There wasn't much scandal about the real-life Vincent Price - only his suspected involvement in TV quiz-show fixing, of which he was cleared. (Unlike most contestants, he actually knew a lot about 14th century Florence.) And I certainly didn't care for his left-wing sermons, tacked on to the end of his radio episodes of The Saint, when we knew that Price had once supported Hitler. Nor did Joe McCarthy.
But the scandals were mostly confined to the screen - as were mysteries by the bucketload. As his old friend Christopher Lee comments, the plots were not meant to be believable. They belonged in a world of their own, usually a small-town cinema on a quiet Sunday, where nobody was expecting anything beyond a bit more ham-acting in that inimitable velvet voice.
However accomplished his performance, Price soon realised he could never be taken seriously in the role of leading man. He would have to position himself as something less obvious, an ambiguous figure of gothic horror - in fact, perfect for all those tales of Edgar Allan Poe.
Ambiguous he certainly was. And this raised an enduring fascination with the sexuality of the thrice-married actor. His daughter Victoria, an openly lesbian philosopher, says (rather curiously) that she is almost certain that he was bisexual. But neither she nor anyone else has ever found any proof to this effect.
Personally, I like hearing how he proposed, last time round, to the ageing, heavy-drinking Australian, Coral Browne, in that wonderful camp delivery: "Let's give it a try, old girl."
But the scandals were mostly confined to the screen - as were mysteries by the bucketload. As his old friend Christopher Lee comments, the plots were not meant to be believable. They belonged in a world of their own, usually a small-town cinema on a quiet Sunday, where nobody was expecting anything beyond a bit more ham-acting in that inimitable velvet voice.
However accomplished his performance, Price soon realised he could never be taken seriously in the role of leading man. He would have to position himself as something less obvious, an ambiguous figure of gothic horror - in fact, perfect for all those tales of Edgar Allan Poe.
Ambiguous he certainly was. And this raised an enduring fascination with the sexuality of the thrice-married actor. His daughter Victoria, an openly lesbian philosopher, says (rather curiously) that she is almost certain that he was bisexual. But neither she nor anyone else has ever found any proof to this effect.
Personally, I like hearing how he proposed, last time round, to the ageing, heavy-drinking Australian, Coral Browne, in that wonderful camp delivery: "Let's give it a try, old girl."
