhands, requiring his filming schedule to be shortened. His illness also contributed to his retirement fromMystery! in 1989.
Price died at age 82 of lung cancer on October 25, 1993, at his home in Los Angeles, California.[2] His remains werecremated and his ashes scattered off Nicholas Canyon Beach, nearPoint Dume inMalibu.[67][68]
TheA&E Network aired an episode ofBiography the night following Price's death, highlighting his horror-film career, but because of its failure to clear copyrights, the show was never aired again. Four years later, A&E produced its updated episode, titledVincent Price: The Versatile Villain, which aired on October 12, 1997. The script was by Lucy Chase Williams, author ofThe Complete Films of Vincent Price.[69] In early 1991, Tim Burton was developing a personal documentary with the working titleConversations with Vincent, in which interviews with Price were shot at the Vincent Price Gallery, but the project was never completed and was eventually shelved.[70]
"Vincent Twice, Vincent Twice" was a muppet who hosted "Mysterious Theater" onSesame Street, spoofing Price's hosting ofMystery! Price was parodied in an episode ofThe Simpsons ("Sunday, Cruddy Sunday"). Price had his ownSpitting Image puppet, who was always trying to be "sinister" and lure people into his ghoulish traps, only for his victims to point out all the obvious flaws.Rhythmeen, theZZ Top album from 1996, includes a track named "Vincent Price Blues".
Starting in November 2005, featured cast memberBill Hader of theNBC sketch comedy/variety showSaturday Night Live has played Price in a recurring sketch in which Price hosts botched holiday specials filled with celebrities of the 1950s/'60s. Other cast members who played Price onSNL includeDan Aykroyd andMichael McKean (who played Price when he hosted a season-10 episode and again when he was hired as a cast member for the 1994–95 season).
In 1999, a frank and detailed biography of Price written by his daughter, Victoria, was published bySt. Martin's Press. In late May 2011, an event was held by the organization Cinema St. Louis to celebrate what would have been Price's 100th birthday. It included a public event with Victoria at the Missouri History Museum and a showcase of ephemeral and historic items at the gallery inside theSheldon Concert Hall.[72][73]
In an unusual convergence of widely different generational and cultural backgrounds, the genteel Price was a friend of the Englishhard rock bandDeep Purple and in 1975, he appeared onRoger Glover's live version ofThe Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast as a narrator.[74] Decades later, in 2013, Deep Purple released "Vincent Price", a single the band members dedicated to him.[74] That same year, American director and writerJohn Waters composed a "heartfelt and appreciative" retrospective on Price forTurner Classic Movies, which recognized the actor as its "Star of the Month" in October 2013 and showcased then a selection of his most popular films.[75] The tribute was repeatedly broadcast on TCM to promote and complement those televised presentations. In sharing with viewers his feelings about Price, Waters at one point describes the actor's screen appeal, especially when he was featured in darker roles:
One raise of his eyebrow and you knew you were about to be thrilled by a debonair, evil, yet sympathetic villain...I can't imagine these films without Vincent Price in them. He was just a fine actor, never pretentious. The audiences that went to see him were all-inclusive, from the poorest people to the richest. Nobody disliked him. Vincent Price was classless, even though he was classy, an exaggerated gentleman. He gave upscale a good name, and he was always handsome, dignified, charming, and a little bit sinister.[75]
Price, Vincent (1959).I Like What I Know – A Visual Autobiography. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.ISBN9781504042161.
Price, Vincent (1961).The book of Joe; about a dog and his man. Doubleday.OCLC1292943.
Price, Mary; Price, Vincent (1965).A Treasury of Great Recipes. Illustrated by Fritz Kredel. Bernard Geis Associates.ISBN9781121111134.
Price, Vincent; Price, Mary Grant (1967).Mary and Vincent Price Present A National Treasury of Cookery. Heirloom Publishing Company.OCLC1450485.
Price, Vincent; Price, Mary Grant (1969).Come Into the Kitchen Cook Book: A Collector's Treasury of America's Great Recipes. Stravon Educational Press.ISBN0873960203.
Price, Vincent (1971).Cooking Price-wise with Vincent Price. Corgi Children's.ISBN0552086657.
The Vincent Price treasury of American art. Online Computer Library Center. 1972.ISBN9780872940314.OCLC539027.
Price, Vincent (1978).Vincent Price: His Movies, His Plays, His Life. Doubleday & Co.ISBN0385115946.
Price, Vincent; Price, V.B. (1981).Monsters. Grosset & Dunlap.ISBN9780448143057.
Introductions to works by others
Peter Haining (ed).The Ghouls. New York: Stein and Day, 1971.
Tom Hutchinson.Horror and Fantasy in the Movies. New York: Crescent Books, 1974.
^abcPeter B. Flint (October 27, 1993)."Vincent Price, Noted Actor Of Dark Roles, Dies at 82".The New York Times. RetrievedOctober 27, 2014.Vincent Price, the suavely menacing star of countless low-budget but often stylish Gothic horror films, died at his home in Los Angeles on Monday. He was 82 years old and died of lung cancer, said a personal assistant, Reggie Williams. ...
^abc"Victoria Regina (Broadway, Broadhurst Theatre, 1935)".Playbill (published February 17, 1936). 2012. RetrievedOctober 15, 2023.He was studying the history of German art at the Courtauld Institute in London when a friend took him to London's Gate Theatre, where casting of Maurine Watkins' "Chicago" was in process. American accents being at a premium, Mr. Price was thrust into the production and found himself doubling as a burly policeman and a venerable judge. His remarkable resemblance to Prince Albert led to his being offered the important role of the Prince Consort in the ensuing production of "Victoria Regina." He received glowing notices and was subsequently signed by Gilbert Miller for the American production.
^Egan, Kate; Thomas, Sarah (2012).Cult Film Stardom: Offbeat Attractions and Processes of Cultification. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 112.ISBN978-0230293694.
^"Camp Vincent II - Vincent Price Legacy UK".Vincent Price Legacy UK. November 1, 2016. RetrievedAugust 18, 2022.Heading out to Point Dume and Nicholas Beach in Malibu, where Vincent's ashes were scattered out at sea, we shall join a special remembrance service and luncheon led by Victoria.
^"Vincent Price Malibu Remembrance Service".Eventbrite. The Vincent Price Estate. November 13, 2016. RetrievedAugust 18, 2022.His ashes were scattered by his family off at Nicholas Canyon Beach in Malibu, California.
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