VINCENT PRICE Jr. was an American actor. born on this date (d: 1993), best known for his performances in horror films, although his career spanned other genres, including film noir, drama, mystery, thriller, and comedy. He appeared on stage, television, and radio, and in more than 100 films. He has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for motion pictures and one for television. He was born and raised near St. Louis, Missouri and has a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame as well.
He was an art collector and arts consultant with a degree in art history, and he lectured and wrote books on the subject. The Vincent Price Art Museum at East Los Angeles College is named in his honor. He was also a noted gourmet cook.
Price’s Lesbian daughter, Victoria, recently spoke for the first time about her late father’s bisexuality. Price, who died in 1993, had a nearly 60 year Hollywood career and starred in many memorable films including House of Wax, House of Usher, Laura, The Fly, and The Raven, among many others.
‘I am as close to certain as I can be that my dad had physically intimate relationships with men,’ Victoria Price says ‘I know for 100 percent fact that my dad was completely loving and supportive of LGBT people.’
‘Everybody asks me: was your dad bisexual, was he bisexual,’ Price says. ‘And it was (the late actor) Roddy McDowall who said to me, you know, we didn’t have any idea what bisexuality meant in that sense, and if we didn’t know, then how can we know the answer to that question?’ When she came out to her dad, he did not come out to her but she was met with absolute understanding.
‘The interesting thing for me is that when I came out to him and he said to me, “You know, I know just how you feel because I have had these deep, loving relationships with men in my life and all my wives were jealous.”‘
The family loved across the street from Rock Hudson while Price was growing up and there were always a lot of gay people in their house.
‘”Uncle Rupert and Uncle Frank” came to every dinner party and it was very clear that they were together. And while the word [gay] was never mentioned, it was very much the norm,’ she says.
‘I remember at nine-years-old going to drop something off at Rock Hudson’s house – of course, I was super excited because I was a huge Rock Hudson fan. So this absolutely beautiful man came to the door and in my nine-year-old mind, I thought, oh, that’s – I don’t know if I had a word for it – but that’s his “Uncle Frank or Uncle Rupert,” right?’
Victoria Price also makes a revelation about her father’s third wife, the actress Coral Browne. ‘He married a bisexual woman and everybody assumed their marriage was a fraud,’ the daughter says. ‘It wasn’t a fraud. It was a totally sexual relationship but they were two people with very open minded approaches as to what life should look like. And that to me – people who lived this truth in all aspects of their lives – they should be heroes to every community.’