27th May: Vincent Price

May seems to be a bumper month for birthdays of horror movie actors. 27th May 1911 was the birth date of Vincent Price.

1. He was the son of Marguerite Cobb (née Wilcox) and Vincent Leonard Price, Sr., who was the president of the National Candy Company.
2. His grandfather, Vincent Clarence Price, invented "Dr. Price's Baking Powder," the first cream of tartar baking powder.
3. He made his film debut in 1938 with Service de Luxe and established himself in the film Laura (1944), opposite Gene Tierney, directed by Otto Preminger.
4. Price often spoke of his pleasure at playing Egghead in the Batman television series. One of his co-stars, Yvonne Craig (Batgirl), said Price was her favourite villain in the series. In an often-repeated anecdote from the set of Batman, Price, after a take was printed, started throwing eggs at Adam West and Burt Ward, and when asked to stop, replied, "With a full artillery? Not a chance!", causing an Egg fight to erupt on the soundstage.
5. He was the voice of "Thriller".
6. He also voiced Vincent van Ghoul in Scooby Doo.
7. He was a lifelong Roller Coaster fan.
8. His last significant film work was as the inventor in Tim Burton's Edward Scissorhands (1990).
9. Price was a noted gourmet cook. He wrote several cookbooks and hosted a cookery TV show, Cooking Pricewise. Once, when he was a guest on The Tonight Show, he demonstrated to Johnny Carson how to poach a fish in a dishwasher.
10. He was an art collector, too and donated hundreds of works of art and a large amount of money to East Los Angeles College in the early 1960s in order to endow the Vincent Price Art Museum there. The Vincent Price Art Museum was built to house art works and present exhibits.