American actor Vincent Price was BOTD in 1911. Born in St Louis, Missouri to a wealthy industrialist family, he studied at Yale University, and worked for a year as a schoolteacher. In 1934, he moved to London to study fine arts, but was drawn to a career on the stage. He had a major hit playing Prince Albert in Victoria Regina, following the production to Broadway where it ran for three years. Lured to Hollywood in 1938, he appeared in supporting roles in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, The House of the Seven Gables, The Song of Bernadette, Laura, Leave Her to Heaven and The Three Musketeers. His role as a murderous sculptor in the 1953 film House of Wax established him as a horror star, significantly boosting the popularity of the horror genre. Admired for his elegant, sinister screen presence, he is best known for his work for Hammer Studios, notably the Edgar Allan Poe adaptations House of Usher, The Pit and the Pendulum and The Masque of the Red Death, followed by cult classic The Abominable Dr. Phibes. In 1973’s Theatre of Blood, he parodied his villainous persona, playing a down-and-out actor who takes murderous revenge on his critics. As his career faded, he established the Vincent Price Gallery and Art Foundation in Los Angeles and hosted an extremely strange TV cooking show. He returned to the New York stage in the 1978 play Diversions and Delights, playing gay playwright Oscar Wilde to great success. His final film appearance in Tim Burton’s 1990 Gothic fantasy Edward Scissorhands, playing a kindly mad scientist who creates a boy with scissors for hands, confirmed his influence on younger generations of horror film fans. Price was married three times and had two children. In his 2012 memoir, Hollywood hustler Scotty Bowers named Price as one of his regular clients, and in a “white marriage” with his third wife Coral Browne in which each of them pursued same-sex affairs. Price died in 1993, aged 82. Now considered one of Hollywood’s greatest stars, the queer resonances of his horror performances have been extensively analysed by film historians.