Meeting Vincent Price
While I was working for a company called Users Systems Services, Inc. (USSI) I was named the Micro Systems Manager. This is before we had a huge proliferation of PC’s in the workplace and anything smaller than a mainframe computer was called a Micro System.
USSI was the data processing company for the San Antonio Express & News newspaper where I was working. When Rupert Murdoch bought 20th Century Fox he insisted that all the companies he owned be connected in such a way that he could check on the status of any one of them from the main office of any of them. USSI was brought in to make those connections happen.
Since I had been working on PC’s of all types it was decided that I would manage the interconnection of all these new computers. This required me to travel between three major hubs of Murdoch’s empire in the U.S. New York, Los Angeles and San Antonio. For a couple of years my schedule was a week in each city over and over again. I was on a plane, at a minimum of every Monday and every Friday flying to one of these cities.
In L.A. I would go back and forth between the Fox movie studios and KTLA TV station, also owned by Fox, and by Murdoch.
One of the things about the Fox studios is that they are a closed lot, meaning that you cannot be on the grounds unless you belong there. As a result, any actor, producer or other worker can walk openly around the lot. Many of the offices are located behind false fronts that can look like a 1930’s New York street, the old west, or one of several other eras in history. My office, when I was on the lot, was on the 1930’s street behind a bakery storefront.
This was before smart phones, or even cell phones with cameras in them. When I first went to L.A. people told me to buy a camera because I would want pictures with some of the stars walking around the lot. I didn’t buy one because I thought I would be to embarrassed to walk up to a star and ask for a picture. Again, this is WAY before selfies.
Then, one day I was grabbing lunch in the canteen, which is one of the cafeterias on the lot. I was deep into editing a report I was working on at a table outside and did’t hear someone walk up to the table. Then a voice that I would have recognized anywhere spoke to me. “Excuse me, may I join you for lunch?”
It is a good thing I had just swallowed my food because I would have choked when I looked up and there stood Mr. Vincent Price. All I could stammer out was “Sure!” And he proceeded to sit across from me. He introduced himself. Like he needed to tell me who he was. I told him who I was and he asked what I did for the studio. I gave him my 10 cent answer that I worked on small computers.
He was fascinated with that and he asked me several questions about computers in general, and whether he should consider getting one. He must have recognized that I was completely star-struck at this point and he laughed and asked if I was OK?
I assured him I was and proceeded to thank him for years of great movies which I enjoyed. Over the next hour we talked about movies, the different actors he had worked with, food and his art. He was a prolific artist. He also was an amazing cook by all accounts.
When It came time to return to the real world I confessed what people had suggested about me getting a camera and how shy I was about it. But that now, of all times, I desperately wished I had one. He chuckled and said, “Well, you work here, and I work here. Get a camera and find me and I will happily take a picture with you.”
Needless to say I walked on air for the rest of the day. And that night I went straight to the store and bought a camera. It went into my briefcase ready for the next opportunity.
Work kept me busy for the next day or so and then a co-worker and I were walking to a meeting when I heard “Oh Jim…I say Jim!” And there was Mr. Price on the other side of the street. He asked if I had gotten a camera which I excitedly said I had. To which he asked my co-worker if he would take a picture of us.
As I got the camera out of my case, my coworker whispered to me “That is Vincent Price asking for a picture with you!” “Yep” was all I could say.
Several pictures were taken and for each one he put his arm around my shoulders like I was a friend, rather than a kid who just worked at the studio.
I took what I thought was the best of those pictures and had it enlarged to an 8×10 and it hung in my home for several years. I cherished meeting him and that picture.
Unfortunately several years later my soon to be ex-wife went on an angry rampage and gathered some of my things, put them in the backyard, doused them in accelerant and set them on fire. My picture with Vincent, and unfortunately the negatives which I had in an envelope on the back of the frame, went up in flames.
I will tell you that you can live through a fire, and yes you will miss things, but you can recover. I did. But I will say that of all the things I have lost, that picture is the one thing I would give almost anything to get back.