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The settling for all of this would be a lumber-yard in Venice (the scene of many a classic film, especially Orson Welles’ TOUCH OF EVIL) that was actually a film studio owned by Roger Corman. Behind parked cars, near a side street, was one large trailer. There are a smaller group of low-level buildings, and in between them tables filled with junk food and coffee urns. Pass all that, and there is a door through which you are finally on the soundstage. One corner is devoted to the FROM A WHISPER TO A SCREAM set. The area is filled with cartons and cables that lead one down to the brightly lit library room set. Paint is peeling off the walls, decay and sinister shadows linger, the ambiance is vintage Vincent Price.

Roger came down to the set on the second day of filming. I will always remember standing next to Roger as Price rehearsed an exchange of dialogue with actress Susan Tyrell. “There is a corpse under these floorboards. The whole house is a morgue”. Corman almost stopped breathing as he watched his leading man of over three decades ago stand on his mark and still be as magnificent as ever after six decades in the business. When Jeff finally said “cut,” Roger looked at me and said “Beautiful work… he is an original …there is no one else that can create that particular atmosphere as well as Vincent.” There are some fantastic stills of the two of them taken during this filming. They reunited as if time itself had just stood still since the golden days of their Poe films at American International Pictures.

Vincent shared his trailer with actress Susan Tyrell who is a bit eccentric to say the least.
“SU SU,” as her friends call her, has been a working actress since the late sixties where she caused a sensation on Broadway, She quickly made her way to Hollywood where she got nominated for the Oscar on her second film, FAT CITY, one of John Huston’s best late-career projects. Vincent is amused by her at first, then later becomes concerned. “That girl is disturbed.” Apparently Susan was reading a very sexually explicit book and just loved reading passages from it to Vincent as he was lying down between takes. At one point she began to speculate whether or not Vincent was “getting enough at home,” referring of course to his sex life with Coral. This just drove Vincent around the bend, as he really didn’t know what to do with her. Was she kidding or what? The last day she worked she came into the trailer to say goodbye, and I will never forget as Vincent and I were walking toward the set, Susan, who was walking the other way to the parking lot, turned around and yelled for the whole crew to hear, “HEY VINNIE, YOU GIVE A BIG ONE TO CORAL TONIGHT FOR ME BABY…..” We just waved and kept walking. Vincent looked over at me and said “You know she is completely mad but I kind of like that about her.” I then related the story I knew about when Susan met the great playwright Tennessee Williams. After a while Tennessee took stock of the young actress and summed her up by saying “My favorite actors are 50% male and 50% female. You, my dear are neither!” The laugh that brought out of Vincent was worth the whole exchange, as it was heard by the entire crew.

The next day I decided to bring his co-star from the Poe films, actress Hazel Court, onto the set for a reunion. I had called Hazel the night before and asked if she could come down and give Vincent a little nostalgic support as he was surrounded on the picture by kids and with SU SU being so wild and disrespectful. Hazel was just about to go into the hospital for some routine surgery, yet she dropped everything and made herself available for her co-star and friend.

Hazel Court is just about the happiest person you could hope to meet in life. Her marriage to actor-turned-director Don Taylor was one of Hollywood’s more successful, and her painting and sculpting are well received among the critics. Vincent had been a little grumpy when I left the set to collect Hazel, and I was counting on her presence to cheer him up. Her arrival did just that, and soon the two of them were laughing and finishing each others’ sentences like two old friends tend to do. After about an hour or so it was time to take Hazel back to San Vicente which was what she and Don called their Tudor style house (which happened to be located on San Vicente as well). On the way, Hazel was concerned for her friend, as she noticed he was thinner than she remembered seeing him in a while. “I know Coral frets over his health, I just hope he’ll take it easy now and not work himself to death.”

During the few days Vincent worked I had a chance to speak with Coral on the phone. It is one of the things about her I miss to this day – the phone calls with this archly funny woman whose Australian accent gave every line an off-kilter kind of zing. One morning she called and began with “Oh hello dear, how is Vinnie today? You know dear, he’s going to come home in a box one day if he doesn’t let up a bit, don’t you know?” And then,“Did you happen to catch Hayley Mills on the telly last night? Well I mean she looked 500 years old dear, I mean lit from the bloody floor with every line in her poor face glowing out of the screen, it was just fucking awful dear…” When Price was doing THE WHALES OF AUGUST, the company was named Alive Pictures, and when Coral heard this she replied “They should call it ‘Just barely’” referring to the age of her husband’s co-stars in that film, all of whom were well over 80. I was so awed by this woman that I never asked for an autograph or behaved in any way other than as one of Vincent’s friends, and as such she treated me as someone on her level. Now of course I regret not getting a definitive interview with her like I had done with her husband.

Among the cast members for the wraparound shoot were film noir icon Lawrence Tierney and Hammer Queen Martine Beswicke. Courtney Joyner was responsible for Larry being in the picture as they were very close friends (think Ed Wood and Lugosi). He played the warden for a change, after a lifetime of playing killers and con men. There was a great moment during the shoot when Larry was sitting around the donut and coffee table, a little too hung up to go up and knock on Price’s trailer to say hello for old times sake. They had of course met many times over the years at various studios as their careers criss-crossed. Finally I went in and asked Vincent if he would mind saying hello to an old friend. Larry went into the trailer and they must have chatted away for an hour before Larry finally emerged. He came over to me and said ”You know, kid, that Vincent Price is an OK guy.”

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