 |
| #1: The Mad Doctor |
 |
| Vincent Price |
Born on May 27, 1911 in St. Louis, Missouri, Price came from a
notable family; his father was president of the National Candy
Company, and his grandfather was Vincent Clarence Price, who invented
the first cream-of-tartar-based baking powder, thus securing the
family’s fortune. In 1933 he graduated with a degree in English
and a minor in Art History from Yale University. He taught for a
year and then entered the Courtald Institute of Art in London, where
he intended to gain a master’s degree in fine arts, but found
himself drawn to the theatre. First appearing on stage
professionally in 1934, he began a full-scale acting career in 1935,
performing with Orson Welles’ Mercury Theatre.
Beginning
in films as a character actor, he debuted in Service
De Luxe
(1938) and established himself in the film Laura
(1944) with Gene Tierney, directed by Otto Preminger. His first
venture into horror was the Boris Karloff film Tower
Of London (1939).
The following year, Price portrayed the title character in The
Invisible Man Returns
(1940), but then reunited with Tierney in Leave
Her To Heaven
(1945) and Dragonwyck
(1946) and took a number of villainous roles in film-noir thrillers
such as The Web
(1947)
and The Long Night
(1947).
From 1947 to 1951, Price was also active in radio, playing the role
of Simon Templar in The
Saint. In
the 1950’s, he moved into more regular horror roles, playing the
leading role in the classic House
Of Wax
(1953), which was the first 3-D film to hit the box-office top ten
that year. He also appeared in The
Fly
(1958) and its sequel Return
Of The Fly
(1959). That same year, he also appeared in William Castle’s House
On Haunted Hill
and The Tingler. |
| Price as Egghead, a Batman rogue |
In
the 1960’s, Price hit his stride with horror, appearing in the
now-classic Poe series directed by Roger Corman for American
International Pictures. Beginning with the role of Roderick Usher in
House Of Usher
(1960), Price appeared in The
Pit And The Pendulum
(1961), Tales Of Terror
(1962), The Comedy Of
Terrors (1963), The
Raven (1963), The
Masque Of The Red Death
(1964) and The Tomb Of
Ligeia (1964). He also
starred in The Last Man
On Earth (1964), the
first adaptation of Richard Matheson’s novel I
Am Legend, and portrayed
witch hunter Matthew Hopkins in Witchfinder
General (a.k.a. The
Conqueror Worm, 1968).
He also portrayed the comic villain Dr. Goldfoot in the spy spoof Dr.
Goldfoot And The Bikini Machine
(1965) and its sequel Dr.
Goldfoot And The Girl Bombs
(1966). On television, Price made guest-star appearances in many
shows of the decade, such as his well-known portrayal of the villain
Egghead in Batman, F
Troop, Get Smart, The Man From U.N.C.L.E.,
and Voyage To The Bottom
Of The Sea, sometimes
playing a tongue-in-cheek “horror” role.
In
the 1970’s, Price appeared in The
Abominable Dr. Phibes
(1971) and its sequel Dr.
Phibes Rises Again
(1972), and also in
Theatre
Of Blood (1973),
portraying a Shakespearean actor who takes revenge on the critics who
ruined his career. Another notable production from this period is An
Evening Of Edgar Allan Poe,
in which Price performed a one-man showcase of four Poe tales, The
Tell-Tale Heart, The Sphinx, The Pit And The Pendulum
and The Cask Of
Amontillado. Price also
recorded a number of
dramatic readings of Poe stories and poems, and several records for
the Caedmon label that included A
Graveyard Of Ghost Tales, A Hornbook For Witches
and A Coven Of Witches’
Tales. He was also seen
on Canadian television as a narrator on the now-classic children’s
show The Hilarious House
Of Frightenstein.
Though Price is remembered as a
horror star, he was also an art lover and collector. In 1957, Price
and his second wife Mary Grant Price donated 90 pieces from their
private collection and established the Vincent Price Art Museum at
East Los Angeles College in Monterey Park, California. This became
the first “teaching art collection” owned by a community college
in the United States, and the Prices would ultimately donate some
2000 pieces to this collection. Seeing the importance of fine art
being made accessible to the general public, Price also worked as an
art consultant for Sears-Roebuck. From 1962 to 1971, Sears offered
the “Vincent Price Collection Of Fine Art,” which included prints
of works by Picasso, Rembrandt and Dali. Price was also an active
gourmet cook, authoring several cookbooks with Mary Price. These
included A Treasury Of
Great Recipes, Mary And Vincent Price’s Come Into The Kitchen Cook
Book, and Cooking
Price-Wise With Vincent Price,
which was also the title of a cooking show he hosted on Britain’s
ITV/Thames Television network.
Price remained active in horror throughout the Eighties, narrating the 1982 Tim Burton short Vincent, and providing the now-famous spoken-word sequence on Michael Jackson’s 1982 hit single “Thriller.” In 1983, he appeared in the British horror spoof Bloodbath At The House Of Death, and worked in House Of The Long Shadows with John Carradine, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. From 1981 to 1989, Price regularly hosted the PBS television series Mystery! and in 1985, he was the voice of Vincent Van Ghoul in Hanna-Barbera’s The 13 Ghosts Of Scooby-Doo. In 1986, he was the voice of Professor Ratigan in Disney’s The Great Mouse Detective, one of his favorite roles. His last significant role was as the inventor in Tim Burton’s Edward Scissorhands (1990). During this time he was suffering from emphysema (Price was a lifelong smoker) and Parkinson’s disease, which also contributed to his retirement from Mystery in 1989. On October 25, 1993, Price died of lung cancer at UCLA Medical Center. He was 82.
Throughout
his life, Vincent Price remained committed to a populist belief
system, wanting to share art, fine cooking, and tales of mystery and
horror with the general public rather than only a select audience.
He was and still is an introduction for many people into the world of
classic horror, and his life and career show a person who believed
that the good things in life (and horror) were for everyone,
regardless of their place in society. It is not for nothing that we
at the Monster Shop refer to him with great affection as “Uncle
Vinnie.”
And
so we close this session of The
MonsterGrrls’ Thir13en For Halloween. To
paraphrase our Uncle Vinnie's ending Frightenstein
monologue, the castle lights are growing dim, and there’s no one left
but me… and them.
Happy
Halloween, dear fiends...
Happy Halloween From The MonsterGrrls!!
