Los Angeles. January, 1992

Sometimes rep is all you need. And maybe a little street cred. I was always amazed that Vincent Price could one minute look and behave like the elderly man he was (as seen here mugging with one of his two dogs in his garden), and the next minute pull himself together to become a “movie star” to speak with a fan who might suddenly appear. Once we were in Harvard’s Fogg Art Museum for a show of Dutch still lifes, and a man came over to him to say he looked like Vincent Price. “Yes,” he replied, “people tell me that all the time.” But the story I like best is one he told me about returning to his room at NYC’s Algonquin Hotel in the early 1970s when that neighborhood was dicey after dark. Some muggers approached him and demanded his cash. He transformed into his frightening screen persona and said, “Do you know who I am? I’m the scariest man in the world!” “He is, man,” one of the thugs hastily warned his band, “Let’s get the f*ck out of here.” And they did.