Vincent Price Estate: Signed Joan Rivers LP, 1983

$

66

 This LP is from the personal collection of Vincent Price and Coral Browne.

It is Joan Rivers, What Becomes a Semi Legend Most? from 1983.

 Still shrink wrapped, except for where Joan has pulled it away to sign it:

 To Coral and Vincent
 with lots of love + good thoughts
 xxxx
 Joan

Vincent and Coral Browne Price became close friends with Joan and her husband Edgar, having met one another doing Hollywood Squares.

The couples often socialized together.

A bit about What Becomes a Semi-Legend Most?:

This LP captures Joan Rivers at her mid-'80s peak, offering routines on The National Enquirer, the Royal Family, fame, sex, Heidi Abromowitz and, of course, gynecologists. Although it doesn't fully capture the scope of her talent, it remains the best comedy album Rivers ever recorded and it's not a bad way to become acquainted with her routines. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide

Tracks:
   
1     National Enquirer and U.F.O. Sightings   
2     Drugs   
3     Living in New York
4     Before and After Marriage
5     Rock Stars       
6     Men Vs. Women       
7     Royal Family   
8     Great Movie Star   
9     How God Divides   
10   Nurses and Stewardesses   
11   Men She Dated   
12   Being a Bridesmaid   
13   Being Married
14   Childbirth   
15   Heidi Abromowitz   
16   Going to the Gynecologist


About shocking and hilarious, Joan Rivers:

Comedian and actress Joan Rivers got the boot from a British daytime talk show Tuesday (June 17, 2008) for using profanities during a live broadcast.

Rivers had been asked about interviewing stars on the red carpet during an appearance on the gab-fest Loose Women.

She responded that she likes “nice” celebrities, but that Oscar-winning actor Russell Crowe is not one of them.

"Get ready to bleep this," Rivers said before launching into the tirade about Crowe, not realizing she was on a non-delayed live broadcast.

Rivers, who was on the show to promote her West End acting debut in the play Joan Rivers: A Work In Progress by a Life in Progress, was ejected from the studio during the commercial break.

Rivers later issued an apology, saying she had assumed that a censor would be able to “bleep” out the offending words.

She maintained her sense of humor, however, adding, “The whole incident reminded me of my wedding night because I was asked to leave in the middle of that, too.”

The daughter of Russian immigrant parents, Joan Sandra Molinsky was born June 8, 1933, in Brooklyn, New York. She discovered her comic talent at an early age, by entertaining her father’s work colleagues, but upon graduating she became a buyer for a chain store.

Determined to succeed, Joan appeared in a number of small plays, including a role as a lesbian opposite an equally unknown Barbara Streisand. When it became apparent that acting was not her forte, she switched to comedy and spent the next seven years doing the rounds of New York’s comedy clubs.

Her years as a struggling performer in the coffeehouses of Greenwich Village gave her the experience she needed, when her big break finally came along in 1965. A booking on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson turned Joan’s career around, and she became an instant hit.

Her first syndicated talk show on daytime TV, That Show With Joan Rivers, combined with appearances on Carson and The Ed Sullivan Show, made Joan a household name.

Following a small part in the 1969 film The Swimmer with Burt Lancaster, Joan moved to Hollywood where she wrote a TV-movie, The Girl Most Likely To and directed her first film, Rabbit Test.

About the beloved, Vincent Price:

Vincent Price is best remembered for his roles in horror movies, specifically the Roger Corman adaptations from Edger Allan Poe. Although these gave him a wide variety of characters to play and were striking enough, they type cast him for the remainder of his career. Price did not start out with the intentions of becoming an      actor but rather an art historian. He obtained degrees in Art History and English at Yale and then taught school for a year. He felt that he needed to further his education though as the students seemed to know more than he did! Price returned to college to take his Masters in Fine Arts at the Courtauld Institute in London, he also studied briefly in Vienna.

It was while in London In 1934 that the theatre bug hit him, theatre tickets were relatively cheap and Price took advantage of this. He first appeared as an actor at the Gate Theatre, at the time a private experimental theater, as the judge and a policeman in the play "Chicago'. He also appeared here as Albert in 'Victoria Regina', the role that was to bring him to Broadway and the public's attention. The show's producer Gilbert Miller, decided to take the play to New York and open with Helen Hayes (the number one actress in America at the time), in the leading role. Miller also decided to take Vincent Price to New York to play opposite her. The play opened on the 26th December 1935 and ran for three years.

The program notes in the original 1936 playbill give an interesting insight into Vincent Price's entrance to the theatrical profession....

"Vincent Price's appearance as leading man to Helen Hayes marks his professional as well as his American debut on the stage. This extraordinary circumstance is due to the fact that although Mr. Price has had stage aspirations since he was ten years old, he was forced to earn his living as a schoolmaster until mere chance decreed otherwise.

 He was studying the history of German art at the Courtauld Institute in London when a friend took him to London's Gate Theater, where casting of Maurine Watkins' "Chicago" was in process. American accents being at a premium, Mr. Price was thrust into the production and found himself doubling as a burly policeman and a venerable judge. His remarkable resemblance to Prince Albert led to his being offered the important role of the Price Consort in the ensuing production of "Victoria Regina".

He received glowing notices and was subsequently signed by Gilbert Miller for the American production."

How accurate that "he was forced to earn his living as a schoolmaster until mere chance decreed otherwise." is probably an exaggeration, his father did own the National Candy Company in St Louis.

Price's love of art never left him and he used his education to good advantage. He was responsible, in 1951, of founding the Vincent Price Gallery, with his then wife Mary Grant Price on the campus of East Los Angeles Collage. Price had been invited to lecture on the ''Aesthetic Responsibilities of the Citizen,'' he arrived to find he was, ''speaking in a Quonset hut on a mud flat.''

He was so struck by the students' spirits and the need for the community to have the opportunity to experience original art works first hand, Price donated some ninety pieces which established the first ''teaching art collection'' owned by a community college in the United States. Over the decades, Price and other patrons continued to contribute art with the goal of illustrating diverse periods, styles, mediums, and techniques: from Egyptian sculpture circa 600 BC to 1990s serigraphs. He continued to maintain a hands-on interest in the gallery with selecting exhibits and developing a fund raising program to which he leant his name and support. In 1991, he was quoted,

''We just wanted it to serve the community. We didn't want to make publicity out of it since everything actors do is suspect! We just shut up and let it grow.''

Price's love of American Indian Art led to another little known side of him, his work for Native Americans, he worked for 15 years with the Department of the Interior and was quoted as saying in an interview:

"I have an enormous respect for the American Indian. I think we shut them off, at a period when they might have become the most creative people on the face of the earth. But we killed them off."

Prior to his movie career Price joined Orson Wells' Mercury Theatre for a brief spell, here he claimed, everyone in the company had a disagreement with Wells at some point or another. Price's first movie was "Service DeLuxe" in 1938 and he went on to play such diverse historical characters as Raleigh, Clarence, Richelieu, Charles II and the Mormon Joseph Smith. He was also cast in several films as a charming but effete young man, notably in 'Laura' (1944) and 'The Fly' (1958). The occasional horror role came his way too at this time, he reveled in the old Lionel Atwell part of the demented sculptor in "The House of Wax" (1953). Price's niche in the horror movie genre was carved in 1960 with the classic movie "The Fall of the House of Usher".

Price did return to the stage in later years. He toured his one-man show of Oscar Wilde throughout America for many years to great acclaim. It was a demonstration of the excellence performing skills of Vincent Price and an escape from the type casting.

In his later years, Price became involved with the rock & roll industry, he was involved in music videos with performers including Alice Cooper, Ringo Starr, and Michael Jackson. Price had his own ideas why he was chosen for this honor.

 "I have great admiration for rock `n roll, but not when it's done badly. My God! You know, I have a theory about how I get selected for these things. I think they've based a lot of their stuff on my movies. They go out and do the rock `n roll, and they're all high, and making the noise and flying around, and then they go back to their hotel room, turn on the TV, and there I am! Alice and I met a couple of times, and I liked him, then he asked me to do 'Welcome to My Nightmare'. Then one time I got a call and they said would you come and do a recording with Michael Jackson, called 'Thriller'. I said, "Sure, I'll do anything." So I went and did it, and I didn't think anything would happen with it, than it came out and sold 40 million copies! I didn't do it for the money, because I didn't have a percentage of it. It was just fun to do.

You know to be identified with the most popular record ever made is not just chopped liver! It has really done me a lot of good, because it has given me a new audience. "

As if Price didn't have enough to occupy himself during his career as an actor, he began another career as a TV chef, which ran for several series. He had a reputation as an outstanding cook and collector of recipes. He also found time to write a book , “Joe".

Towards the end of his life, he was struck with a great personal loss. His beloved third wife, Coral Browne, succumbed to breast cancer two days after Vincent Price's 80th birthday on May 29th, 1991. In the Autumn of that year a memorial service was held at London's Farmers Church, many of Coral Browne's friends from the Theater and Film attended. Price's own frail health made it impossible for him to be at the memorial in person.  A letter written by Price was read out by director John Schlesinger --
         
"Dear John:

When I was courting Coral, the first gift she gave me was a photo of herself simply signed, "Remember Coral" -- not really a challenge as the problem was, how could you forget her? I've come to believe remembering someone is not the highest compliment -- it is missing them. I find I miss every hour of Coral's life -- I miss her morning cloudiness, noon mellowness, evening brightness. I miss her in every corner of our house, every crevice of my life. In missing her, I feel I'm missing much of life itself. Over her long illness, as I held her hand or stroked her brow, or just lay still beside her, it was not the affectionate contact we'd known as we wandered down the glamorous paths we'd been privileged to share in our few years together; we were marching towards the end of our time and we both knew it. But, in our looks, our smiles, the private, few, soft-spoken word, there was hope of other places, other ways, perhaps, to meet again.

One fact of Coral I'll always miss, her many, many devoted friends -- many here, today, in this beautiful church, celebrating her life more than mourning her death, and missing the liveliness of her wit, her personal beauty, her outgoing self. I love them all for loving her. Many of you have shared more of her life than I have, but that very private and intense passion for her is mine alone.

She survived that last long year on the love of her friends, their caring and concern -- and very especially yours, dear John. I miss you all, and though we may not meet as often, nor in the great good company of my wife, you are in my memory locked.

All my love,

Vincent