Vincent Price: A Daughter's Biography - Softcover

Price, Victoria

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1497649447 ISBN 13: 9781497649446

Publisher: Open Road Distribution, 2014

Synopsis

Since his death in 1993, Vincent Price’s legacy as a Hollywood legend has only grown in stature. His lengthy and distinguished career—as the voice of The Saint on the radio; as an actor in such unforgettable horror films as House of Wax and The Fly, in classic movies such as Laura and The Song of Bernadette, and on popular TV shows such as Batman and The Brady Bunch; and as a star on the Broadway stage—spanned sixty-five years. In addition to being an icon of stage and screen, Price was an art historian and collector who did much to popularize the visual arts in the United States, as well as a gourmet chef and author of bestselling cookbooks. Widely revered for his elegance and erudition, this Renaissance man left his mark on many areas of American culture during the twentieth century.
 
Vincent Price was also a loving father to his daughter Victoria, who was born shortly before he turned fifty-one, at the height of his popularity. Though the star’s busy film schedule took him in and out of his young daughter’s life, he was always a larger-than-life presence and, simply, her father. The deep bond between father and daughter managed to survive the machinations of Price’s third wife, the elegant British actress Coral Browne, who resented the close relationship between Price and his children and grandchildren. After Browne’s death, Price and his daughter spent over a year taping conversations that would form the basis of this compelling biography-cum-memoir.
 
In writing about the father she adored, Victoria Price reveals a man complex, human, and humorous. An actor of range, less than one-third of the movies in which he appeared were in the horror genre. As a pre-war anti-Nazi sympathizer, he was greylisted during the Red Scare of the 1950s until, in a desperate gesture, he signed a secret oath that saved his career. His passion for the arts gave him a second life as a savvy columnist and museum founder, even as his films were featured in drive-ins nationwide. And through it all, Vincent Price’s professionalism, grace under pressure, and tongue-in-cheek humor earned him lifelong friendships among his peers and generation after generation of loyal fans.
 
Victoria Price’s account of her father is one of candor and honesty; both his passionate and charismatic public persona and his conflicted inner life are treated with curiosity and understanding. Vincent Price: A Daughter’s Biography is, in short, the thorough—and uniquely intimate—life of a legend.
 
For more information about Vincent Price, please visit vincentprice.com.
 

About this title

Review:

“Definitive, exhaustively researched and superbly written, the book contains none of the sentimentality the subtitle may suggest . . . . Victoria Price tells Vincent’s tale with such clear-eyed pride that the reader cannot help being won over.” —Publishers Weekly
“This is an excellent, detailed, readable biography of the Gable of Gothic.” —Booklist
“[Vincent Price] emerges as one of his most complex characters in this entertaining and touching biography.” —The New York Times
 

About the Author:

Victoria Price is a designer, art consultant, public speaker, and the author of Vincent Price: A Daughter’s Biography, the critically acclaimed account of her father’s life. She has also written for the New York Times, A&E’s Biography, and many other national, regional, and local magazines, newspapers, and television programs. Price has taught at the University of New Mexico, New Mexico Highlands University, and the Philos School, an alternative arts-and-humanities school in Santa Fe, New Mexico, that she helped to found. She is currently working on the fiftieth anniversary edition of A Treasury of Great Recipes by Mary and Vincent Price, to be published in 2015, as well as a memoir and a book on design.

About this edition

• Publisher: Open Road Distribution
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1497649447
• ISBN 13: 9781497649446
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 632