Vincent Price: 'The scariest man in film'

The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Sat, 10/27/2007 4:32 PM  |  Life

Patrick Guntensperger, Contributor, Jakarta

Fifteen years ago Thursday, just days before Halloween, Vincent Price, who has been called ""the scariest man in film"" and ""the King of the Grand Guignol"" passed away.

Vincent Price was to horror films what John Wayne was to westerns, Errol Flynn to swashbucklers, and W. C. Fields to comedies. Each of those great stars epitomized the genre he represented and each, in his own way, lived his personal life in the manner of the characters and roles for which he was famous. Except for Vincent Price.

While The Duke consciously lived the way he thought a Western icon ought to live, while Errol Flynn brawled, caroused, and wenched his way through Hollywood, and while W.C. Fields genuinely was an hysterically funny alcoholic misanthrope with a real antipathy for ""children and small dogs"", Vincent Price lived completely against type. He was a cultivated, gentle, and widely loved patron of the arts.

Born to a wealthy family on May 27 1911, Price was educated at Yale and years later took an M.A. at the Cortauld Institute in London. He caught the acting bug when he played one of the leads in ""H.M.S. Pinafore"" during a stint as a teacher after graduating from Yale. At six foot four and suavely sophisticated, he seemed destined for a career as a leading man on stage; indeed, his early career took him in that direction.

After a number of early successes on the London stage he was asked to reprise the role of Prince Albert in Laurence Houseman's Victoria Regina against ""the First Lady of American Theater"", Helen Hayes, in the U.S. production. He became an instant star, doing screen tests, taking on a variety of roles, even for a brief time lending his voice and talents to Orson Welles' Mercury Theater.

He signed with Universal Studios in 1938 and over the next decade and a half starred in a series of well-received films including James Whale's Green Hell, Laura, The Song of Bernadette, Hudson's Bay, The House of Seven Gables and Brigham Young - Frontiersman. It was during this period that he founded the Vincent Price Gallery on the campus of the East Los Angeles College in 1951.

Like many of his contemporaries, during the McCarthy era, Price found himself caught up in the communist witch-hunts of the House Committee on Un-American Activities. By employing his formidable arsenal of charm and cultured forthrightness, he managed to escape with his reputation and career intact without naming names or accusing anyone of anything -- a feat even Orson Welles was famously unable to pull of.

In 1953 Price signed on to do a film that would redirect his career and begin the process of turning him into an enduring icon and film legend. House of Wax, about a vengeful and horribly scarred sculptor returning from his supposed death, was a roaring success even without the talents of Paris Hilton to help it out. That was quickly followed The Mad Magician.

The years of 1958 and 1959 were a watershed period for Vincent Price. During those two years he starred in no less than five pictures in the genre with which he would soon become inextricably associated: The House on Haunted Hill, The Tingler, The Fly, Return of the Fly, and The Bat. Over the next few years Price starred in some of the Edgar Allen Poe films for which he is widely remembered: House of Usher, Pit and the Pendulum, The Raven, The Masque of the Red Death, and The Haunted Palace. He never stopped working until his death.

Although he appeared in over 200 films and made even more television appearances, and played roles from historical figures like Walter Raleigh in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex to the inventor in Tim Burton's Edward Scissorhands, Vincent Price never took himself or his image as an icon of terror very seriously. In fact, only some 30 percent of his total filmography is in the horror or science fiction genres. Nevertheless he was always happy to send himself up in self-parody (The Hilarious House of Frightenstein, Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In) and loved to do outrageous camp (Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine, et al).

It was the painting, sculpting, musical, and culinary arts that Price took very seriously. A late convert to rock'n roll, he memorably contributed to the best-selling music video of all time, Michael Jackson's Thriller. Throughout his life, Price collected fine art and developed his skill and reputation as a gourmet chef; he even starred for many years on his own cookery show. When he died in October 1993 of lung cancer and the Parkinson's that he had so well concealed from his fans, the eulogy was emotionally delivered by his friend Roddy McDowell and his ashes were scattered off the California coast.

Hors d'oeuvres from his favorite restaurant were served.

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