Vincent Price

The best parts are the heavies. The hero is usually someone who has really nothing to do. He comes out on top, but it's the heavy who has all the fun.

Vincent Leonard Price Jr. (May 27, 1911 – October 25, 1993) was an American actor.

Quotes

• The best parts are the heavies. The hero is usually someone who has really nothing to do. He comes out on top, but it's the heavy who has all the fun.
  • From a syndicated article, as cited in "100 movies — and all horrors", The Herald-News (Newsweek Feature Service, 30 July 1971), p. 21

• ... the hero is usually a very dull, straightforward guy. He's got to be good.
  • (Oct 31, 2024) "Vincent Price Promotes Theatre of Blood and Talks About Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre". Johnny Carson, YouTube. (interview September 27, 1973; quote at 1:56 of 9:30 in video)

• Is there a better way to die than ... to be watching a movie and then just drop dead? ... with popcorn all over you ...
  • "Vincent Price on Aspel & Co 1984". The Vincent Price Legacy, YouTube. (July 1984 interview by Michael Aspel; quote at 6:07 of 10:01 in video)

• Acting, no matter what they say, is the same kind of art as a pianist or a violinist. We are interpretive artists, we interpret the script; the major thing is the script, the play. And we are as good as the scriptwriters. A certain couple of movies I’ve done, like Laura, really hold up and are as fresh today as they were 35 years ago, because the script was so good. Laura happened to be a classic movie because it was well made, well cast, and the music score became probably the most popular song written out of a movie. That’s the kind of thing one longs to do. One doesn’t get that many of them.
  • Flashback: Vincent Price talks about high art ... and low art. Family Home Theater (familyhometheater.com) (July 16, 2022). (October 20, 1985 interview by James Plath)

• I think if I have any regret at all about my theatrical career, it was that I didn’t stay longer in the theater. It was very hard to do because the transportation problem was quite serious. It took thirty-five hours to fly out. So you couldn’t really commute to the movie business the way you can do in London. But I wanted to be in movies, because I loved movies. I was a big movie fan. And still am and always have been.
  • Oral history interview with Vincent Price (August 1992)

• In a world where slaughter and vicious crimes are daily occurrences, a good ghoulish movie is comic relief.
  • Undated quote, as cited in "Vincent Price, Noted Actor Of Dark Roles, Dies at 82", The New York Times (October 27, 1993)

Misattributed

• Pray, speak quietly, every sound you make is such exquisite agony to me.
  • Variously misattributed to Price's performances in the films Witchfinder General and House of Usher, but this line appears in neither of these films. The quote appears to have been based on a misremembering by Stephen Fry on an episode of QI. The actual lines Fry appears to have referenced are "If you'd please, Mr. Winthrop...softly. An affliction of the hearing. Sounds of any exaggerated degree cut into my brain like knives" and "Any sort of garment other than the softest, is agony to my flesh. My eyes are tormented by all but the faintest illumination. Odors assail me constantly, and as I've said, sounds of any degree whatsoever inspire me with terror."

External links

• Official Site