Vincent Price - The Book of Joe: About a Dog and His Man

The Book of Joe

About a Dog and His Man

Illustrated by Leo Hershfield

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this book or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

Copyright 1961 by Vincent Price

Cover design by Mauricio Daz

978-1-4976-5304-7

This edition published in 2016 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

180 Maiden Lane

New York, NY 10038

www.openroadmedia.com

To the memory of my mother and father whose love for pets and people gave purpose to their lives and their childrens.

Preface

Children are like anthropologists. They gather clues about life by observing the world around them. And the thing children most want to learn about is, of course, love.

As the child of a man who was adored by everyone he knew or metfamily, friends, and strangersnumbering into the millions, a man who loved many people, places, and things (art being his greatest and most public passion), learning about love from my father was tantamount to being taught how to swim by being tossed into the Pacific halfway to Hawaii and being told to head for shore. Whatever he did, he did it big and with his whole heart. Love was no exception. So I just swam in the sea of his love and let the currents take me.

But ultimately, when it comes right down to it, children are pragmatists. While I could feel my fathers huge heart in everything he did and every encounter I witnessed, I realize now that I learned the most about how to love by watching my dad with his dogs. What I learned was that when love is true, it is simple, sweet, and shared.

Dog is Love.

Vincent and Victoria Price with Puffie the pug

Photo: From the personal collection of Victoria Price.

That would be my three-word synopsis for this wonderful little bookmy favorite of my fathers books. I am not the first person to believe that dogs crack open our hearts in ways that other human beings sometimes cant, just by being totally present and loving unconditionally, no matter what. In doing so, they help us to be better people.

Joe found my dad at a time of great upheaval, during a nasty divorce that took his son away, followed by the deaths of both his parents. To say my father loved Joe makes the word love suddenly seem inadequateas words often are to describe the feeling of giving your whole heart to someone. But in the end, it is my fathers words, his gift as a storyteller, that allow us a glimpse of the sweet, simple, shared love between a man and his dog.

Vincent Price with his last two dogs, Willi and Kiki

Photo: From the personal collection of Victoria Price.

I was very young when Joe passed. There would be many more dogs in our lives: Paisley the Skye Terrier, Puffie the pug, Pretty the Pekingese. (All Psyoull find out why when you read this book!) My stepmother brought her Chihuahua, Tiggy (short for Antigone), with her from England when she moved to California. More Chihuahuas followed: Maile and Fendi. The last dogs in my dads life were two Schipperke sisters, Willi and Kiki. My dad loved them all in the darling uncomplicated way we dog lovers love our dogs. But Joe was specialas you will read in this love letter from a man to his dog.

This gem of a book has been out of print for a very, very long time. It gives me great pleasure to reintroduce readers to one of the sweetest love stories I have ever read, written by a man who taught me as much about love as anyone I have known. World: Meet Joe, the four-legged love of Vincent Prices life!

Victoria Price

Lifelong Dog Lover

Santa Fe, New Mexico

February 2016

Introduction

The first time I saw Vincent Price was in a Tilex commercial. I was six years old and the experience was pretty traumatic. But my mom calmed my nerves, saying, Thats Vincent Price. He always plays scary people but in reality hes a very nice man. Hes just pretending. In reality? What do you mean? I just saw him in a chamber of horrors scrubbing mildew off a shower wall. Are you saying thats not his house? Thats not his shower? And the hunchback guy isnt his roommate?

Not too long after this, I was up late watching TV and caught House of Wax. At first I was scaredits the guy from the Tilex commercial!but I remembered my moms words: Hes a nice man, hes just pretending. I relaxed and by the end was completely enthralled.

As I watched more of his films I realized that I was receiving my first lessons in acting: Be committed and have fun. That was the constant in every Price performance. And its what kept bringing me back again and again to his movies. By the time I was in high school I was a fanatic. One of my first purchases with my lawn mowing money was a box set of six of his Edgar Allan Poe movies. I had a Tomb of Ligeia poster in my room. I was a card-carrying Vincent Price geek.

Years later, not long after Id been hired as a cast member on Saturday Night Live, a writer on the show, Matt Murray, suggested we try out a Vincent Price sketch. Id been doing my Vincent Price voice in the office (really just ripping off Dana Goulds impression) and it was making us laugh. What if he had a series of holiday specials in the late 50s that were always being ruined by the stars of the day? We did the first one for Thanksgiving and it went great! It was a real moment for me. Id just played my hero on my favorite show!

I love it when teenagers tell me that the Vincent Price sketches inspired them to check out his movies. Its the least I could do for the man who taught me the basics.

Its a true honor to be a part of this book.

Bill Hader

March 2011

Chapter One

THIS IS A TALE OF how I went to the dogs or, to be numerically correct, to the dog. Now please do not expect this book to end with a glorious proclamation of rehabilitation. Not a chance. After fourteen years Im incurably hooked on, intoxicated by, and addicted tomy dog, Joe.

No candidate for a show ring, my Joe. The only kind of ring with which hes familiar is the one he inadvertently but unremovably dyed in the dining-room rug. Dear but tactless friends have remarked that Joe is ugly. They make sport of his hairy, pointed ears; his legs that bow before and waddle after; the sweep of his tail (so luxurious even I have to admit its slightly ridiculous kind of like a waif wearing mink); they consider his color untidy and his nose tough as a truffle. Well, either theyre blind or I am, because the older he gets the stronger these debatable charms take their claim of me.

As Im writing this, he is comfortably curled up on my feet. That is, he used to be able to curl when he was slimmer. Now his position at my feet could probably best be described as lumped, and the sound accompanying this lump these daysa muted symphony of snorts and wheezesis not unpleasant save, perhaps, that it harbingers the winter of his existence, a thought that causes a lump in my throat and one Ill happily forgo for now.