News Scrapbook 1981-1982

SAN DIEGO UNION OV 1

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Expert In Many Things Vincent Price: Not So Scary By CAROL OLTEN film Critic, The Son Diego Union Vincent Price glowered menacingly at a few dimly lit camklabra as he entered the room. "Good evening,' he mtoned in the style peculiarly Price as he sat for a recent int rview m the Bordeaux Room of the Little America Westgate Price was here to talk about movie villains on a film forum program at the University of San Diego. Just be• fore the program he di.coursed fully upon subjects rang- mg from his San Diego ties to the future of local th~ater, film violence to art and gourmet cooking, from Edgar Allan Poe to "Hamlet" and from Oscar Wilde to "Carrie." He began by talking about his grandmother. "I made my first trips to San Diego when I was 7 years old to see her," he said. "She was living near Balboa Park m a retirement home." Price's San Diego ties are many In years past he was one of the leading figures involved with the La Jolla Playhouse and served as a board member of the ~heater and Arts j,'oundation of San Diego County, organized to build a repertory company and ~heate: here. His art col• lection also has been widely exh1b1ted m the area He has lectured often on art and its place in the environment as well as toured here with stage presentations on Wilde, Van Gogh Wall Whitman, James MacNeill Whistler and Tennessee W11hams. In the mid '60s Price bought property in Imperial Beach, hoping to be part of marineland development. Other occasions have brought Price to San Diego for activities such as commentating at a charity ball fashion how at the Hotel del Coronado, narrating the premiere of

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Price on recent horror films: 'They bore me.'

Vincent Price

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sort of proven with the fellow who shot Reagan relating to Jodie Foster and 'Taxi Driver.' "But l don't believe that censorship is an answer be- cause censorship always ends up in the hands of the wrong people and the church people or the schoolteach- ers fighting each other. The answer is exer<'i,ing taste in filmmaking." Price said he doesn't bother to see most contemporary horror films, but he did catch up with "Carrie" recently. "I thought there was a lot of suspense in it until the middle when it became romantic and lost everything," he said. He also believes that horror films generally work better in movie theaters where there is a captive audi- ence than on television. "Y OI! go to the ice box and never find out who killed her," he continued. "And, remember, too, a commercial break can ruin ·Hamlet."' Price began his career on the London stage playing at the Gate Theater in the premiere of ''Victoria Regina," and although he has acted in hundreds of stage and film roles since, he still recalls the play as his finest hour. "There were wonderful reviews and I was asked to go to New York to open on Broadway vith Helen Hayes," he said. "It lasted for three years. Some of the other plays and movies were good later but in 1935 this was special." Meanwhile, Price recalls his La Jolla Playhouse per- formances in the '50s in theatrical dramas such as "The Winslow Boy," "Billy Budd" and "The Lady's Not for Burning" with sentiment. "The Playhouse was wonderful and we did some daring things for their time," he said. "I hope it can be done again in San Diego. People are looking for good entertain- ment. They're tired of 'Laverne and Shirley."' Price's divergences into art collecting, gourmet cook- ing, interior decorating, writing and other pursuits are well known. He believes, however, there are too many attempts lo separate acting from these other art forms. "Art is all of the works of man as opposed to nature," he said. "A hand-painted oil on canvas is art. Cooking is art. Music is art. Acting is art, but people tend to separate it and say, 'Oh 1 he's an ac' •r!' Acting became a truth serum. A few of us got slu{, Yilh it."

(Continued from E-1) At 70. Price has scaled down his filmmaking activitie~ but he remains busy at many other pursuits. This past Halloween night found him reading Edgar Allan Poe po• etry with the Kansas Cit} Symphony. His interest in Indi• an culture continue to grow After his program at USD he planned to fly to Paris anel Rome · classic horror films such as "The House of Wax," "The Raven," "'The House of Seven Gables," "The Tomb of Ligeia" and "The Fall of the House of Usher" are being shown in festivals. Price believes the current appreciation vogue of classic horror movies is due to "nostalgia for the good old limes ' Also, he said. it brings "a realization that movies are OIE of the great American art forms - what we have taught the world about ourselves. Kids realize, too, that Poe was not a horror writer, but a writer of Gothic tales they have read and enjoyed. Amencans, themselves, always have a desire to identify with something slightly English - P is one of these things." Turning to the subject of the glut of low-budget, schlock horror films now being made, Price was adamant. ..Th bore me," he said. "There once were very strict rules m filmmaking about having the villain apprehended, a hang- over, I suspect, from Victorian prudency. Then. they took the lid off movie censorship and it was thought that vi>- lence and sex was necessary for a movie to be up to da . So more and more became shown "I'm no prude, but I read some of these scripts now aid turn them down because the violence is boring. A good film is always best remembered as an entertainment aod that's why some of those based o.n Poe's stories have lasted. Also, they were tongue-in-cheek kinds of spoofs and fun. I did some serious things, but they were never gloomy. Alot of modern movies are gloomy. "Boris Karloff. Peter Lorre and myself, now, we tried to scare people and make them giggle. There's a diff r- ence between deep-down frightened and this kind of s r- face scare - like when somebody suddenly claps you on the back. I have no doubts but that the violence depicied in films is related lo what happens in society. That vas

actor, art expert, gourmet

Vincent Price -

David Ward Steinman's The Song of Moses" at San Diego State University's Peterson Gym and organizing an inte- rior decorating class at Sears. . ,, "It (San Diego) was a little cowtown when I f1r5t came_. Price said. "Then, the opening of the El Cortez was_ a big deal. I was always thinking the airplanes were gomg to nm into it."

(Continued on E-2, Col. 1)

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urday. November I5, I981

Scnttncl .;.__

He may look like a villain, but Price is a 'good guy' By LAURIE FISHER !,' 11llnel Currt'i:jpondf-•nt

A veteran of more than 100 films, Price said his best roles were out of the works of Edgar Alan Poe. "He is an extraordinary writer; he's one of the great American authors...Some of the most fascin- ating characters I have played come from Poe. These parts are very hard to play sometimes. You have to make the despicable delectable, and the unbelievable believable," Price said. "Acting is a real art, but it is the art of double make believe," he said. According to Price, the actor must first discover a character's every nu· ance and then try to present him to an audience who believes the character is real. Perhaps not all villains are in movies, Price suggested, and that the kinds of violence we identify with most are the ones we read about everyday. He said some people like Hitler and Manson, are born villains. "The greatest villain of all time is the devil, the superstar of hell," Price said. "Until that damn shark came arowid." Price said now is a temfymg time, and the per- son that is the best off is the artist, and many young people are turning to Price's films for artistic value. "Movies are a tremendous art form," he said. "It's one of the truest American Art forms." Art value is not the only reason for the interest in Price's films. "It's partly nostalgia; the good old times," he explained. "The young people today have a need to identify with something American. They are looking for a basic approach to life they don't have." No stranger to San Diego, Price was at the open· ing of the El Cortez Hotel. "I was always afraid a plane would run into it," he said. He came to San Diego when it was a "little cow town" and played at the La Jolla Playhouse. "We did some really daring things for their time,'' he said. He also has played in London and on Broadway, starred in Hollywood films, American and British radio and is accomplished in literature, art and haute cuisine. At one time, after Boris Karloff changed his name from William Henry Pratt, Price wanted to change his. "It's such a pedestrian kind of name," Price said. Instead, he hid behind various villainous roles. Underneath everything, however, Price is any- thing but a villain. "In real life, I'm a pussycat. I'm kind of a nice guy. I'm a good citizen; I vote." Everything con• sidered, Vincent Price isn't such a "bad guy" after all.

When 23-year-old Vincent Price opened on Broad- way opposite Helen Hayes in "Victoria Regina," the critics gave him rare reviews. On opening night of "Angel Street," however, the audience stood up and hissed the actor, and Vincent Price the villain was born Price was at USD recently to discuss the role of villams in the movies. Price said he wanted to play the role of a villam after having to play so many I good guys." 'Everything I did was sort of namby-pamby," Price said. "Some of the greatest movie heroes started out playing villains." Two of those heroes w rC' Humphrey Bogart and Clark Gable, he said. 'It always made them fascinating to the audien· ce ·• Pnce thinks villains are important to a movie. "They have a definite place in drama," he said. 'The villain has specific jobs. His first job is to p the uspense; his other job is LO contribute ne el ment of drama." Bemg identified as a villain doesn't bother the &- foot-4, 70-year-old actor. "It doesn't worry me at all," he said. "I do other thmgs. All of Hollywood is identified with one thing or another. That kind of identification gets you f'lme " One of the things I love about playing a \ 11lain is I have been identified with actors whose rremones have lasted a long time. I'm proud to have been connected with those people." Price said scary movies were less serious years 0. "They were entertaining, somehow tongue in cheek," he explained. "Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre and Basil Rathbone really did try to scare people nnd then make them giggle. ·Boris Karloff and I were walking down the t, htropeof horror and comedy.We wanted you to en1oy 1t. There was very little violence in those pictures. ' So many of (today's movies) are violence for the sake of violence. The effort is to make them exy or violent. Violence is awfully annoying; it bores me The villain today is just all-out evil. Nowadays, half of the pictures wind up with the VIilain as the hero of the show." Pnce said films have gone through periods of things that the public wants and then give them too much He said the public wants a better deal in entertainment 'They want good movies," he said. "Above all, th y want good TV which they are not getting. The )Oung people want something that is good; they are tired of 'Laverne and Shirley.' "

SAN DIEGO CLIPPING SERVICE DAILY CALIFORNIAN NOV 1 6 1981

8- The Blade-Tribune

Monday, November 16, 1981

Burnout Is Topic Of Seminar SAN DIEGO - "Burnout for the health care pro- fessional" is the topic of a seminar to be held at the University of San Diego Saturday, Dec. 5, in room 106 in the School of Nursing from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. The fee for the seminar, which may be taken for six contact hours of credit, is $30 or $25 with student iden• tification. "Burnout" is co- sponsored by USD's schools of Nursing and Continuing Education. For information and registration call 293- 4585. The seminar will be led by Betty Jo Hosford, who has conducted burnout seminars for hospital personnel and specializes in psychiatric nursing and operating room nursing, "Burnout" is designed for the health care professional and will define and examine the_ burnout syndrome, de- scnbe methods to cope with this phenomenon, and re- commend methods- to im- plement change both for the individual and for agenci .

BURNOUT/ ··Burnout- For the Health Care Professional" is the topic of a seminar to be held from 8 30 a.m. to 3 30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 5. The seminar will be in room 106 in the School of Nursing at the Univeristy of San Diego. Betty Jo Hosford, BSN. specializing in psychiatric and operating room nursing, will leacf the class. The fee is $30, $25 with student indentification. For more information and registration, call 293-4585.

NOV 16 1981

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SAN DIEGO BUSINESS JOURNAL

SAN DIEGO BUSINESS JOURNAL

DATE: Nov. 20 TIME: 7:30-9 a.m.

SEMINAR: Productivity and Praise: Does a Pat on the Back Really Do Any Good'' USD Update Breakfast LOCATION: Executive Hotel. downtown FEE. :i,15 SPO' < 'l: USD Schools of Business Adr .,11s tration and Continuing Education CONTACT: 293-4585

DATE: NO\. 21 TIME: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. SEMINAR. Toxic Waste LOCATIOJI:: More Hall. School of La" USD FEE: $40 SPONSOR: USD School of Law and the Environmental Law Society CONTACT 291-6480 •

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