Vincent Price’s favorite holiday was Christmas, and the horror icon couldn’t resist pulling a prank on his wife each December, according to his daughter.
Victoria Price told Fox News Digital that her father, the star of classic horror movies like “House on Haunted Hill” and “Edward Scissorhands,” had a “weakness for large jewelry that he loved buying his wives,” and after going to Poland in 1974 he gifted her stepmother a chunky bone butterfly necklace.
“My stepmother hated it,” Price said. “That wasn’t her cup of tea. And unlike us, she just said it. ‘I will never wear this. I hate it.’” She said that her stepmom also likely wasn’t “endeared” by the fact that he also gave a necklace to her mom, Mary Grant Price.
She continued, “My dad loved Christmas; he was like Father Christmas. Christmas was his favorite holiday. They were married for 18 years. Every year for the next 18 years, [her stepmother] would get in her thing of Christmas packages some beautiful Tiffany box or some something, and there it was, every damn year that bone necklace, so that was my dad’s humor.”
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She said her dad was a habitual prankster, once leaving a “disgusting corroded denture” under her pillow when she expected a nickel from the Tooth Fairy, and jumping out and surprising candy givers when he took her trick-or-treating.
Price said her family celebrated a “very traditional” Christmas that involved opening stockings with their family, sweet rolls and eggnog, lunch and exchanging presents all day long with their extended family and finally a big New Year’s Eve party with a band and dancing.
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“The Christmas tree was always a big deal,” she said. “We lived in a very large house. It had very high ceilings, so [her mother] had to buy Christmas trees where the department stores bought theirs.”
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She said their whole house was decorated, and her mother turned their tree into a “work of art,” and she even got her own little “Charlie Brown” tree that she could decorate.
“All the artwork had bows on it and, you know, different figures had, you know, ornaments on them. And, it was a very joyful time,” she said.
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Price said they also traveled together for a lot of Christmases as a child, including places like London and Boston.
She got one of her favorite gifts, a portable typewriter, while they were spending Christmas in England one year, but her favorite gift was one she got from her dad every Christmas – a $10 gift certificate to a bookstore in Beverly Hills where she was able to buy a stack of books.
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“My dad and I would go to Hunter’s Books after I got my certificate, and he would amuse himself for as long as it took. There was no time limit,” she remembered.
“He would look at the art books, have a lovely time, and I would just spend so much time trying to figure out the perfect 10 books I wanted with my $10 worth. And then I would go home, lock myself in the room and be done with them, I don’t know, like 24 hours later. And then my dad would always be sort of pretend-angry. ‘I can’t believe I just spent $10, and you run through it like that,’ you know?’ . . . and I knew he loved how much I loved to read.”
