At Hollywood’s House of Wax, Vincent Price Is ‘Evermore’

Of all the people in Hollywood dusting off memories of actor Vincent Price, no one was waxing more eloquently Tuesday than Kenneth Horn.

“I loved his work. More than anybody else, he was responsible for my career,” Horn said.

That is why Horn did not waste any time when he learned that the master of the macabre had died Monday night at age 82. He hurriedly combed Price’s hair, straightened his black suit and brushed the cobwebs away from the actor’s arms.

Horn wanted to make certain Price came to life for the lines of saddened fans who would be streaming through the Hollywood Wax Museum on Tuesday to see the actor.

“The face is made from a mixture of beeswax and candle wax,” Horn said. He was speaking almost reverently in the dimly lit walkway outside a display depicting Price in a scene from the 1953 horror classic “House of Wax.”

“It took me five weeks to make the figure. I used his actual life mask from Warner Bros.”

Horn, 41, is the museum’s curator. Vincent Price, he says, got him the job. “His was the first wax figure I ever made. After that, I spent five years making rubber monster masks for Don Post Studios. I eventually sold the Price figure to the museum. And then I came to work here.”

Although Horn would go on to sculpt dozens of other stars’ wax faces, Price remained his favorite. There was something about the man’s versatility. And his friendliness.

Price was a multitalented actor who was just as comfortable playing Shakespeare as he was a contemporary comedy or the horror films for which he became best known. But he was also a poet and an artist. And that meant that he recognized the work that went into something even as kitschy as a wax museum sculpture.

“You’re really doing a portrait painting on top of the wax,” Horn said. “There are 40 different colors on Vincent Price’s face.”

When Price visited the museum three years ago to film a commercial, he pronounced himself pleased with the figure and congratulated Horn on his work.

That gentlemanly reaction was far different from some others.

“Roseanne Arnold wanted her nose smaller and her hair longer,” Horn said. “We fixed her for her.”

Price’s fans recognized his gentle side, too.

Arthur Kennard, who for 41 years was the actor’s manager, was awakened at 5:30 a.m. Tuesday by a tearful woman calling from Kansas to ask whether news of Price’s death was true.

“I tried to comfort her,” Kennard said. “But I was absolutely amazed. This is usually such a coldhearted business.”

The lines of saddened fans that Horn expected never materialized Tuesday at the wax museum. Word of his death probably had not gotten out, he speculated.

Museum owner Raubi Sundher said devotees of monster movies will crowd his wax works this weekend to view its chamber of horrors section. But Vincent Price will not be there. Sundher had already promised to loan the figure to a Santa Monica hotel for a Sunday charity fund-raiser.

So Vincent Price will miss Hollywood this Halloween. Now that’s horrifying.