Screenland (Jul–Dec 1946)

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After he had played a sufficient number of times in "Victoria Regina" people began thinking of him as a young Englishman, and Gilbert Miller, the New York producer, was sufficiently impressed to offer him a contract to play the same role on Broadway. The contract duly signed and in his pocket, Vincent wired Mr. Miller to send him the cost of his passage home. Mr. Miller scornfully ignored this wire, believing, no doubt, that Mr. Price was in the chips. Actually, players in all Gate Theater productions in those days were working for prestige, since all of them got the same munificent salary — even the stars — $15 a week. So Vincent, though he was being hailed as a great star in England, could barely get up the price of passage to New York. When Gilbert Miller sent him a wire reprimanding him for stalling, he gathered up his one suitcase and arranged to travel to New York by steerage. He merely informed Mr. Miller that he was coming on the Aquitania. Mr. Miller told the New York press about the great star he had signed up, and advised them to be at the gangplank and get the story of a lifetime. The "story of a lifetime'* walked through steerage, swinging his extra coats on one arm, while on the other he carried all his extra pairs of shoes, which swung neatly from a rope. Not a reporter saw him. As for Vincent, it never occurred to him that reporters were waiting. The next day, Mr. Miller bitterly reproached him: "Who the devil do you think you are, refusing to speak to the press?" "Refusing to speak to the press?" gasped Vincent. "You mean reporters were waiting for me?" It turned out that the reporters were waiting where the first class passengers docked. In their wildest dreams it hadn't occurred to them that "the story of a lifetime, one of the biggest stars in England," would arrive by steerage. For three years "Victoria Regina" kept Gilbert Miller's theater full of audiences flocking to see Helen Hayes and Vincent Price and the rest of the brilliant cast. Then one summer Vincent decided to get some experience in stock in Skowhegan, Maine, where he was offered the role of Parnell. Playing Katie O'Shea to his Parnell was Edith Barrett, one of America's fine actresses, a vivacious Irish brunette with very dark hair and dark brown eyes. Katie O'Shea, you remember, was madly in love with Parnell. Usually when an actor and actress play such violent love scenes together, one of two things happens. They either begin to hate each other cordially or they fall in love. Edith and Vincent didn't hate each other cordially. In New York, they later played together in "Shoemaker's Holiday," put on by Orson Welles' Mercury Theater. They were both in the same cast but not as lovers. They didn't have to be. Every time they looked at each other, they knew that there was something between them which certainly wasn't hate. Orson Welles worked all his players fantastically hard. They had barely time enough to do anything but act. Still, during the lunch hour Vincent and Edith went to Longchamps, ate and looked at each other. They discovered that they liked doing both. They were delighted when they got a day off during rehearsals. It was spring; love was in bloom, and so was the countryside in and near New York. They got into a car, and Vincent drove into Connecticut. On the way home, under a spring moon, he told Edith how he felt about her. She felt the same way about him. One Friday night the play in which they were appearing closed; they were married the following morning. "The wedding reception," laughs Vincent, "was so full of actors it looked like a revival of 'Trelawney of the Wells.' I didn't know so many actors, since I had been acting only a few years, but Edith'sgrandfather, Lawrence Barrett, had been a famous actor in his day and Edith's family knew all the famous actors of two or three generations. And they all came." The bride and groom enjoyed only a weekend honeymoon. The following Monday, Vincent was back at work. And he continued to work very steadily on the New York stage, so movie scouts naturally pricked up their ears and began to ask for Vincent. Universal got him first. His first picture was "Service DeLuxe," with Constance Bennett. "It was a deluxe picture, but it wasn't any good," he says frankly. "The executives at Universal had an idea that because I was tall, I could be turned into a second Gary Cooper. I told them, 'The only person who can be a second Gary Cooper is Cooper,' but they didn't listen to me." As a second Gary Cooper, Vincent Price was just as bad as he is good as the first and only Vincent Price. The "second Gary Cooper" gag wore pretty thin after two or three pictures. The public continued to go to see the first Gary Cooper. And Vincent eventually went back to Broadway, where he achieved another brilliant success as the murderous husband in "Angel Street." (This was the play which was later screened as "Gaslight," with Charles Boyer playing the Vincent Price role.) Twentieth Century-Fox scouts, seeing Vincent in "Angel Street," decided that with proper casting, Price could be priceless, and without even testing him, offered him the role of the imperial prosecutor in "The Song of Bernadette." Since then, Vincent has played many roles in Hollywood, none of them particularly romantic. I asked him if he didn't regret his lost opportunity to become another Van Johnson. He laughed and said he didn't envy Van a bit. "Who wants to have his clothes torn off? Not I! Besides, I played plenty of romantic roles on the stage. I like any kind of role in which I can lose myself , and that can happen just as easily in a role as a murderer or criminal as in a romantic part. I should hate to be limited to just playing myself. That, I think, would be very dull, since most of the fun in acting is getting out of yourself." Which, no doubt, is true. Nevertheless, the real Vincent Price is so charming, even in an undershirt, that if Twentieth ever put him on the screen just exactly the way he is, I think the priceless Price would be more priceless than ever and the merry jingle of many coins would be heard at the box-office. 80 SCREENLAND