Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - GGACP Classic: Victoria Price

Episode Date: June 19, 2025

GGACP's celebration of Pride Month continues with this look back at a 2015 interview with the daughter of horror icon Vincent Price, author and public speaker Victoria Price. In this episode, Victoria talks about her father’s run-ins with the Hollywood blacklist, his distaste for slasher films, his lifelong friendships with Christopher Lee and Peter Lorre and his rumored bisexuality. Also, Victoria lauds horror movie fans, deconstructs “The Abominable Dr. Phibes”, and visits the set of “Theater of Blood”! PLUS: The wonder of Emergo! Vincent Price meets Jack Benny! Martin Scorsese praises “House of Wax”! And the return of “The Tingler”! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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TV, comics, movie stars, hit singles and some toys. Trivia and dirty jokes, an evening with the boys. Once is never good enough for something so fantastic So here's another Gilbert and Franks Here's another Gilbert and Franks Colossal Classic This is Dracula Katfrid and welcome to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast Halloween episodes part one and part two, first up, we talk to the daughter of the legendary Vincent Price, Victoria Price. We talk about everything from Dr. Fibes to the Invisible Man returns to my favorite, the Tingler!

So enjoy part one of our super spooky Halloween special! special. Get ready now to listen to Victoria Price. Afterwards you'll wish you are dead. Hi this is Gilbert Gottfried and this is Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast. I'm here with my co-host, Frank Santopadre. Our guest is a designer, author, art consultant, and public speaker whose work has appeared on HGTV and in many design publications. She is also the only daughter of a man we talk about frequently on this show, the legendary Vincent Price.

Her acclaimed biography about her famous father, Vincent Price, a daughter's Biography was published in 1997 and she's agreed to take some time out of her busy schedule and personal appearance schedule to join us for our special Halloween episode. Please welcome to the show show the talented Victoria Price. Wow I sound so amazing. We can arrange that we can have them follow you Victoria. Okay better. You know and and I should tell you a few feet to my left, right when you walk into my apartment are

four life masks. There's Lanchini Jr., Bela Lugosi, Al Pacino, and Vincent Price. Wow. In your house. Yes. and Vincent Price. Wow. In your house. Yes. I am impressed. How many people have a life mask of your dad in their foyer, Victoria? You know, not even I have a life mask of my dad in my foyer.

So, you know, I found his rare praise. Wow. I could probably make a copy for you. We'll certainly take a picture and send it to you. And I remember I met your father twice. And one time I was one of the regulars on the, the rather dismal, Thick of the Night. That was Alan Thick's show. And while I was on there doing one bit, I started to fall into going, oh, it's too crumbling hand. And I was doing like a whole Peterita Lori thing and then I sit down and

I feel and and Alan Thicke is doing the good nights and he's gonna date everybody's bit of the shoe and I feel and mama don't leave Song and and I feel a large hand on my shoulder and I turn around and I'm staring face to face with Vincent Price. Wow. And Vincent Price says to me with a smile on his face, I loved your Peter Laurie.

That's great. And I thought that's the greatest compliment you could get. Exactly, wow. And he gave the eulogy at Peter Laurie's funeral. Really? Oh, I know he was good friends with Laurie and Karloff. Oh, very, very close with Boris. They were dear friends and really, you know, pals.

They really respected and loved one another. And he, oh, oh, I should say, and then I'll let you talk. I'm just so thrilled about the times I met your father. The second time I met him was at a horror convention that was being broadcast. And I went up to him and I said, oh, you probably don't remember this, but we were both on the Alan Thicke show. And he looked up at me, grimaced and went, and went oh yes that was a terrible show perfect now love that now this is interesting and both Frank and I

commented that we had Boris Karloff's daughter, Sarah, on the show, and she hated horror movies. Yeah, didn't watch them. No, I know, neither of us really loved them. I've grown to be able to enjoy them, but for me, and I think it was the same for Sarah, neither of us really wanted to watch our dads do horrible things or worse yet, have horrible things done to them.

Interesting. Yeah, I saw you interviewed, Victoria. You said Laura was your favorite of your dads. Laura is my favorite. I love it. But the other day I watched Theater of Blood. It was hilarious. Well, that was so campy. Yeah. It was great. And so it was with a whole dinner. And so they stopped it during, you know, between the courses to tell what we were eating and people just were yelling at the screen and laughing and having the best time. And I have to say it wasn't scary at all, although I did have to close my eyes during the poodle pie part. Right, right, right. And, and when, when you mentioned Laura, I remember one of my favorite Vincent Price lines is in that someone asked him like, do you know a lot about music?

And he goes, I don't know a lot about anything, but I knew a little about practically everything. Yes, I know that line. Great line. Great line. And how did your father, I mean he was very versatile as far as he could do classics, he could do comedies. How did he feel about doing horror? I think he was really grateful for it when it came around. First of all, House of Wax,

which was his first real horror film, came right after he had been taken off of one of McCarthy's lists. So he had not worked during the McCarthy era. He was gray listed and he hadn't worked in over a year, which was really hell for him. So right after that, he basically then got offered two parts and one of them was House of Wax and that started the whole career. And if you think about it, that was during the fifties and the actors who were working during the 50s were people like Brando and Dean

of course and they weren't classically trained you know actors with beautiful voices and great elocution and so for my dad to have this new career and to reinvent himself completely in the 50s and 60s. He was completely grateful. Yeah. I think. And how did he get off the list? He, what he said to me was that he knew some nice Republican ladies from his art life, and he called in a favor. But what calling in a favor meant was that he was interviewed by the FBI and he had to sign a very long document.

And I found the document. It was one of the last things I found when I was cleaning out his house. It was in the manila envelope hidden behind his air conditioner. And in it, he said a lot of things that I think he was not proud of. And yet he kept the document because it was one of the scariest things he's ever done and so he felt that he had to keep it because it was proof that he had cleared his name and yet he wrote things like anyone who pleads the fifth is un-American which was not something he

believed and yet he did it. So he was kind of strong armed into doing that. Oh absolutely, it was bad. He saw what had happened to his friends. Did he have to name names? No, he did not name names. How did he get Gray listed in the first place, Victoria? I know it's a sensitive subject, but you talk about it so openly in your book. I think pretty much everybody who was to the left of center was accused of being a communist. For my dad, it was a list called the pre-war anti-Nazi sympathizers. So if you were against Hitler before we declared war on Hitler, then you must have been a communist.

My dad was very active in raising money for a lot of Spanish Civil War causes and other causes. There were a lot of people on that list. Eleanor Roosevelt was on that list. Good company. Yeah, very good company. He worked with Lillian Hellman and Dorothy Parker to do a lot of fundraisers for the Spanish Civil War relief. And I think that that's what got him on the list and took him out of work. And I think Charlie Chaplin was accused of the same thing, which sounds so ridiculous that you must be an enemy because you don't like Hitler and the Nazis.

Right. Which nowadays seems like just beyond insanity. Oh, yeah. But you know, it's not impossible to imagine something like that happening again. Oh yeah. You talk about playing villains of Victoria in the turning point of House of Wax, but even before then he played some heavies in Dragonwyck. Gilbert and I were talking about the Invisible Man Returns.

He was a character actor, but he dabbled in playing bad guys. He wanted to be a character actor. He admired Spencer Tracy. He admired Edward G. Robinson. He admired so many of the character actors, Jimmy Cagney. But Hollywood wanted him to be a leading man. They saw him as a matinee idol. In the early photos of him, some of the hurrell shots that were taken and other shots, he was really sort of groomed to be a leading man and he was as handsome as any of the leading men. He just wasn't comfortable with that. Interesting. And so he wanted to play villains and you're actually right. He did play villains. He played, uh,

many parts in, in his Fox years in the forties, even the prosecutor and the son of Bernadette. And that came out of being on Broadway and doing a play called Angel Street and Angel Street became Gaslight. So he sort of got into it by in a way insisting that he be cast in more character roles. And didn't they offer him a million dollar contract at one point and he turned it down? Yep. They offered him at the beginning of his career, right during the Depression, a million dollar movie contract. And he was the one who had the courage and the humility to talk to his co-star Helen Hay, she was of course the first lady of the American theater and incredibly famous. and he asked her

advice and she was the one who suggested to him that he turn it down because she felt that he hadn't learned enough he didn't know enough to be able to really have a long career if he didn't really learn his craft and so that's what he did. Was Angel Street the Street the show where he was supposedly so convincing in the murderer role that audiences hissed at him? Oh, yeah. And he loved that.

Loved the hissing at him. Ha ha ha ha ha. Now, in the movie The Fly, which is one of my favorites, he's sitting with another actor at the end and I forget that actor's name. Herbert Marshall. Herbert Marshall. So there's a scene at the end, Vincent Price and Herbert Marshall are there on a park bench and they killed the large half-man half-fly but they

never found the other one that was mainly a fly. And at the end of the movie there's a spider web and caught in the spider web is a half man half fly going Iconic and and Herbert Herbert Marsh more Herbert Marshall. Yeah. Yeah Vincent Price said in an interview that he and Herbert Marshall could not keep a straight face Oh, no, they were in the hysterics that he and Herbert Marshall could not keep a straight face. Oh no, they were in hysterics. And if you look at it, if you look at the clip,

you can see they're barely, barely holding it together. And yet as a kid, well, as a kid, and well into my 20s and 30s, that is a terrifying scene. It's scary. But I remember him saying in an interview that they ruined so many takes because they were just like doubled over. Oh yeah, completely doubled over. Exactly. You know you mentioned too Gilbert, you were talking about how he was good in comedies

and I found it interesting in my research Victoria that he he loved champagne for Caesar which is a movie we've talked about yes Given more comedies and if you think about it even The let's see his kind of woman another one right right areas mean, so over the top. And I loved doing that. I remember an episode of The Jack Benny Show where Jack Benny and Vincent Price are both in competition to be the romantic lead in an Irene Dunn movie. That's funny. Oh, yes.

Talking about, oh, God, that was hilarious was hilarious and the whole better best thing. Oh yes! That was brilliant. We loved that. Yeah, cause he said, may the best man win. And he goes, it's made the better man win. Yes. I like it. And he goes and win. Yeah. I like it.

And he goes, I know that I went to Waukegan High School and majored in English. Did you know Jack Benny at all? I never met him, no, but a little interesting piece of history prior to Jack Benny, probably the most famous resident of Waukegan, was Vincent Price, my great-grandfather who invented baking

powder. He had a huge mansion in Waukegan and it's still sort of part of the lore of Waukegan. So there was a lovely little tie-in between Jack Benny and my dad, but I never got to meet him. Wish I had. Interesting. We were talking before a little trivia note, that your great grandfather invented baking powder, or maybe one of the first commercially sold baking powders. He invented baking powder.

Oh, he invented it straight up. That's fun trivia. I know. We're full of fun trivia here in the Christchurch. What most people don't know about you is when you first walk into your apartment, there's a photograph of you with your two beautiful children, and you're wearing a pair of underwear on your head. Yes. So you are clearly an underwear enthusiast.

I am an underwear enthusiast. I marched on Washington about underwear. Did you? I didn't realize that. Yes, people don't realize. and they were getting the police attack dogs After us and trying to hose us down. I knew everything about you. Yes had no idea I was marching for Now everyone needs underwear most of us wear it every day some of us even wear a fresh pair every day And that means we spend a lot of money on underwear And if you want to wear something that's... My life savings. Your life savings.

It's gone into underwear, yeah. Well, that's a cause that's meant so much to you. That's what's great about MeUndies, by the way. They sell luxury underwear at half the retail price. All you have to do is go to MeUndies.com slash Gilbert. You pick out what you like, the color you like, the type you like. There's no shipping. There's a money back guarantee and if you don't love the first pair they send you, you get to keep like. There's no shipping, there's a money back guarantee,

and if you don't love the first pair they send you, you get to keep it. You have nothing to lose. Yeah, and if you love the first pair, you could go out with it, you could marry it. You could date, yes, that's right. Yes, you could start... You know, I've never seen you in underwear, but I have you pegged for the type that wears boxers and little anchors. Okay, here, I'm going gonna take my pants off right now.

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Gilbert to get 20% off your first order. And Frank, I'm going to take my underwear off now. Go for it. Show how much I respect. Go buddy. And here's another one that I remember. It was shocking to me. It was in your book. And I think when him, uh, your, your father growing up was actually anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi?

Yes, because he came from St. Louis, very German, and really what I looked up and found, because I was shocked by it, was that that was really the norm among sort of upper middle class well-educated Americans. And let's face it, Roosevelt himself turned away boatloads of Jewish refugees. It's true. Absolutely right. So, you know, I wanted to really understand it because it was so not my father. And in fact, by the time he was in his 40s, he was awarded something sort of a big tribute by the Jewish Anti-Defamation League. So he was very, very much the opposite of anti-Semitic and very pro everything. I mean, any group he could support, he supported.

So he was the least racist, least biased person I'd ever met. So the reason I wrote about it in the book is to prove that anybody can overcome the prejudices of their upbringing given half a chance. Yeah, cause he went from being pro-Nazi and anti-Semitic to raising money for Jewish courses. Exactly. And had countless Jewish friends and African American friends. He was absolutely not at all anti-Semitic or racist or anything. But as a young man, of course, he was exposed to what he was exposed to.

And that was what he learned. It was probably what was happening growing up in the Midwest and a conservative town at that time. Sure, exactly. And he wound up being friends with Peter Laurie, who was Laszlo Lowenstein. Right. Well, you know know he had, I mean most of his, many of his best friends were Jewish, most of his best friends were Jewish. And Edward G. Robinson. Oh yes. Fanny Bryce was one of his dearest friends and her son Billy Bryce, William

Bryce the painter was really I think his best male friends of years. So not anti-Semitic at all. And that's really why I wrote about it because it was important for me to show that somebody could be brought up one way and recognized that they had been culturally taught one thing and could easily change. taught one thing and could easily change. And do you remember from meeting Peter Laurie? No, never met Peter Laurie because I think he died in 66, so I was little. But you visited some of your dad's film sets, didn't you, Victoria?

I did, I did. And certainly the ones as I got older, like Theater of Blood and those I visited. Oh, did you get to, did you visit any of the Fibes film sets? I did. And of course my dad was great friends with Joe Cotton from the Mercury Theatre days. One of the things I remember really well was going to dinner at Joe Cotton's house. And what a lovely man he was in London. Tell us about the Mercury Theater,

all the people who are on that, in that. Yeah, amazing, amazing group of people. So one of the cool connections is that my grandfather's, my dad's dad, also named Vincent Price, went to high school in Wisconsin and one of his closest friends in high school was a kid named Richard Wells, who was Orson Wells' dad. And so Orson, of course, started the Mercury Theater

and my dad was a part of it, along with Joseph Cotton and Norman Lloyd, who is still with us. Oh yeah, we're trying to get him for the show. And they were all lifelong. Lifelong friends. I think Everett Sloan was one of the actors in there. Yeah, Everett Sloan from Citizen Kane, sure. And most of the people like Wells would use in his movies were people that he got from when he knew

during the Mercury review. Agnes Corhead. Yeah. Oh yeah. And John Housman too I think was involved with that that he got from when he knew during the Mercury theater days. Agnes Corhead. Yeah. Oh yeah. And John Housman too I think was involved with that, with the Mercury Theater. Was he not? Oh yeah, John Housman, absolutely. And one really quick and probably the easiest five minutes of work your father ever did was but still makes me laugh is the very ending of Abbot and Costello meet Frankenstein.

Yeah, a cigarette appears out of nowhere after they think they've killed off all the monsters, the Wolfman, Frankenstein and they're in a rowboat, right? And a cigarette lights up in midair and goes, oh, I was hoping to join in. I'm the invisible man. I know. Hilarious, right? He was a good invisible man in The Invisible Man Returns. He was an awesome, what with that voice? Why not, right?

Yeah, I mean, you think about House of Wax being a turning point for him playing heavies, but as I said before, he's in Tower of London, he's in The Invisible Man Returns, he's got that little part in Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein. So even though you're seeing these character roles, every couple of films he's also playing a villain. Dragonwyck of course, which I love. Which was one of his favorites. Yeah, he's wonderful in that. He's also playing a villain, Dragonwick, of course, which I love. Which was one of his favorites.

Yeah, he's wonderful in that. And then of course by, I guess as you were saying before, by 53, by the time House of Wax comes out, the conversion is complete because he's so damn good in that film. Oh, he's amazing. But I think one of the reasons he's so good in that film is that if you think about the storyline from the point of view of somebody just having come out of not working and being gray listed, it's the story of a man whose entire life's work is destroyed. And he exacts his revenge.

So I think it was something that my dad could sink his chops into. Well, interesting timing. He's just, no matter how many times I see that film, he's so unsettling. With a young Charles Bronson. Oh yes. Charles Buchinsky. Yes. And, oh and at the end of it, I think it's the end, he holds up a wax Charles Bronson head and points it points his arm out to the camera

Right to make it look like Charles Bronson severed head is jumping out at you I know we will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast after this Martin Scorsese still calls it the best, the best American film in 3d. And you know, my dad really felt that the reason it was so good for a 3d film, cause a lot of 3d films of, of that period were schlocky was because the director only had one eye. Yeah, we were talking about

Andre De Chote. Yeah. Yeah. Andre De Chote. He couldn't see in 3D. Yeah, Andre's notes. He couldn't see in 3D. How did he know any of it was working? I think people just said, you know, throw something in. So he did. If you think about it, it's not really focused on that. Whereas a lot of the other 3D movies were dimicky.

Yeah, like Bwana Devil and some of those other knockoffs that were coming out. He's just terrifying in that film. And I've recommended, and I love this film, and it's undeniably silly, but works and is so much fun, and that's the tingler. Oh yeah, that's a great one. It's so much fun. Because what I remember is that was, well he was friends with William Castle and William Castle was one of these real showmen.

He's come up on the show. Yeah. He'd have a gimmick for each picture to get the suckers in. And for the tingler, certain seats were wired with a buzzer. Percepto. Yes. That's right. Percepto.

Exactly. And so in the movie, the tingler gets loose in a movie theater, giving Vincent Price the excuse to scream, both to the people in the movie and the people watching the movie, scream, scream for your lives, the tingler is loose in the theater, scream. How do you like Gilbert's impression, Victoria? loose in the theater, scream. How do you like Gilbert's impression, Victoria? It's awesome. It's awesome. You don't practically feel like I'm on the phone with my father. And when they're all screaming and Vincent Price is yelling for them to scream more,

then finally they catch the tingler and Vincent Price very calmly goes, the movie will be starting again soon. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha centipede was attacking people in the theater. I know. I think that's part of his talent Victoria that he could take nonsense like that and and make it dramatic and believable. He could sell it. Well yeah, Shafi, most people would have phoned it in or thought it was utterly ridiculous but he just jumped in but that was really how he approached life. He just jumped in. And he always seemed like if it was something silly like that, you always sensed there was like a gleam in his eye that he knew it was silly. Oh, totally.

I mean, he was winking at the whole thing. I was recently, we do a little episode on Thursdays, Victoria, as part of this show where Gilbert and I recommend films we love. And we were talking about the abominable Dr. Phibes. And I read, I guess you could corroborate this, that he laughed so much going through the makeup process that they had to keep reapplying the makeup. I love that. Well, you have to keep yourself in these somehow. I mean, that makeup must have been an ordeal. Sometimes you'd spend three hours in makeup.

And speaking of William Castle, before the tingler, of course, and we brought up Percepto, there was a mergio. There was a house on Haunted Hill. With the skeleton that flies across the movie theater. It's wonderful. Like a paper or balloon skeleton. You do a lot of these, Victoria. You do a lot of speaking engagements.

Have you seen The Tingler or House on Haunted Hill with an audience? I just saw House on Haunted Hill with 250 people in St. Louis at my dad's childhood movie theater, the High Point in St. Louis. Oh, I love that. I saw that in my research, that his childhood theater is still standing. Yeah, and they've redone it. It looked beautiful. So that was really, really fun.

Did they rig it? Did they pull the skeleton into the audience? And, Umurgo was there, but they didn't have him, really literally the original Umurgo was there, but he was sitting on a rolling chair. Years ago he was not rigged up. I've seen it with it rigged up. Oh, you have? It's a treat. Oh, it's hilarious.

Yeah. I saw it years ago at the Film Forum downtown in New York where we're coming to you from. They would pull the skeleton on the clothesline into the audience during House on Haunted Hill. And jumping totally out of order from subject to subject. Who, us? Yeah.

I think I read that one of the Jewish charity groups named Vincent Price like their honorary Jewish member? Yeah, the Jewish Anti-Defamation League gave him an award. That is amazing to go from being pro-Nazi anti-semitic to getting an award. Yeah, that's running the gamut. Totally. Let's talk about the Poe films. Oh, yes. I mean, the Castle films is an interesting period of his career and so was the Poe and

AIP and Roger Corman. I think that was a great collaboration for my dad. He loved working with Roger. Roger put together an amazing cast. And he got it done really well. We all know what Roger did for a lot of young directors and young actors. And I think he and my dad,

it was one of those great partnerships for them both. Yeah, we had Roger Corman on the podcast and he was hysterical. Funny man. Yeah, he's totally open about the fact that he'll do anything to save a penny. And yet those films, the Comedy of Terror and The Raven, which are made really for a song, are so entertaining. They are. You put those actors together.

You've got, you know, you've got Karloff and you've got Laurie and Nicholson and your dad and it's just, they're just great to watch even though they cost a dollar eighty to make. And I heard your father and Peter Laurie and Karloff, like Peter Laurie just didn't wanna memorize the scripts anymore. And that he- No, he couldn't be bothered. And he came out of that whole, you know, German expression of improv school.

So he kinda just made it up and he went along. And I heard your father was fine with it, but Boris Karloff was getting annoyed that the dialogue was being changed. Yes. Yeah the rumor is that your dad was wound up found himself in the position of go-between between Karloff who had a certain kind of acting style and Laurie who had improvisational acting style. Is that true? Oh yeah, he completely mediated between both of them. Your dad was an anglophile, right? I mean, so he liked, you know, he

liked this stuff to begin with. Oh yeah, and he loved being associated with Poe. Who wouldn't? Right. What a gift to be associated with one of the truly great original American literary voices and kind of forever associated with him. He's genuinely scary. We've talked about the Mask of the Red Death and the Pit in the Pendulum. I mean, again, they were made on the cheap, but they're very scary. He's very scary in them.

I think Pit in the Pendulum in particular. Yeah. Well, the one where he's really horrifying is the Witchfinder General, which I don't know if you've even brought yourself to watch by this point. You said you can't watch it. I have once. Okay. Yes, I think it's his most malevolent performance and that was totally due to Michael Reeves

and it was just a miserable experience for my dad. But I think he ultimately was, I wouldn't maybe go so far as to say grateful, but he certainly understood what Reeves was trying to get out of him. Michael Reeves was a young director who died young. Yeah, I think he committed suicide. And they clashed. They famously clashed. I mean, there's a story, I don't know if it's Apocryphal, where your father is on

the set screaming, you know, I've made 87 films. What have you done? I don't think he was very happy. And yet again a great performance in a movie that just is very unsettling. Brutal. Brutal. They changed the name, I think, to The Conqueror Worm. Oh, yes, yes. So they could tie it in with the whole Poe thing. Yeah. Right.

Which didn't fool anyone. He's never been as dark on screen as he was in that movie. Oh, that was easily his most malevolent performance for sure. Did it bother him? Did the roles stay with him? I mean, aside from the problems he had with the director. In my research, I was reading something about how he didn't like when the AIP films got a little more gory.

It wasn't so much the AIP films, yes, but it was really the flasher films in general. He really felt, and I think he's right, that what we can imagine is way more terrifying, always, always, than what we see. And one of the reasons why we're so terrified of hearing about plane crashes, because what we can imagine happening in a plane, you know, that's why everyone wants a camera instead of leaving it up to their vivid imagination. That's why the news jumps all over that. They don't jump all over other things that we can see like train crashes in the same way And and I think it really proves and you said the same thing about

Sex scenes, you know when the code was still there you have to imagine what happened after the kiss and that was way sexier So launching it out, but I myself like to see gratuitous sex scenes That shocks me So this is where your father and I disagree. But I mean it's very, it's been talked about a lot in the movie Jaws. The shark wasn't working properly and it looked bad on camera. So Spielberg was forced to hide the shark and it became really the fear of the water. Yes, exactly.

And it worked for people. I have a friend, I went with her to the Keys and we swam in a lake on the Keys that was easily a mile from the ocean and she wouldn't get in the water. It was like, you know, a Saturday Night Live episode, land shark. And that's not how the shark was going to get there. She wouldn't get in the water. The Gilbert Gottfried Amazing Colossal Podcast Producer of the Month is DFA Records.

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of you and only you so you can share with your friends me telling you what a schmuck you are. Well I don't have to join Patreon for that. And you don't have to pay me either because you are a schmuck. That I do for free. I want no money. That's my, I just speak the truth. I'm so blessed.

You are a schmuck. So go to patreon.com slash Gilbert Gottfried. That's Patreon, P-A-T-R-E-O-N dot com slash Gilbert Gottfried. Thank you for your generosity. And thank you DFA Records. What a lot of people probably know your father from without even knowing your father would be that long introduction that he does

in the music video thriller with Michael Jackson. Sure. I mean what an incredible thing for him to get to do, to be associated with that. I think it was a real gift for him. But his last film, that was Edward Scissorhands. His last feature, yeah. His last feature. that was Edward Scissorhands. His last feature, yeah. His last feature. Yeah, that he acted in.

Now, I mean, obviously, the casting is perfect. Vincent Price as a mad doctor is like, you know, that's a shoe-in. That's a no-brainer. But I heard, because your father at that point, he was older, and he was like, you know, the ailments that come with aging and that the studio wanted to get rid of him. I didn't hear that. I didn't hear that the studio wanted to get rid of him. I just heard that, but that could be. Well, I know they cut his part down significantly because of his health.

Yeah. It was difficult for him. He had Parkinson's and he was, you know, emphysema. He was struggling. And yet it's a kind of a nice swan song. Oh, it's an incredible swan song. I think Tim gave him an incredible gift, introducing him to a new generation, writing a part for him that captured so many sides of my dad, all of his sweetness, his

whimsy, his love of poetry. I think it's a wonderful, wonderful part. And Vincent too, for those of our listeners that haven't seen it, the Burton Short from a few years earlier. Oh yes. Which he narrates. It's also wonderful. We talked about Theatre of Blood and I have to hear your experiences or your memories from being on the set of Theatre in Blood.

Was it the first Fibes it dr. five's rises again you know most I remember theater blood because we had a driver and he drove us out to the set and we got out of the car and all of a sudden all of these just really scary people came up to me and they had no teeth and open sores and they started pulling me and asking for money. What the hell is going on? And then my dad swept out of this old warehouse and said, that's my daughter, leave her alone, you horrible people.

And that was all I heard of it. It wasn't until I saw the movie years later that I realized that they were the cast and he put them up to this. He thought that was hilarious. The two Fibes movies are so bizarre. I mean, they're black comedies. So is Theatr of Blood. Oh, yes. Really. I mean, we talked about his gift for comedy.

I mean, I watched the, I haven't seen Dr. Fibes Rises again in a few years, but I watched the original a couple of weeks ago because I recommended it on one of the episodes that Gilbert and I do. One of the strangest films ever made. Oh my God. And I've not seen it. I'm doing a tour with Alamo Drafthouse where we're doing dinner and a movie and Dr. Fibes is what they're showing. And so I've seen it quite a few times now.

And who are the, who is Monavia? Who the hell is she? Is she dead? Is she alive? I mean, I've now seen it and I'm just stumped. I have not a clue. Why is he playing the organ? It's like, why?

Well, that I thought he was an organist. Oh, he was an organist. Yeah, he was an organist, so that's good. But who the hell is she? It's very strange. And that that animatronic band oh Yeah Truly truly bizarre. Is that the one that has the mechanical shark? It's a mechanical snake That I think I think that might be the second one. Yeah, I'm trying to think of all the deaths

Well for again, we've talked about it on the show already, but for our listeners that haven't seen it. He's he's killing One by one. He's killing the medical team that he holds responsible for his wife's death, right? But it's not just bumping them off. He's bumping them off according to the ten plagues of Egypt So you've got all these, remember Terry Thomas, they drain all his blood. Oh yes. It's a Mason Sharps. And one guy's talking on the phone

and an arrow shoots out of the phone. That's a great one. That's a great one, the catapult. Yeah. Yeah, a unicorn. The unicorn, excuse me, it's the unicorn, the catapult. You know, right? Of course.

And one of them is frozen in his car with an ice machine. I love that one. And then the guy is flying the plane and is eaten by rats. That's incredibly good. It's almost, there are parts of it that are like a silent film. It really, it's vaudevillian too. I mean it takes its time. The set pieces are hilarious.

I mean it's disturbing and it gets scary in the end with the Joseph Cotton stuff when he kidnaps the boy. But up until then… Oh and the Brussels sprouts, that's an awesome part. That's great too. Is the snake that you're talking about from the second film? Yeah, I think there's like a cobra or something. There's an Egyptian theme in the second film.

That he finds out, he smashes one, because it turns out to be a mechanical one, and then the second one he's not scared of and that's an actual cobra. Right. And it's odd too, you were talking about the assistant, you know, he's so in love with his wife. So who is this woman? Who is this? Exactly. Who the hell is she?

She's very otherworldly. But it is such a funny film. I mean, it's a disturbing film, but so original. And now I have to play tabloid reporter, as always. In your book you said that there were rumors of your father's like bisexuality. So what was going on and what did you find out there? At the time I really didn't find out anything but 20 years have passed so there's been anything, but 20 years have passed. So there's been more information that's come through for me. But I think really what I found out overall is that my father was probably bisexual,

but really most importantly, he loved people. And so his friendships were probably vastly more important to him than his sexual relationships. And he had very close friendships with men that he told me he felt that his wives never understood his need to have close friendships with men and they were I think a very important part of his life. And aside from Peter Laurie and Boris Karloff, wasn't he also friends with two other horror greats, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing? Oh yeah, he and Chris were great friends, shared the exact same birthday, May 27th.

Oh yes. And Peter's birthday was the day before, May 26th, so they would often celebrate together. And yeah, they were, he was very, very fortunate in his friendships, but I think he was also an incredible friend. And I don't know if Christopher Lee ever did this with your father. I know he would do it with Peter Cushing. He would call him up and imitate all like these Warner Brothers cartoon characters. Oh no, I've never heard that. That's hilarious. That's funny.

There's a great clip of Christopher Lee on the, I guess it's the British version of This is Your Life online, Victoria, that I'm sure you've seen where your dad shows up. Probably flies halfway around the globe to get there. And Christopher Lee looks genuinely happy and surprised to see him. Yeah. No, they were really dear friends and I think shared a lot in common. Both very erudite men, very interested in much more than just acting. It's interesting too about his sexuality. I mean, he married three times, but I found it interesting that you were so frank about

it in the book. I Felt that I had to be because so many people asked me and I didn't want to seem like I was Shirking anything but it was really Roddy McDowell who helped me with it because he said to me You don't know what sexuality meant to your dad. And if we don't know that then it's very hard to And if we don't know that, then it's very hard to say what or who he was. And that's really why I got to the fact that to me what was most important was his deep connections with people and his complete, complete lack of judgment. And that was really why I felt like I had to address it. Yeah, it was kind of brave of you to do it. I mean, a lot of obviously a lot of biographies that are written by children are, you know,

white washes of their parents' lives. I think there was a time in his life where he wished he could have possibly have been a different person toward the end of his life. And I, he alluded to that to me with a sense of regret. And I never knew what that meant, whether that was about his sexuality, whether that was about maybe taking different kinds of roles. I wasn't ever really clear on that, but I felt that, that he wanted to be remembered for who he was he wanted to be remembered for for all of his complexities and that I think was the bottom line for me not wanting to avoid that and he was complex

I mean he was a Renaissance man. Gilbert and I were setting up for the interview and I was telling him about how if I have this right your dad made his first art purchase at the age of 11. He bought a first stage Rembrandt etching. First stage Rembrandt etching when he was 12. It took him three years of his allowance to pay it off. And I love that. How much did it cost? $37.50, but in the 1920s that was not cheap. It was a fortune. Wow.

Yeah, but he paid it off. And he was as well known as an art expert during his life. He bought 20,000 pieces of art for Sears that he sold. You could buy a Picasso on your Sears credit card. And that is very much because he was a populist and he really felt that it was important that everybody had access to art, that people not regard art as the province of the elite. So that I think was very important to him.

He was also as famous during his lifetime for his cooking. And that's a big part of why I'm out on the road now because he wrote a cookbook that Saver magazine named one of the 100 most important culinary events of the 20th century. And he, it was really, again, sort of this populist endeavor, he went all over the world, collecting recipes, collecting experiences, brought them home, he and my mom, my mom

would bring home design elements, they would recreate these experiences for their friends. And this cookbook has become the eighth most popular out of print book of any kind, not just cookbooks. And it was so popular that a publisher approached us about doing a 50th anniversary edition. But he really was the original American foodie. Yeah, I really said he was into everything. He was into art, he was into music, he was into cooking. And it's funny how careers take shape because he was such a cultured person and yet he became known for, not that they're mutually exclusive,

but that he became known for horror films. Karloff I think is similar. Oh yeah. Sue, he was a proper gentleman and a very cultured man and they became famous for playing ghouls, you know, for lack of a better word. I think part of it is because the horror fans get them. They really understand Karloff and my dad. And the horror fans are very well read, very cultured, people who are interested in a great many things. And so I think the horror fans very much embrace all of those aspects of my dad and of Boris as well. And so that's part of, you know,

without the horror fans, my dad gets 3,000 Facebook likes a week. Amazing. I was looking at the page. It's incredible. I was looking at the page, at the Facebook page. There's so much good stuff on there That's where I saw the movie theater in st. Louis that's still operating. Yeah you know that's my little labor of love and And you know for me the fact that they get him they really get Who he was they have kept my dad alive There were so many people were way way more famous in bits and price during his lifetime,

and he would have been the first person to tell you that. Like somebody like Robert Taylor. And Robert Taylor isn't remembered and loved. Like Robert Taylor's probably not getting 3,000 Facebook likes a week, I'm fairly sure. And, sure not. One thing Frank and I, we had on our show, Adam West, who was Batman,

and two of the Catwomen, Julie Newmar and Lee Merriwether. And your father was one of the great recurring villains. One of my favorites. Egghead. Yes! Ha ha ha! Exactly. Egghead. Yes!

Exactly. Yeah, tell us some of the horrible puns he would say to taunt Batman with. Oh, he, you know, exactly extraordinary. Exquisite. He had a blast doing it. He had a blast doing it. He had so much fun. And you know, he had a kid.

So I was born a month shy of my dad's 51st birthday. So he had this young kid and he wanted my friends to know who he was. So he wanted to do all these things. And he was a kid at heart. So he wanted to stay hip to the younger generation and he sure did. So he went on the hottest show on television. Exactly.

He did exactly, pardon me. But you know he did that with a lot of different things if you think about it. He did Mod Squad, he did... Oh yeah, Get Smart, sure. Brady Bunch. Yeah. Get Smart sure Brady Bunch yeah we will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast but first a word from our sponsor and we've had people from all those shows we had Barbara Felden from Get Smart that's right and Ken

Berry and Larry Storch from F Troop oh yeah. Oh yeah. He was great on F-Troop. I've been with him all. He was the Count, Count Sforza. I know, I was his drat. Yes, yes. He comes into town with a black crow. Oh yes. Named Brother. And didn't your father and Peter Laurie have a short-lived TV show where they were antiques dealers.

Oh my God, I know. Wow, you've stumped me. Yeah, I think they were running an antique store and I guess each antique that they pick out would be like the center of the story. Oh wow. I have no idea. I don't remember this show. Okay, we've got a challenge for our listeners. Another thing is I remember when you watch those movies with Jack Nicholson, it's like, it's so funny because if someone would have, if you would have said to anyone back then,

this Jack Nicholson is going to be a major respected superstar, I think you would have said to anyone back then, this Jack Nicholson is going to be a major respected superstar, I think you would have laughed in their face. Oh, my dad and all of them would have laughed. They thought it was complete nepotism. The two producers of all the AAT films were Sam Arkoff and Jim Nicholson and they thought Jack Nicholson was like his nephew. They gave him no end of grief. Oh yeah. Was there a relationship between James Nicholson and Jack Nicholson? No.

No, not at all. Just a coincidence. But so, so they, so your father, Peter Laurie and Boris Karloff all thought Jack Nicholson was basically this no talent kid. Exactly. And they just gave him global greeks. Hilarious. Did you ever run into Nicholson to tell him that? I know Jennifer.

She and I went to the same high school. Oh. His daughter. That's pretty cool. I mean, you know, we talk about his sense of humor. I mean, all of those shows, he's so good in comedies. Dr. Pinn on get smart. He's the Archaeologist who ties up the boys in the cave in the Britain the Brady Bunch

Counts folks. We talked about an f-troop and of course egghead. I said there's a clip I don't know if you've seen it Victoria of him of your dad on Family Feud in the 70s Yeah, I have the cast of Batman. Hilarious. Which is a treat. Hilarious. And then he did all that cool stuff with the Muppets. Oh yeah, and in the first season of the Muppets,

of the Muppets, which is great. I even found a clip where, I guess, Kermit is guest hosting the Carson show. So there's Jim Henson kneeled down behind the desk. Of course you don't see him. Your dad comes out as the first guest and he's just so smooth about it and he just he just works it in perfectly He's got that. He's got the timing down. It's a fine the clip online. It's just a pleasure to watch a pro Who knows how to work comedy get timing exactly and 900 episodes of Hollywood Squares. He did

I would say Hollywood Squares paid for my college education. What do you think when you hear tributes like I mean John Waters did a wonderful tribute to your dad on TCM that I'm sure you've heard. That was fantastic. Really beautiful and when you hear all the impressionists so you you know, Gilbert, Bill Hader on Saturday Night Live, I mean, they're done with, they must be done with such affection. You must love, you must love hearing them. And I think John, John Candy. John Candy too, back in the day.

Oh yeah. John Candy's just hilarious. He really, you know, how many Facebook likes did you say? 3,000 a week. Incredible. We dream of those numbers. I know. And he just keeps growing and growing and growing. Oh, he's so iconic.

People love him. Well, what do you got Gil? Let's see. Oh I've got a good one here for you Victoria before we run off. This is from Mike McPadden who is one of our social media directors. He wants to know as a kid did you ever play with any of the Vincent Price toys such as the shrunken head apple sculpture kid or the hangman game of course You did what self-respecting kid wouldn't I love that in fact, there's an episode of the simpsons

Where they're stuck in the house and it's raining so they take out I like learning magic with Vincent Price. Oh, I completely love that truncate head thing. I think my mother was so pissed off because of course, you know, that he dried, you drive it in over a light bulb in your lampshade. Right, right. Wasn't there an electronic trivia game too? Of some kind? What's there? Yeah, I will dig it out. Yeah, I don't know the name of it offhand. But what do you want

to plug, Victoria? What's coming up? We know this is your busy season, Halloween. You mentioned the cookbook. The cookbook is really very exciting because we're doing all these cool events. We're doing dinners all over the world. So we're doing the James Beard House is doing a dinner for us to celebrate this book in New York, which is a benefit for the James Beard Foundation and that's incredibly prestigious. We're doing a two and a half week tour of the UK, London, Manchester, Wales, and then Ireland, and all to celebrate the cookbook. Harrods is opening its food halls half an hour early for us so we can have a special tour of the food halls because they're featured in

this cookbook. So the whole cookbook thing is really, really cool and exciting. Tell us the name of the book again. It's called The Treasury of Great Recipes. And it's just, it's such an iconic book. You know, it really, the reason it's so important to me is I feel like it captures my parents' philosophy of how they live their life. And it really came down to me to three words, explore, savor, and celebrate. They didn't just sort of make a movie and do what they had to do and sort of do the minimum required thing. They went out and they saw everything. They learned about cultures. They learned about it through art. They learned about it through music. They learned about it through art. They learned about it through music.

They learned about it through food. They learned about it through theater. And then it wasn't just sort of this bucket list mentality. They would fall in love with things. And as I said, they would, my dad would get the recipe from a chef. My mom would bring back design elements. They would work out ways to share them with their friends. And so this cookbook has been so influential.

I mean, people do dinners where they people blog a recipe a night, a recipe a week. Right now there's a contest going on for food bloggers in celebration of this. And the best two of the best things I've heard in because this has been something I've been sharing with people. One is that people read this book out loud to each other doing their best, best, and pride for each other. I love that. Because he wrote it all. Or they read it to each other as bedtime reading because he tells little stories about each

recipe and each restaurant. And it really was aspirational. It gave people pre-HGTV, pre-food networks. It gave people an idea of what was possible, a way of living. And so I've written this new historic preface forward. And then Wolfgang Koch, who my dad championed, very early on wrote the new intro. And then the other story that I just love,

I was doing an Alamo Draft House event in Austin and a couple came up to me and they had their vintage copy of the book that they asked me to sign. And they said, this book has meant so much to us. And they said, we're not really religious people. So 15 years ago when we got married, we didn't know really what to have them pastor hold or the reverend or whoever. So we thought what book means a lot to us? And so they got married with the pastor holding the cookbook. And this is absolutely, I have

a picture, they sent me a picture the other day. It's just absolutely beautiful book that my mom designed. It's got a leather, bronze leatherette cover. And so the new version, I had to make sure it looked as good as the old version, but it's a really, it's an iconic, iconic book. I mean, pretty much anybody who's a foodie knows about this book. And it's really about my dad's omnivorous appetite, not just for food, but for life. That's what comes through. So for me, it's exciting because it's really about showing off the best parts of who he was and what a life-affirming, interesting name he was. And this is getting back to one person we discussed earlier.

He must have had a lot to talk about with Edward G. Robinson. Oh, they were great friends. They became friends in the late 30s. My dad would follow Eddie around the galleries in New York, and of course, Eddie had a lot more money than my dad, and he was a great collector of impressionist art. And so he learned a lot about who the good gallery owners were and that sort of thing. And then they became great friends. And in fact, one New Year's Eve, they were having, my parents were having one of their

legendary New Year's Eve parties and there was a fire in Bel Air. And so the police shut down complete access to the whole area. And Edward G. Robinson came, went up to the police and he said, you have to let me in because these are my friends and they have an art collection and I have to help them save it. And the entire UCLA football team heard about the fire and the art collection was required viewing for the UCLA Artistic Department at the time. And so they came out and helped. And it was just, you know, a great story. But yeah, Eddie and my dad remained great friends

their whole lives. I love that story. And then he would say, meh, she, meh, or I'm brand. Real quick, Victoria, tell Gilbert the story from the end of your book, the one that Alan Bates tells. Yeah, that's tell Gilbert the story from the end of your book, the one that Alan Bates tells.

Yeah, that's such a great story. So apparently my dad and his third wife, Coral Brown, and Alan Bates were all at dinner and a woman came over and asked my dad signed something and Alan Bates happened to see what he had signed. And when the woman left, my dad said, Alan Bates said to my dad, Vicki, you're out of your mind. You know, why did you sign Dolores Del Rio? That woman's going to come over and force you over her head. And my dad said well before she died Dolores said never let him forget me so

now I always signed Dolores Del Rio. Wow. I love that. Okay now I'm gonna have to wrap up the show with a quote from the revered film critic Leonard Moulton Leonard Moulton said other actors may have made better movies but few live better lives or touch so many people with their warmth and gent- gentility and He said that about your father the great Vincent Price. You know I've had a very fortunate life. I have met my life and I don't think I've one who was as interesting, has consistently kind, as curious, and who managed to always

find a way to say yes every day to life as my dad. And if you had told me when I was a teenager in my early 20s that I'd be in my 50s going around talking about my dad, I think I might have shot myself. And now I am so grateful. I'm so grateful that I have the good fortune of knowing somebody, being the child of somebody as extraordinary as my dad. Oh, that's so nice and sweet. Well, we're grateful. We grew up on him. And as I'm sitting here at Gilbert's dining room table, I'm looking across the room and I see the life mask of your dad staring at me from the wall. So obviously my co-host, he meant something to you as well. Yeah. He's there with all the other horror greats.

Yeah. Jeannie Jr., Bela Gosi, and of course Al Pacino. And of course Al Pacino. And of course, Al Pacino. And of course, Al Pacino. Who was so great in the hunchback of Notre Dame. That's hilarious. So ladies and gentlemen, I'm Gilbert Gottfried. This has been Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast with my co-host Frank Santopadre and

we have been talking to the very gracious and lovely Victoria Price about her father, the great actor Vincent Price. Thanks Victoria. Thank you for having me on the show. It's been a real, real pleasure. Can we have Gilbert take you out with a little bit of the tingler? Oh, yeah. Run!

Run for your lives! The tingler is loose in the theater! Everyone scream! Scream for your lives! The tingler is loose in the theater! Scream! Scream for your lives! The Tingler's Luce in the theater! Scream! Scream for your lives! The movie will resume shortly.

Victoria, this was a treat. Thank you so much. Thank you for coming on the show. Thank you guys so much. It was a blast. We'll see you when you're in New York, okay? I look forward to it. Bye-bye.

Happy Halloween. Take care look forward to it. Bye bye. Happy Halloween. Take care. Thank you.