Vincent Price

[Marky B]

I believed the late US horror star Vincent Price was a bit of an Anglophile (he was married to Australian born but Brit based Coral Browne) and he spent sometime in this country. However,I seem to recall that he once had a cookery programme on British television in the seventies. I know he was a gourmet,but was he a Jamie Oliver of his time?

Ta Ta

Marky B

[smudge]

(Marky B @ Nov 9 2005, 08:08 PM)

I believed the late US horror star Vincent Price was a bit of an Anglophile (he was married to Australian born but Brit based Coral Browne) and he spent sometime in this country. However,I seem to recall that he once had a cookery programme on British television in the seventies. I know he was a gourmet,but was he a Jamie Oliver of his time?

Ta Ta

Marky B

Vincent Price was an amazingly cultivated man.



Not only was he a gourmet and (IIRC) a Cordon Bleu chef, he trained in art and lectured on the subject all over the world. He was influential as an adviser and buyer for a number of the major American galleries.



All this and that marvellously self-deprecating (very British?) sense of humour.



As to the show on British TV, I can't say. But he was leagues above Jamie Oliver.



(But then that wouldn't be difficult..)



SMUDGE

[Hugo]

I remember him on a chat show in the 1980s, it might have been WOGAN, where he demonstrated how to cook fish in a dishwasher by wrapping the fish in foil and taking it through a complete cycle of the dishwasher. I think this may have been his party piece.

[lovegod]

He was really a good looking and distinguished guy

.... with a brilliant, cultivated American accent that filled

the cinema.



If the Americans have an upper class, then surely Vincent

was right up there in high society.

He was a bit of an art connoisseur too I believe, as well as

a gourmet.



But I cant help thinking that he loved to ... ham it up....

and show off on screen..... !

Yet he was often brilliant and lent a bit of class to every movie he was in.



I m sure that ....as time goes on...... his reputation will

grow until he becomes a classic.... if not a cult figure.

[howardmitchell]

i remember in his film " the abominable dr phibes" a scene where he leaves terry thomas ,

and glances at a painting , then looks back with a note of disstain ! .

( was that price the actor,or price the art critic ????)

[howardmitchell]

ps

also in "theatre of blood" ( diana rigg ) he cooks robert moreleys poodles !

[Windthrop]

He was also a well-known practical joker and would pretend to have cut a finger off, wrapping his hand in a bloodstained tissue to the horror of his guests.

[wadsy]

Wasn't he involved in a "Quiz Show" type scandal on American TV. I think it was



about Art & there was a story about him being given some answers



beforehand. Or am I just imagining it ?

[Windthrop]

Wasn't he involved in a "Quiz Show" type scandal on American TV. I think it was



about Art & there was a story about him being given some answers



beforehand. Or am I just imagining it ?

He did win The $64,000 Question on the subject of art once IIRC but I haven't heard anything about a scandal involving Price.

[will.15]

Dr. Joyce Brothers also won and legitamately.

[batman]

Dr. Joyce Brothers also won and legitamately.

Dr. Joyce Brothers and the $64,000 Question



If TV game show Twenty-One was fixed, then the $64,000 Question was "controlled." If they liked a contestant and thought he/she was good for ratings, then they picked questions which played to the strength of the contestant's expertise. And if they didn't like you, they fielded you a hard ball.



Such is the case with Dr. Joyce Brothers, the only person to win both the $64,000 Question and the $64,000 Challenge. But that was far from the plan. The producers wanted to dump her early. Didn't think she had star power.



Partly influenced by Martin and Charles Revson, of Revlon, the show's sponsors, producers attempted to stump Dr. Brothers.



They loved contradictions. The mechanic who knew opera. In her case, the psychologist who knew boxing. Once she got to a certain level and they wanted rid of her, they threw her a question about referees, which they thought to be beyond her grasp.



But the enterprising Dr. Brothers had been studying in between weekly shows, and surprised them all by answering correctly. What could they do but let her run on?



Later she was on the sister show for winners, the $64,000 Challenge where she was challenged by a team of boxers, and yup, again she won the big prize.



from 'Quiz Shows of the 50s'



Whether VP knew his answers were 'loaded' or not was never confirmed.

[Gerald Lovell]

All a bit ironic considering Price's role in Champagne for Caesar (1950).

[AdobeFlats]

A practical joker?

He once sat behind two females in a US cinema who were watching one of his horror pics, and at a pivotal moment bent forward between their heads, and used his wonderful voice to scare the sh*t outta them by saying something like 'Hello, it's me'.

[orpheum]

I am about to start on the biog of his wife Coral Browne.I believe that a whole can of worms opened by her will.I am about to find out.

[Arfur Teacake]

I think we brought out the best in Vincent Price when he came to the UK?



made during the colour strike of Christmas 1970

[Vlad Orlok]

Both of Hammer and Price's career's are quite similar:



They started off in the mid/end 30's, and more or less died in the mid 80's



They both peaked between 57/58 and 72/73



They were both specialized in gothic horror movies, while some lesser success also were achieved in adventure, comedy and film noir



Some people have suggested to me that Vincent Price maybe couldn't appear in any Hammer movie because of contract problems, but then why did he appear in the Amicus movie "The Monster Club" and the Tigon movie "Witchfinder General"?



Could anyone please clear this mystery why Vincent Price never made any Hammer movie? To me he seemed ideal for Hammer!



Jan

[avalard]

Jimmy Sangster talks about a script in his book 'Inside Hammer' that was earmarked for Vincent in the 1970s but it never came to fruition.



Possibly he was simply too easily identifiable with the Corman pictures for Hammer's executives. Who knows, maybe if the AIP deal with Hammer had lasted longer they might have brought Vincent in for one.

[Vlad Orlok]

To me it doesn't seem believable that Vincent Price was "too easily identifiable with the Corman pictures for Hammer's executives", if he wasn't so for Amicus and Tigon, but...what do i know? Nothing! I asked for a possible reason, and i got one.



ViP seems to me so ideal for Hammer that he in fact should have made MANY for them, but i know it wasn't Hammer's policy to use the same foreign actor in more than one movie.



Jan

[avalard]

Well most of the Amicus and Tigon films (them all?) were co-produced/distributed with AIP, so it was in their interest to use Price.



Witchfinder General went out in the US as Conqueror Worm precisely to make the most of the Corman/Poe connection with Price's films.



I'm only suggesting that the Hammer executives might not have wanted the connection. Hammer weren't against using the import actors more than once. They tried to get Ursula Andress back, Bette Davis did two for them, Stephanie Powers, James Olson, Dane Clark and more...



People assume Price did Hammer films anyway, regardless of the fact that he didn't. So maybe it doesn't matter

[Windthrop]

He may well have been more expensive than Lee and Cushing