Lessons on Being a Grown-Up from… Vincent Price?
Vincent Price as you’ve (probably) never seen him.
The Seventies was a lousy time to be a kid.
Oh, sure, it wasn’t all bad:
We didn’t wear bike helmets. Our parents made us play outside (“Get out of this house, and don’t come back ’til the street lights come on!”). We “bounced around in the back of the station wagon.” No one was allergic to peanut butter, or very much else.
Evel Knievel was a role model.
But something freakish, sinister, and incomprehensible was always being talked about, over at the Me Decade’s grown ups’ table:
Watergate (which had something to do with “bugs” invading America, I concluded; men in suits talked about it on TV so much, they interrupted my lunchtime Flintstones for months), the Patty Hearst kidnapping, Vietnam, Jimmy Carter, Bicentennial toilet seats, The Gong Show, hijackings, the Loud family, D.B. Cooper, divorce, things called “muggings,” crying Indians, gas station lineups and an unprecedented combination of high inflation, unemployment, and interest rates that adults muttered about in worried voices just out of earshot.
Epitomized by Howard Hughes’ will, fakery was epidemic:
We decorated our houses with plastic flowers and fruit. Squeaking drugstore paperback racks were laden with books about astrology, crypto-zoology, alien astronauts, and other junk history. “Everyone knew” that some all-powerful “They” had gotten away with killing the Kennedys and King. What chance did a timid, puny seven-year-old girl have?
If a rich child porn aficionado could bury a bunch of kids in their school bus, what the hell couldn’t happen?
A kid needed a break.
If you lived in my part of the world, starting around 1971, that respite came in the form of a cheap local TV show called The Hilarious House of Frightenstein.
Once upon a time, pretty much every city had their own “horror movie hosts” — those hammy guys who’d introduce the schlocky, public-domain flicks at midnight for the local station.
I grew up in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada — imagine a cross between the Jersey Shore and 1960s Pittsburgh — and we were too pathetic to even have one of those dudes, at least, not until I started high school, when a Toronto cult hit that only ran one season changed all that; I’ve been offered hundreds of bucks for my now tissue-thin All-Night Show t-shirt. (A rival network good-naturedly plays along with the gag, above.)
The thing is: We had something better.
The Hilarious House of Frightenstein was produced by our one and only TV station, CHCH. This hour-long kids’ show combined the then-hip look and sound of psychedelia (retina-searing, kaleidoscopic “special effects” plus current Top 40 hits) with the mid-century sensibility of Famous Monsters of Filmland.
The show’s “plot” concerned a banished count’s attempts to revive his comatose monster, but that was just a flimsy construction on which to mount a fast-paced series of corny sketches, semi-serious “educational” segments about grammar, physics, and chemistry, and — years before The Simpsons and Pixar — the occasional “over the kids’ heads” joke aimed at any adult who might find themselves awake at dawn — or earlier:
Another memory is the creation of the psychedelic background keyed behind Fishka and Billy. Two of us in the videotape department confused the hell out of the gear and created a synchronous feedback to go with the music. The other operator, Doug Bonar, is now Vice President of Global Television. I am a Professor of Television Broadcasting at Mohawk College in Hamilton. … Rif gave each of us the princely sum of five dollars for creating the effect. In hindsight, I should never have cashed the cheque. … Rif is famous now! That was his motivation for crew ingenuity. We had a ball with the show and felt a sense of ownership in making it great. You may not be aware that when it was syndicated in the states in the early 70’s it aired around 4:30 in half hour format. The story we heard was that it practically cleared the streets of New York of soft drug users so that they could freak out on the Wolfman segments!
Comedian Billy Van played most of the monsters. He was joined by a three-foot midget who struggled with his cue cards, a real live science professor who seemed to think he was on a serious program, an ever-changing assortment of reluctant zoo animals, and fan favorite Fishka Rais — actually an accomplished jazz singer back in his native South Africa — as green skinned, gentle giant Igor (what else?).
Frightenstein’s only real star was Vincent Price, who appears at the beginning and end of each episode, and reads mock-macabre poems and other interstitials.
What the heck was he doing there?
In 1968, Boris Karloff agreed to a brief cameo in upstart director Peter Bogdanovich’s first feature film, Targets. It’s about a Charles Whitman-type mass murderer whose shooting spree collides with Karloff’s character’s promotional appearance at a local drive-in.
Karloff essentially plays himself in Targets: a horror movie legend still recognized around the world by his last name alone, but whose career is in decline, reduced to cashing little checks for personal appearances (and, er, cameos in low-budget films).
His brand of harmless, campy scares no longer satisfies a jaded public that consumes real life horrors — Mai Lai, the Manson family, and, well, Charles Whitman — every day on the news.
A few years later, Vincent Price found himself in the same situation.
Older and “uncool” (despite receiving the imprimatur of another rising Hollywood director, Roger Corman), Price was out of fashion.
At the same time, CHCH had a limited budget, but wanted and needed some star power for their single camera kid’s show.
Who better to host this “monster mash” than Vincent Price, still one of the all-time great horror-movie icons?
The producers tracked down Price, who agreed to work for $3000 a day, one quarter of his usual per-diem appearance rate.
He loved children, he explained simply. And the gig sounded like fun.
CHCH checked their tiny budget. They could only afford Price for four days, tops.
Four days it would have to be.
Everyone signed on the dotted line.
Hamilton, Ontario, is never pretty at the best of times.
Price would have flown into Toronto on a summer day and been driven the one-hour trip to the CHCH studios in a quiet part of town that, while fairly far from the two massive steel mills, was probably still pretty stinky.
I hope the town car was air conditioned; the Golden Horseshoe gets humid. (One of my hometown’s nicknames is “the Armpit.”)
I’ve heard the story of what happened next from different sources, and it never ceases to warm my heart:
Price got into makeup and costume and was handed reams of doggerel poems about crazy characters he’d never heard of.
He’d read each piece once, put his head down, then look up at the camera’s red light and utter his lines perfectly in one take.
Next!
New makeup, new costume, same perfect delivery, hour after hour.
Finally, it was time for a break. The weary yet exhilarated crew turned off the cameras and lights.
Then they looked around and realized that Vincent Price had disappeared.
Oh well, they said to each other, what do you expect? He’s a big star and all. Plus he’s, like, 60 years old — (note: that was nearly 80 years old in ’70s years) — so he probably went for a nap…
The studio door opened a few minutes later.
It was Vincent Price and a cab driver, carrying a couple of “two-fours” of beer from the nearby Brewer’s Retail.
He handed cold stubbies out to the cast and crew and regaled them with tales of old Hollywood, his days working with Karloff and Peter Lorre and Gene Tierney and Cecil B. DeMille and all the other greats he’d known.
Then he posed for photos with everyone.
On an overnight rush, these were blown up into 8 x 10s, which Price personally autographed for everyone at the station.
He never complained, never blew a line or missed a mark.
In an era when standards of conduct were collapsing (just read Tom Wolfe), Vincent Price insisted on behaving like the well-bred gentleman he so often portrayed on screen.
It was a role that came easily to him. After all, he’d been born into considerable wealth, graduated from Yale, and owned a multimillion-dollar art collection.
Yet unlike many people who come from privileged backgrounds, Price didn’t treat the guys at the local station like disposable underlings and hired help.
Over those four days in Hicksville, Vincent Price earned every cent of that $12,000 — a measly sum for him, even with his career on the wane, but he knew it was a fortune for CHCH.
In those days, that was probably the annual salary of some of the fellows behind the cameras. Maybe.
Price had probably pictured himself, early in his career, performing Shakespeare and other classics, maybe winning Tonys and Oscars – not flying up to God-knows-where at sixty years of age, wearing stupid hats and taping silly poems for a show only a bunch of little kids would ever see.
He did it all in a most cheerful, generous, and humble fashion.
The Hilarious House of Frightenstein tried (far too hard) to be educational as well as entertaining. It wasn’t until after Vincent Price’s death that I heard the details about his brief visit to my hometown.
Ironically, that little throw-away story about his stoic, indefatigable professionalism was a more valuable lesson than any that ever made it on the air.
****
Previously from Kathy Shaidle on How To Be a Grown Up:
Now THAT inspired me. Was flagging this morning, but will buck up and be a professional.
But what ever happened to Rafe Markowitz?
And, while we’re at it, Tiny Talent Time?
Bravo, Mr. Vincent Price!
Thanks for the story.
Great story.
However, Mr. Price looks like he’s sitting for a haircut.
How everlastingly cool, and what a nice person he turned out to be, as well as a total professional. Way back in the day, the staff of the AFRTS station that I was assigned to had a chance to interview Charlton Heston – and it was the same with him. He was everlastingly polite and considerate, his answers were composed and literate – we could use just about every word that he said. The old-time stars were a different breed indeed.
http://www.ncobrief.com/index.php/archives/big-screen-and-operatic/
That’s because of what used to be called “education”.
Interesting that many of today’s actors can’t speak in an interview without saying something incoherent, offensive, or stupid. These people make their livings performing in front of audiences. You would think they’d be acutely aware of the impression their words and actions make on other people. And they can “become” anyone they want at the drop of a hat. Yet often what they choose to become is tongue-tied schlubs. What gives?
Stage. These classic gentlemen and ladies worked in live theatre. A living, breathing audience is far more challenging than take after take after take which will be edited unto something unrecognizable.
My wife, two small children and I were in the Gem and Mineral room of the Museum of Natural History in DC once. A man came into the room. I noticed him mostly because of the ascot asserting his tweed sport coat and his aviator sunglasses. As he got closer I recognized him as Heston. He was just slightly less tall than I, and I was five ft. 11. It was a surprise to me that he wasn’t six ft. three as I had always perceived him to be on film. His wife and children followed him in.
My wife had an embarrassingly small and cheap camera with her and she told me she was going to approach him and ask to take his photo. I did my best to try to stop her without making a scene but she went right up to him. He was very considerate, gathered his family round him and they all dutifully posed for a shot. What a modest gentleman! I was very impressed.
I love Vincent Price more and more all the time. I truly regret I never had the chance to meet him.
Hey Kathy Shaidle,
Wow! Thank you for writing your fantastic article about the HILARIOUS HOUSE OF FRIGHTENSTEIN! I loved that show when I was a child growing up in the 70’s and I still enjoy watching it now and then when it is featured on television.
As far as I know, Billy Van has still not received a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame sidewalk in Toronto which is a real shame. Perhaps Hamilton should consider creating its own Walk of Fame (if it hasn’t already) so that Billy Van will finally get the recognition that he deserves as well as any other famous personalities who originally hailed from Hamilton (like Martin Short for example, even though he already has a star in Toronto).
Thanks again for a great trip down memory lane that makes me nostalgically think of Igor and others dancing in silhouette in front of a psychedelic background accompanied by the Rolling Stones’ JUMPIN’ JACK FLASH, or the sinister/humourous poetry readings of Vincent Price, and of course, Billy Van’s wonderful assortment of monsters and characters.
Best regards,
Jon Hammond
Agreed, Sgt Mom – they don’t make ‘em like the old school anymore.
FYI to 5 Ft: we were regularly subjected to Julius Sumner Miller on the old Closed-Circuit TV systems used by Elementary schools in the US during the 70s. I suspect he might not have been self-aware enough to comprehend the difference between the two venues. It made him amusing (especially when promoting Michael Faraday), as he clearly intended to be instructional.
That said, I can’t help but think that Bill Nye took a page from JSM’s book in his own work; only difference was that he was in on the joke. Except for AGW, which JSM would have immediately recognized as BS science. Guess the old school had advantages in many areas.
I’m glad I read that, thank you.
Thanks for posting this Kathy. Dead right about growing up in the 70s.
I would have preferred the Great Depression.
Thanks everyone! Glad I could spark a few memories, and say a belated “thank you” to Vincent Price in the process.
Dear Ms Shaidle, I don’t mean to offend but sometimes when I run across your articles here and on Taki’s page, it’s 50/50 whether I’m going to read them. This one I read (obviously) and I wanted to thank you. When you write something that’s a miss, my eyes roll up into my head. BUT! when you write something that’s a hit, you knock it out of the ball park. This one traveled over the center field wall. I’d always heard that Vincent Price was a gentleman of the first order and as my father would have said, “a class act.” Thank you for that illustration. You’re not bad yourself. Thanks.
I had the pleasure of hearing a presentation by Mr. Price at college. Yes, he was warm, friendly, and a true professional. I remember that he liked playing the bad guys, because they had all of the good lines.
In the early eighties, i worked as a bellhop at the Empress Hotel in Victoria. The most dreaded shift was the late shift as the tips were low and you had to spend the last three hours there by yourself standing at your post. Vincent Price stayed at the hotel for a week as he was in town doing a one man show on Oscar Wilde. The first night he happened by and asked me what I would recommend to do as he had the day free tomorrow. Forget Butchart Gardens, I told him, go to Sooke (a nearby town), rent a boat, hire a guide and go salmon fishing. The following night he came by to thank me for the great suggestion. For the remainder of his stay, he would drop by each night on his way back into the hotel and stop for a chat. He was a charming, polite and elegant man who was head and shoulders above what pass for movie stars today.
Thanks for a great anecdote! You were lucky to meet Vincent.
Ahh, the 1970s. It’s almost impossible to believe how different things were then. For me, the decade was encapsulated by a single instance: roasting in the back seat of an olive green Ford stationwagon the size of a bungalow parked in the Oshawa Centre lot for 2 hours.
There will always be a special place in my heart for Frightenstein. In a vinyl-covered decade of pure crap, this show was something special. The story of Vincent Price going out and getting a couple of 2-4s for the crew is especially endearing. Class act, that guy!
It’s funny how the craziest character on the show was a real guy – perpetually livid Professor Julius Sumner Miller.
The creators of the show knew what they were doing. They knew correct way to teach English to children was through rote, and the omnipresent threat of physical violence at the hands of a giant monster (The Grammar-Slammer-Bammer).
For the life of me I simply cannot imagine Vincent Price playing Oscar Wilde without getting the giggles.
Although, considering Oscar Wilde DID write The Painting of Dorian Gray and that collection of downer fairy tales they may have had a few things in common.
I hope you will forgive me for picking a nit, but it is “The Picture of Dorian Gray”. I’ve made the same mistake in the past.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Picture_of_Dorian_Gray
Thanks for brightening my day, Kathy. You made me smile!
Vincent:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xYSCLddcVQ
a great actor and one of the great voices of all time
Frightenstein, Rocketship Seven, Commander Tom, Uncle Bobby, The Friendly Giant, Mr. Dressup, and from Kitchener-Waterloo on CKCW at lunch time, a show I wish I could recall the name of! The big gentleman presented it “from” the local railway station. If you grew up in southern Ontario in the 70s, you’ll recall these shows. Here’s a link that talks about the Buffalo shows, Rocketship Seven in particular, but also has links to Frightenstein and others.
The only show I remember coming out of Kitchener Waterloo was Schnitzel
House. Also don’t forget that great Hamilton show on sunday’s, good
old “Tiny Talent Time”. Played guitar on it when I was ten during our
Centennial year.
I went to the Uncle Bobby show when I was five. When he came to talk to the audience, he singled me out because I was crying. I could never watch the show after that traumatic experience.
Yeah, I always thought that Uncle Bobby was a little on the creepy side.
Sean – the noon hour show from CKCO in Kitchener you’re think of is “Cartoon Capers” hosted by “Big Al”.
http://ckco-history.com/BigAl.htm
Thanks Kathy, for the trip down memory lane …. feeling kind of old
OMG, Kathy! What a memory.
I grew up in Cleveland and was subject to the syndicated, half-hour version of this [what I always thought was] abominable waste of videotape. We kids tried to make the most of what little entertainment aired after school in the pre-cable days (I’m your age), and so sat through it. But I recall we only had about a dozen episodes running in constant rotation; ya seen one ya seen ‘em all.
But THANK YOU for turning my memories of an obnoxious, cheap display of bad puns and strobe effects, the same bad actors playing multiple characters, and outdated pop tunes, into the respect that your homage deserves. You’ve also answered the question I’ve had since grade 4: “What the heck was a star like Vincent Price doing there?!”
Anyone who’s cool with Dr. Phibes is okay by me,
Vincent Price — like a BOSS!
Thank you, Kathy, for seeing the value in thid story and sharing it with us. You made my week!
When I was in college in the 70′s, Vincent Price came to give a presentation on the villain in literature and the performing arts. It was wonderful! He was professional, interesting, funny and informative all at once. I have never forgotten him.
The media today is a gutter profession. Naturally the people in it are gutter people. Smut peddlers generally are.
thank you for an amazing article.
Very nice story – thanks
I went to elementary school with his daughter Victoria. He was exactly as you described. Warm, engaging, a wonderful raconteur, but also so down to earth. Last but not least, a fabulous cook and gourmand. The cookbook he wrote with his wife Mary, “A Treasury of Great Recipes,” is a collector’s item now and deservedly so. I poured over our signed copy as a child, cooked my very first “fancy” recipe from it for my parents anniversary when I was in 6th grade (and it came out perfectly). More than a collection of recipes, it’s a portrait of a more gracious world. If you are fortunate enough to track down a copy, I can’t recommend it enough.
As a child of the 70′s living in St. Catharines (close to Hamilton) I also watched CHCH all the time. I loved the HHOF and couldn’t wait to watch Vincent Price sitting in that chair and talking to us kids. The 1970′s were a great time to be a kid (not so much to be an adult) We were innocents in a pre-technological era.
Thank you so much for posting this! Mr. Price was one of the all-time greats, and it’s so wonderful to hear that he was such a fine man off-screen as well.
Stories like this epitomize what seems to be missing from modern life–class. Grace. The messages coming from the entertainment industry, and most of our supposed role models in general, are loud, harsh, and entirely self-serving . . . and that’s not even touching on the politicians.
YEP! The old-time Hollywood stars had eligance and class…they had to; studio heads insisted on it! The horror movies they made were scary (for those times), but, no blood, no gore…the heroine survived as did the monster so audiences weren’t too shocked, could leave the theater with a sense of relief and redemption…and they could make a sequel.
What ever happened to decency in movies? Where’d Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, the Lone Ranger, and Hopalong Cassidy go?
Or even the actors who, like Ben Gazarra, played bad guys but never found themselves doing illegal, immoral things…
Although I grew up in Detroit, I watched Channel 9, the CBC station in Windsor. Jingles the Clown, Herkimer J. Dragon (who I believe did a great Paul Harvey impersonation although I didn’t learn that until much later), Lord Layton a former wrestler who hosted their “professional wrestling” show etc. Fun stuff. Plus British imports. As for Mr. Price, one of his specialties was collecting Native American art. Watch his films from the 40s on YouTube and you’ll see how good and wide ranging he was as an actor. He was married to another fine British actor, Coral Brown. Who I believe did do Shakespeare. In Britain he would probably have been a Geoffrey Palmer or Leonard Rossiter, but not here. Professionalism, making the best of an iffy situation — it’s not easy. He is an inspiration — especially in this awful economy.
That was an amazing, inspiring story. Thank you.
(I would mention that as a teenager in the 70′s, which would make it “my decade” – well, it was better than the ’60s, basically the ’50s with promiscuity (no, not in my part of it) $12,000 was a great deal of money.)
I grew up during the 60′s, which made me a conservative. Still proud of campaigning for Nixon in ’72.
P.S. Does anyone remember – I was very young – a TV cartoon host who referred to commercials. as “interruptions”.
Wow!! Thanks for the trip down memory lane. . . . I grew up in SW PA in the 70s. . . used to catch stuff from Canada on early cable tv-2nd City TV comes to mind. . . had a friend who , with his parents , got to meet Vincent- said he was a super guy. Have heard the same of Boris Karloff, and you could, I imagine , add Christopher Lee in that group as well.
Thank you for sharing your memories.
The ‘Professor’ had his own science show. I do not recall the name of the show. He did experiments and demonstrations. Not all of them worked. But he performed each one with profound seriousness and seemed amazed with the result each time.
Again, thanks.
If that was the same one that we saw in Australia, I think it was called “Why Is It So?”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoroughly_Modern_Millie
Sorry, wrong thread.
Lovely, Kathy! I, too, grew up in Hamilton in the ’70s — wonder if we ever met? Must have at least crossed paths at Jackson Square…
As others have said, thanks for bringing back fond memories, and for giving a fine gentleman his due.
James
I’ve met and conversed with only two movie stars, and both were pleasant to me and my family.
The first was Richard Todd who had won an academy award for 1955′s “A Man Called Peter.” I met him in Sydney, Australia, where he was playing on stage in a play called “The Lady in Black.” The play had a cast of three, Todd and another actor on stage and a silent woman in the balcony. My wife, our two daughters, and I were in the middle of the second row. When we returned to our hotel, we mentioned the play to the desk clerk, and he told us Todd and the other actor were also staying at the hotel and should be coming in in a few minutes.
Sure enough, Todd and his associate came in. We told them how much we’d enjoyed the play, and both men said they’d particularly noticed my 11-year-old daughter in the audience. They signed our programs, and I mentioned a few of Todd’s movies, “A Man Called Peter,” 1950′s Hitchcock movie “Stage Fright,” and 1957′s “The Yangtse Incident.” I told Todd that, because of his WWII experience as a British parachutist, he should have been chosen instead of Dirk Bogarde to play General Browning, the commander of the British airborne troops in “A Bridge Too Far.” He said something complimentary of Bogarde’s performance.
A few years later, my wife and I met Eddie Albert at a Denver University banquet for donors to DU. I’d given the college about $10,000 of computer equipment I wasn’t using, and that qualified me to attend. The intended speaker for the evening had been the president of the National Geographic Society, but a death in his family required a quick replacement. Somehow, Eddie Albert had been recruited to speak about soil erosion. (I’ve no idea why.) (In 1956′s “Teahouse of the August Moon”, Eddie Albert played a US Army psychiatrist checking up on Glenn Ford’s character’s sanity. That movie psychiatrist was a fanatic about organic farming — not too far off the soil erosion topic!)
I told Albert how much I’d hated the psychotic Army captain he’d played in the 1956 movie “Attack!” He modestly dismissed the role as “type casting”, an amusing response given that his WWII service in the US Navy was actually commendable: “He was awarded the Bronze Star with Combat V’ for his actions during the invasion of Tarawa when, as the pilot of a U.S. Coast Guard landing craft, he rescued 47 Marines who were stranded offshore (and supervised the rescue of 30 others), while under heavy enemy machine-gun fire.”