Happy Birthday Howie Phillips Lovecraft!

Let's all take a moment to commemorate the 120th anniversary of the birth of the godfather of horror...

The Vincent Price/Christopher Lee Birthday Throwdown!

Breaking with the somber remembrance of the birthday of Peter Cushing yesterday, tonight in the Vault, let's have a little fun celebrating the shared birthday of two other horror immortals, one still with us, one no longer. One was an effete American with a penchant for cooking who once rapped with Michael Jackson; the other, a swarthy Englishman who played Dracula, Frankenstein, the Mummy and a gay biker. Tonight, it's all about Vincent Price vs. Christopher Lee.



Vamping It Up!

Yeah, I know. This one's not even fair. Chris Lee has played the Transylvanian Count more times than any actor alive or undead, a total of ten occasions from 1958's Horror of Dracula to 1976's Dracula and Son.


Price very famously turned down the role of Dracula a number of times, believing he could add nothing to it. He did, however, play Dracula's cousin once on an episode of F-Troop.


Special Effects Extravaganzas!

Christopher Lee, in more recent years, has taken part in some big-budget blockbusters--like Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, in which he fought Yoda.



Price's earliest horror effort was 1940's The Invisible Man Returns, in which he pulled off a vanishing act quite impressive for its day (and pretty damn cool today.)



Crappy Musicals!

If you ever want to experience Christopher Lee's rich baritone, look no further than The Return of Captain Invincible, in which he played the evil Nazi Mr. Midnight...



Anyone remember The Great Mouse Detective? That would be Price as the voice of the dastardly Rattigan...



Playing It for Laughs!

Lee has not been one to poke much fun at himself, although he can be seen doing comedic turns in such films as Gremlins 2 and the critically acclaimed Police Academy: Mission to Moscow, in which he played Commandant Alexandrei Nikolaivich Rakov.


Price was far more enthusiastic about making fun of himself, as evidenced by his countless variety show appearances throughout the 1950s-1980s. I'm particularly fond of his child-frightening appearance with Kermit the Frog.


Beards!

Lee rocked some Father Time-like facial hair as the wizard Saruman in another cherished geek franchise, The Lord of the Rings.


And who could forget the curly Jew-beard, complete with fake hook nose, worn by Price taking on the part of The Merchant of Venice's Shylocke in Theatre of Blood?


Bond Villainy!

A career film heavy's ultimate goal might be playing a Bond villain, and Lee got to do so as Francisco Scaramanga in 1974's The Man with the Golden Gun.


The closest Price came to playing a Bond villain was playing Egghead on the Batman TV show.


Political Incorrectness!

Lee played the very devious, very Oriental Dr. Fu Manchu on five different occasions.


Aside from the aforementioned Shylocke thing, Price also took on the disguise of a stereotypically gay hairdresser for Theatre of Blood as well, complete with '70s white man fro!


Did you know that the two men appeared in a total of four films together? They are, for those keeping score:

• The Oblong Box
• The Horror Show
• Scream and Scream Again
• House of the Long Shadows

And finally, as we celebrate these two elder statesmen of horror who share a birthday, let's not forget one other horror icon who shares this birthday as well!

"Hey guys... Do you ever wonder about all the different ways of dying? For me... the worst way to die would be for a bunch of old men... to get around me... and start biting me, and eating me alive..."

* Special thanks to Kevin Maher for his immense help in putting this post together.

A Quarter-Century of Krueger: Happy Birthday, Dear Freddy...

For this week's edition of QCK, I'd like to very simply wish a happy and healthy 60th BIRTHDAY (really??) to the one and only Robert Englund, a.k.a. the original Freddy Krueger himself.

As much as I'd like to talk a bit about Englund and his impressive career, the fine blog Monsterland has already done an excellent job, so I'll just point you there. Plus, I have my grade school reunion to attend in Brooklyn tonight, and need some time to make myself pretty and for the grueling 70-mile drive...

And incidentally, if you'd like to read a terrific post on Englund's co-star in the original Nightmare on Elm Street, Heather Langenkamp, head right over here. Just sayin'...

Edgar Allen Poe: The Bicentennial

Much like the fabled "Poe Toaster", The Vault of Horror raises a glass of fine cognac to the memory of Edgar Allen Poe, father of the short story, founder of the mystery genre, and the greatest writer of horror literature in history.

Poe was born 200 years ago this day in Boston Massachusetts. In honor of this momentous occasion for literature and horror--two areas of great interest to me--I'd like to provide a bunch of very solid resources for looking further into the life and work of Edgar Allen Poe. There's no better way I can think of to while away this evening than wandering through Mr. Poe's gothic imagination...

• Poe at Project Gutenberg: Download Poe's works directly, in both text and audio forms.
• Poe at the Internet Archive: Scanned versions of actual, illustrated books.
• PoeStories.com: Summaries, quotes, and full text of Poe's short stories, plus a Poe timeline and image gallery.
• HouseofUsher.net: The premiere Poe fan site for 14 years, featuring a virtual library, plus criticism and info on the man himself.

Lon Chaney Shall Not Die

Today The Vault of Horror marks the 125th anniversary of the birth of the great Lon Chaney Sr. How fitting indeed that April Fool's Day would be the birthday of Hollywood's greatest illusionist.

Born Leonidas Frank Chaney on April 1, 1883, he would go on to become the single greatest celebrity of the silent film era, with only Charles Chaplin being a possible exception. He was best known for his incredible skill with makeup--so much so that he even wrote an entry on the subject for the Encyclopedia Brittanica.

Always doing his own work, Chaney was able to dramatically transform himself for a wide variety of roles, most memorably including Fagin in Oliver Twist (1922), Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923), Prof. Echo in The Unholy Three (1925), Erik in The Phantom of the Opera (1925), Alonzo the Armless in The Unknown (1927), Prof. Edward C. Burke in London After Midnight (1927) and Tito Beppi in Laugh, Clown, Laugh (1928). In those early days of movie makeup, Chaney suffered greatly under painful applications, and even lost some of his vision due to his work on The Hunchback Of Notre Dame.

Many have attributed his fascination with unusual, often deformed roles to the fact that he grew up the son of parents who were both deaf and a mother who was an invalid. His ability to communicate so effectively without words and under heavy makeup might also be attributed to this.

His career was confined almost entirely to the silents, and in fact he made only one talkie, a 1930 remake of The Unholy Three, in which he performed the voices of five different characters. He was in line to portray Dracula in Tod Browning's 1931 production when he became ill with lung cancer brought on by heavy smoking and aggravated by a piece of artificial snow that became accidentally lodged in his throat while working on his final silent film, Thunder (1929). Lon Chaney passed away on August 26, 1930 at the age of 47.

Although known primarily for his work in horror, Chaney was also an accomplished dramatic stage actor, as well as a gifted comedian, dancer and singer. He was played by James Cagney in a 1957 biopic, The Man of a Thousand Faces. His son, born Creighton Chaney but using the screen name Lon Chaney Jr., became a prominent horror actor in his own right, but never quite escaped the awesome shadow of his legendary father.

(Special thanks for the animated GIF go to LonChaney.com, the family's official website.)