Vincent Price

**Vincent Leonard Price Jr.** (May 27, 1911 – October 25, 1993) was an American actor best known for his performances in horror films, although his career spanned other genres, including film noir, drama, mystery, thriller, and comedy. He appeared on stage, television, and radio, and in more than 100 films. He has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for motion pictures and one for television.[1] He was born and raised near St. Louis, Missouri and has a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame.

He was an art collector and arts consultant with a degree in art history, and he lectured and wrote books on the subject. The Vincent Price Art Museum at East Los Angeles College is named in his honor.[2] He was also a noted gourmet cook.[3]

Price started out in films as a character actor. He made his film debut in *Service de Luxe* (1938) and established himself in the film *Laura* (1944), opposite Gene Tierney, directed by Otto Preminger.[13] He played Joseph Smith in the movie *Brigham Young* (1940) and William Gibbs McAdoo in *Wilson* (1944) as well as Bernadette's prosecutor, Vital Dutour, in *The Song of Bernadette* (1943), and as a pretentious priest in *The Keys of the Kingdom* (1944).

His first venture into the horror genre, for which he later became best known, was in the Boris Karloff film *Tower of London* (1939). The following year Price portrayed the title character in *The Invisible Man Returns* (a role he reprised in a vocal cameo at the end of the horror-comedy spoof *Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein* released in 1948).[*citation needed*]

Price reunited with Tierney in *Leave Her to Heaven* (1945) and *Dragonwyck* (1946). There were also many villainous roles in film noirthrillers like *The Web* (1947), *The Long Night* (1947), *Rogues' Regiment* (1948) and *The Bribe* (1949), with Robert Taylor, Ava Gardnerand Charles Laughton.

His first starring role was as conman James Addison Reavis in the biopic *The Baron of Arizona* (1950). He did a comedic turn as the tycoon Burnbridge Waters, co-starring with Ronald Colman in *Champagne for Caesar* (also 1950), one of his favorite film roles.[10]

He was active in radio, portraying the Robin Hood-inspired crime-fighter Simon Templar in *The Saint*, which ran from 1947 to 1951. In the 1950s, Price moved into more regular horror film roles with the leading role in *House of Wax* (1953) as a homicidal sculptor,[14] the first 3-D film to land in the year's top ten at the North American box office. His next roles were *The Mad Magician* (1954), the monster movie *The Fly* (1958) and its sequel *Return of the Fly* (1959).

That same year, he starred in a pair of thrillers by producer-director William Castle: *House on Haunted Hill* (1959) as eccentric millionaire Fredrick Loren, and *The Tingler* (also 1959) as Dr. Warren Chapin, who discovered the titular creature. He appeared in the radio drama *Three Skeleton Key*, the story of an island lighthouse besieged by an army of rats. He first performed the work in 1950 on *Escape* and returned to it in 1956 and 1958 for *Suspense*.[15]

Outside the horror realm, Price played Baka (the master builder) in *The Ten Commandments* released in 1956. About this time he also appeared on NBC's *The Martha Raye Show*. In the 1955–56 television season, he was cast three times on the religion anthology series *Crossroads*, a study of clergymen from different denominations. In the 1955 episode "Cleanup", Price portrayed the Reverend Robert Russell. In 1956, he was cast as Rabbi Gershom Mendes Seixas in "The Rebel", and as the Rev. Alfred W. Price in "God's Healing".

In the 1960s, Price achieved a number of low-budget filmmaking successes with Roger Corman[16] and American International Pictures(AIP) starting with the *House of Usher* (1960), which earned over $2 million at the box office in the United States[17] and led to the subsequent Edgar Allan Poe adaptations of *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),[16] and *The Tomb of Ligeia* (1964).[18]

He starred in *The Last Man on Earth* (1964), the first adaptation of the Richard Matheson novel *I Am Legend* and portrayed witch hunter Matthew Hopkins in *Witchfinder General* (US: *The Conqueror Worm*, 1968) set during the English Civil War.[19] He starred in comedy films such as *Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine* (1965) and its sequel *Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs* (1966). In 1968 he played the part of an eccentric artist in the musical *Darling of the Day*, opposite Patricia Routledge.[20]

In the 1960s he began his role as a guest on the television game show *Hollywood Squares*, becoming a semi-regular in the 1970s, including being one of the guest panelists on the finale in 1980.[21]

Price made many guest-star appearances in television shows during the decade, including *Daniel Boone*, *Batman*, *F Troop*, *Get Smart*, *The Man from U.N.C.L.E.*, and *Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea*. In 1964, he provided the narration for the Tombstone Historama in Tombstone, Arizona, which is still in operation as of 2016.[22] He also starred as the host of the Australian TV series *If These Walls Could Speak*, in which a short history of a historical building (supposedly narrated by the building itself) was covered, and as the narrating voice of the building.

During the early 1970s, Price hosted and starred in BBC Radio's horror and mystery series *The Price of Fear*. He accepted a cameo part in the Canadian children's television program *The Hilarious House of Frightenstein* (1971) in Hamilton, Ontario on the local television station CHCH. In addition to the opening and closing monologues, his role in the show was to recite poems about various characters, sometimes wearing a cloak or other costumes.[23]

Price appeared in *The Abominable Dr. Phibes* (1971), its sequel *Dr. Phibes Rises Again* (1972), and *Theatre of Blood* (1973), in which he portrayed one of a pair of serial killers. That same year, he appeared as himself in *Mooch Goes to Hollywood*, a film written by Jim Backus. He was an admirer of the works of Edgar Allan Poeand in 1975 visited the Edgar Allan Poe Museum (Richmond, Virginia), where he had his picture taken with the museum's popular stuffed raven.[24]

Price recorded dramatic readings of Poe's short stories and poems, which were collected together with readings by Basil Rathbone. In 1975, Price and his wife Coral Browne appeared together in an international stage adaptation of *Ardèle* which played in the USA as well as in London at the Queen's Theatre. During this run, Browne and Price starred together in the BBC Radio play *Night of the Wolf* first airing in 1975.[25] He 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 advertising Milton Bradley's Shrunken Head Apple Sculpture.[26]

Price's voiceover is heard on Alice Cooper's first solo album *Welcome to My Nightmare* from 1975, and he appeared in the corresponding TV special *Alice Cooper: The Nightmare*. He starred for a year in the early 1970s in the syndicated daily radio program *Tales of the Unexplained*. He made guest appearances in a 1970 episode of *Here's Lucy*, showcasing his art expertise, and in a 1972 episode of ABC's *The Brady Bunch*, in which he played a deranged archaeologist. In October 1976, he appeared as the featured guest in an episode of *The Muppet Show*.

In 1976, Price recorded a cover of Bobby "Boris" Pickett's "Monster Mash" as a 45rpm single, putting his voice to a backing track laid down in London by record producers Bob Newby and Ken Weston. It was released on both sides of the Atlantic later that year without much success.[*citation needed*] In 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 and set in a Parisian theatre 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 the Tabor Opera House in Leadville, 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-lived CBS TV series *Time Express*. In 1979, he hosted the hour-long amusement park and roller coaster television special "America Screams", riding on many of the roller coasters himself and recounting their history.[*citation needed*] During 1979–1980, he hosted the "Mystery Night" segment of the radio series *Sears Radio Theater*.

In 1981, Price Played Grover in the original stage musical production of The Monster at the End of This Book: Starring Lovable, Furry Old Grover. In 1982, Price provided the narrator's voice in *Vincent,* Tim Burton's six-minute film about a young boy who flashes from reality into a fantasy where he is Vincent Price.[27][28] He appeared as Sir Despard Murgatroyd in a 1982 television production of Gilbert and Sullivan's *Ruddigore* (with Keith Michell as Robin Oakapple). In 1982, Price provided the spoken-word sequence to the end of the Michael Jackson song "Thriller".[29] In 1983, he played the Sinister Man in the British spoof horror film *Bloodbath at the House of Death*. He appeared in *House of the Long Shadows* with Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, and John Carradine. He had worked with each of those actors at least once in previous decades, but this was the first time that all had teamed up. One of his last major roles, and one of his favorites, was as the voice of Professor Ratigan in Walt Disney Pictures' *The Great Mouse Detective* in 1986.[30]

From 1981 to 1989, Price hosted the PBS television series *Mystery!* In 1985, he provided voice talent on the Hanna-Barbera series *The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo* as the mysterious "Vincent Van Ghoul" who aided Scooby-Doo, Scrappy-Doo, and the gang in recapturing 13 demons. He was a lifelong fan of rollercoasters, and he narrated a 1987 30-minute documentary on the history of rollercoasters and amusement parks including Coney Island. During this time (1985–1989), he appeared in horror-themed commercials for Tilex bathroom cleanser.

In 1984, Price appeared in Shelley Duvall's live-action series *Faerie Tale Theatre* as the Mirror in "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", and the narrator for "The Boy Who Left Home to Find Out About the Shivers". In 1987, he starred with Bette Davis, Lillian Gish, and Ann Sothern in *The Whales of August,* a story of two sisters living in Maine facing the end of their days. His performance in *The Whales of August* earned the only award nomination of his career: an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.[31]

In 1989, Price was inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame.[32] His last significant film work was as the inventor in Tim Burton's *Edward Scissorhands* (1990).[33]

In 1990, Price recorded the narration for Disneyland Paris's Phantom Manor. However, after the attraction opened in 1992, the narration was shortly removed and replaced with one entirely in French, performed by Gérard Chevalier. Only Price's infamous laughter remained on the soundtrack. In 2018, it was announced that during Phantom Manor's major renovation, parts of Price's narration would be restored to the soundtrack of the attraction. For the 2019 re-opening, the new tracks feature Price once again, original excerpts as well as previously unused material from his 1990 recording, spoken English, with French actor Bernarde Alane doing the parts in French.