Dr. Bob's minions tire away endlessly to help the good Doctor in the name of science,
but with what little downtime they get they would like to share with you fine people! 

This week - Melanie brings you a look at Vincent Price!

Hi, I'm Melanie Gilbert. I am the classic horror fan of the cast. I would like to use my articles to take you through some of my favorite actors form the classic horror genre. I won't spend much time talking about each actor’s private life and careers as there are so many good sites about this; 2 of which you can find at the bottom of this article. Today I am going to tell you of how Vincent Price came into my life and his movies me.

Growing up one of my favorite movies was Pit and The Pendulum (1961), and would normally list that on school papers as one of my favorite movies. And now that I am older I wonder why my first grade teacher didn't call my parents to ask what they were doing to their child.

I know this was not the earliest horror movie I saw as I child, I believe I was 4 or 5 when I saw Bela Lugosi's Dracula. But Vincent Price became my go to actor for great movies as a child. I truly believed he could not make a bad movie; I still have a hard time hating almost any film that gives me Vincent Price. So many of his roles he played the villain, my favorites often the tormented soul, driven mad. I loved those roles because though the villain, there were at time so much heart to those roles that you wanted to cheer for him, wanting him to win (especially when it's revenge that causes his madness like in Theatre of Blood). These roles can have amazingly humorous moments and his ability to have that humor in almost every role he played made me love him.

As I grew up I began watching some earlier work of Vincent, and though I had always believed him handsome, I found he had started his career in more traditional leading man roles. And unlike most actors who seemed to want to be the handsome leading man that would get the great drama and love interest roles Vincent decided to go for a different path, the path lead him to many great psycho villainous roles, which he played to perfection.

Today Vincent is remembered best for his macabre work, especially the films he made with Roger Corman based off of the Edgar Allen Poe shorts and poems. Younger audiences will remember him from Edward Scissorhands, The Great Mouse Detective, or for his amazing voice which he used in Michael Jackson's Thriller.

As I got older my father, who gave me my love of classic monsters and the actors who gave them life, introduced me to Radio Dramas, he eventually bought The Price of Fear right before vacation and over the course of the ride I listed for hours to the amazing voice of my favorite actor preforming lovely creepy horror stories, in one story he even worked with another horror icon, Peter Cushing. If you ever have the chance I would highly recommend this series, it is one of my favorite radio series.

As a child I think the only thing I loved as much as Vincent Price was Scooby-Doo, then I found out about The 13th Ghost of Scooby-Doo and my life was complete. I know many people think this not one of the best series but how could I not love it with the addition of Vincent Van Ghoul.  Vincent was still playing as macabre as I was familiar with but this time instead of the villain that I knew would lose, he plays one of the heroes, and he was amazing.

Years later, as I started high school I at last found people my own age who had a similar love of Vincent and other classic icons and at last belong to a group I never knew I was missing; before this time I would only find people my parents age who knew and love all classic movies and the actors.

I also found out what an amazing man he was, a love of fine food and fine art. A man who would go to movies his horror films were playing and scare a few audience members to near death, and would take his daughter on roller coasters. As amazing as he was as an actor I think he may have been even more fascinating as a person I would highly recommend reading his daughter's biography on him, in the link below, to find out more.

I find myself at the end of this article reminding myself the oddest reason I am thankful for Vincent Price and how his movies touch so many people. I own a Vincent Price charm that I wear fairly often. I just happened to be wearing the day I met Bob, my husband and show creator. The first thing he noticed about me was that charm. That's where we started, with a love of Vincent Price become the beginning of our relationship. He credits Vincent Price so much in us getting together he asked me to wear that charm on our wedding day. So you see, dear reader, there is no other choice on who I begin my tale with. Without Vincent I would not be who I am, I would not have gotten with my husband, and we would not have built this show together. So as we remember him at the anniversary of his death next week, we should also celebrate the wonderful gifts he gave us.

For Vincent Prices bio and filmography please check here:

http://www.classicscreams.com/Celeb_Pages/Vincent_Price.html

For the official page run by his daughter visit the following page, you can also buy her book there.

http://www.vincentprice.com/pages/books

For More Musings, Check here!