Tuesday, July 23, 2024
The Carol Burnett Show [CBS, early 1970's]
Friday, July 19, 2024
The Invisible Man Returns [Universal, 1940]
John Sutton (Vincent's most frequent costar), Nan Grey, and Vincent Price in Universal's The Invisible Man Returns. Price would reprise the role very briefly at the conclusion of Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein [Universal, 1948].
An original herald advertisement for the film.
Thursday, July 18, 2024
Wednesday, July 17, 2024
Vincent Price as Mormon Founder Joseph Smith - Brigham Young [20th Century Fox, 1940]
In the 1940 film Brigham Young (also known as Brigham Young - Frontiersman), Vincent Price portrayed Joseph Smith, the Palmyra, NY farmer who claimed to have been led to buried ancient texts describing Christ's time in the new world. His 'discovery' formed the basis for the Church of Latter-Day Saints (Mormonism). The film depicts Smith's brutal murder at the hands of a mob in Nauvoo, Illinois. Dean Jagger played Brigham Young, Smith's successor as leader of the Mormons.
Tuesday, July 16, 2024
Gilbert & Sullivan's Ruddigore [BBC, 1983]
Monday, July 15, 2024
Sears Carpet Ad - 1968
As part of Vincent Price's long association with the Sears-Roebuck Company, the actor purchased original art for the public to buy at their local stores and allowed the use of his name on everything from boxes of candy to art supplies. Here is a 1968 magazine advertisement using Price as pitchman for kitchen carpeting.
Sunday, July 14, 2024
Vincent Price's Last Bow - The Heart of Justice [TNT, 1992]
Thursday, July 11, 2024
Earliest Known Press Photo of Vincent Price - 1923
This December 30, 1923 photo from the St. Louis Post Dispatch is probably the first time that Vincent Price's image appeared in the press. He was 12 years old. How appropriate is it that he's holding a skull?
Below is the entire page with the full story behind the photo.
Wednesday, July 10, 2024
Artist Harry Clarke's Influence on Two Vincent Price Film Posters
An original studio still featuring poster art by prolific artist Reynold Brown for the 1960 Roger Corman film House of Usher. The image of Madeline Usher in her coffin was clearly inspired by Harry Clarke's 1919 illustration for Poe's story The Premature Burial, below.
Tuesday, July 9, 2024
War-Gods of the Deep [American-International Pictures, 1965]
Monday, July 8, 2024
Vincent Price as 'Big Daddy' in Beach Party [American-International Pictures, 1963]
The character of 'Big Daddy' in this first installment of AIP's 'beach pictures' series is asleep throughout the film, with his hat over his face. At the end, he awakens and reveals himself to be Vincent Price. He speaks one line: "The pit! Bring me my pendulum, kiddies, I feel like swinging!"
Sunday, July 7, 2024
Saturday, July 6, 2024
Thursday, July 4, 2024
Dragonwyck [20th Century Fox, 1946]
Vincent as Nicholas Van Ryn plays for new governess Gene Tierney, as his sickly wife (Vivienne Osborne) watches, in this atmospheric still from Dragonwyck. The film offers a glimpse at the type of character Vincent would play in his Poe films in the 1960's.
Wednesday, July 3, 2024
The Baron of Arizona [Lippert, 1950]
Thursday, March 14, 2024
The Mysterious "Dottie"
I was sixteen when I met the man whom my mother could have married. It was January 31, 1964, in St. Louis, Missouri. He was in town for a professional engagement. My parents had invited him over to our house that evening for cocktails before we went to a party. I was so excited to be included! It was the night of my father, Pete Leland's, 57th birthday. It had been twenty-nine years ago that this man had proposed to my mom, Dottie. I thought it was so unique that my dad and he were able to cut through jealousy and engage each other in light-hearted fun - displaying similar assets of respectful manners combined with wit and humor.
This man of 52 years, a year younger than my mother, was tall, elegant and handsome. I was struck by his statuesque, yet graceful presence. I was even more impressed with his warm and gentle demeanor, very unlike the many roles he played as the King of Horror. This man was Vincent Price. And I was a very enchanted young lady! ...finally getting to meet the famous man who had captured my mother's heart (many years before) but not her hand in marriage. He had fallen deeply in love with her, and it was very obvious that his feelings hadn't changed. It was also obvious that she still adored him but felt secure in her decision not to marry him. Even though they both grew up in the very finest cultured environment of St. Louis society and experienced a thrilling romance together, my mother had a strong sense of standards that were passed on down to her from her family.
Marrying into the life of the theatre was considered too unpredictable and unstable. This was definitely a mind-over-heart situation. Knowing my mom and her ways, I was never surprised that she said no. And she definitely made a fantastic choice in my wonderful dad who treated her beautifully and provided for her well in taking over his father's well-established publishing business. But I was always in awe over how she could do it - turn him down and pull it off and still keep up and be friends with him!
I'll never forget that night when I met this marvelous man. Mother had told me all about him and, of course, I'd seen him in the movies. I even made up a fun pun as a slogan to my friends, "Mom ended up marrying Daddy, and that's why I'm so priceless!" I was active in drama at school and was infatuated with acting. So, on that special night, I was not only exhilarated to meet Vincent but also to talk with him about his profession. Which we did. In the letter of March 3rd that he had written Mother from Los Angeles after his trip here, he summed up the event perfectly:
Many thanks for sending me the clips – and for being the same beautiful, delightful, luscious you! Show that to Pete – good for husbands.
I loved meeting Irene – she’s a dear and I hope she either does it, the theatre, or gets it out of her system – anyway she can only learn from it how better to communicate with her fellow men --
All Love to you all.
Ever, Vince”
I also remember on that eventful evening of meeting Vincent Price that he proudly showed me a picture of his two-year-old daughter, Victoria. She looked just like him! I kept thinking . . .I wonder who her mother is and what it was like living in their world in California.
In January 2000, a friend and I had our little late Christmas exchange. She brought me the newly released biography, Vincent Price, by his daughter, Victoria. Needless to say, I clutched this biographical treasure with glee! When the timing became just right - I plunged into Vincent Price with excitement and great curiosity! I wondered if Victoria ever knew about my mother. And if she did not, while Vincent was living, I wondered if she had discovered anything about it later during her research for the book.
There I was, sitting on the family room sofa ever intently devouring
Victoria's every word with extreme trepidation as my eyes arrived upon page 59 of chapter nine. By golly, there it was! She devoted the whole page to "The Mysterious Dottie"! Well, it's probably a good thing that I was alone in the house at the time because I immediately burst into, not only talking out loud, but jumping up and down and squealing with joy - not to mention dancing around the room! My two sweet dogs looked at me as if to say, "Hey, Mom - have you lost it?"
But then, Victoria talks about how nothing else was known regarding the mysterious Dottie, where she came from, who she was, or what happened to her ... or whether or not Dottie accepted or refused the ring. The only hint was in a letter he wrote to his family two months after he proposed in which he states that he was very upset about something.
Needless to mention, I could hardly wait to contact Victoria! When I discovered that her phone in Santa Fe was unpublished, I decided to write to her - care of her publisher. Then, a few days later, I got a lucky break. I was at a ladies' luncheon sharing my fun news about "The Mysterious Dottie". One of the ladies, Anne McAlpin, told me she knew who could give me Victoria's private number! Lo and behold, several months before, during her book tour, Victoria had visited our alma mater, Mary Institute/Country Day (where Vincent and Mother graduated), for a quick lecture/book-signing event while she was here for a major bookstore signing. Anne suggested I contact the administrator who organized the school event. Good heavens! She was here in St. Louis promoting her book and I didn't know?! How did I miss it? My head was in a spin. Then reality returned.
Interestingly enough, at the same time that Victoria Price was here promoting her new book, I was enwrapped in promoting my new book, A-Maze-in' St. Louis. With all of the whirlwind details of the publishing, marketing and interviewing and my own book-signing at another major book store, I was completely focused and somehow didn't get the word.
But after a brief disappointment in not having met her, I realized that maybe it could turn out to be even more intriguing this way. The mystery of "The Mysterious Dottie." And I was about to make a phone call, a call that would unravel a mystery.
Victoria says depicts his cottage in Ontario, Canada
An electrifying force charged through the rest of the conversation! I told her the main ingredients that I knew. Yes, Vincent was crazy in love with Mom. And Mom simply adored him. They graduated from high school the same year at sister/brother schools. The ring he sent her was an exquisite huge golden sapphire, and it arrived baked inside a cake! He was in London. She was in Paris. Yes, she accepted the ring and she saved it. From what I remember, he insisted that she keep it. She later had the stone reset as a pin and gave it to me when I made my debut. Mother, at some point, said no to marriage due to the mindset at the time that life in the theatre was "shaky". Mom never mentioned details, but it seems that there was a brief "on hold" period of time before she gave him her final answer. But they stayed in touch through the years, and whenever Vinny would come to St. Louis, Dottie would invite him to come over for cocktails or dinner.
I told Victoria about the fabulous photo of Mom and Vinny that I took of them in 1978 when he and his third wife, Carole, came to dinner at Mom's and her second husband, Bob's house (my father had passed away in 1975). I said I'd make a photocopy to send her along with one of Mom when she made her debut in 1930. This was from an original portrait that truly depicts what a classic beauty my mother was. Both my father and Vinny used to say how much she looked like Carol Lombard, the actress.
At one point, as I was talking with her, I exclaimed that I was in my family room looking up on the cedar wall at a framed painting that Vincent had made and given to Mom. I described it, and she said, "Oh my gosh, that sounds like the cottage in Ontario!"
We chatted a bit about what things we were doing in our own lives. What fun it was that we were both writers. We exchanged addresses and I gave her my phone number. (I, by the way, did go on and pursue acting - not on stage, but in TV and radio commercials and industrial films. The last time I saw Vinny, he was telling me how he had just started doing TV commercials for Creamette pasta and how very different, even difficult, it was from his usual mode of acting. He was pleased that I had discovered a fun career and he admired my doing so.)
The Mysterious Dottie. Well, she's not so mysterious any more. Now Vincent's daughter has an answer to the mystique. And on that special page of her book, Victoria provided information that I had not known. Yet there are still many hidden secrets that we both don't know, many aspects about their friendship and romance that are obscure. But happily, the unfolded mystery brought two women together in a phone call. After that call, I couldn't help but think what is so obviously distinct and yet so eerie. If Dottie had married Vinny, Victoria and I would not be here!
What's even more eerie and symbolic is a fact of the aftermath. On October 9, 1993, Mom, along with my stepfather, Bob, was murdered by the yardman in their home. Besides being a major story here in St. Louis, it really shook up the fine community in which they lived, where there had not been a killing in 40 years. Vincent was contacted by friends here, and I was told that he was absolutely devastated. Sixteen days later, Vincent Price passed on after struggling with cancer.
Diversions and Delights in 1978. Irene Leland and her former husband are
shown with a casual VP. Below is a recently-discovered photo from the same evening, with
Vincent, Dottie, and her second husband, Robert.
Friday, February 2, 2024
Mary Price's Favorite Portrait of Her Husband
Taken sometime during the late 1960's, this photo was - according to daughter Victoria - Mary Price's favorite portrait of her husband. He must have been fond of it, too, as it was the photo he'd most often use when responding to his fans.
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Taken sometime during the late 1960's, this photo was - according to daughter Victoria - Mary Price's favorite portrait of her husba...
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Introduction In her father's book, Vincent Price: A Daughter's Biography, Victoria Price refers to a mysterious woman with whom her ...
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Although Edward Scissorhands [20th Century Fox, 1991] was Vincent Price's final theatrical film, his final performance was in The Heart ...