Vincent Price’s High School Days in St. Louis

Article by Cliff Saxton
Cliff Saxton is the Archivist for MICDS (Mary Institute and St. Louis Country Day School), known as St. Louis Country Day School when Vincent Price attended in the 1920’s. In 2011 I asked Mr. Saxton to write an article about Vincent Price’s days at Country Day in honor of Vincentennial, the Vincent Price 100th Birthday Celebration, which we were preparing. There is information here I have never seen in any biographies of Vincent Price and I thank Mr. Saxton for taking the time to research and write this article. In honor of it being Vincent Price week here in St. Louis with Victoria Price in town for three fun events (read about the details of those HERE), We Are Movie Geeks has decided to re-post Cliff Saxton’s article.

In 1922, St. Louis Country Day School welcomed a young man who would become one of the school’s most illustrious graduates — and whose celebrated acting career would be encouraged on the stage of the school’s auditorium. In the fall of that year, Vincent Leonard Price, Jr. was among 30 boys enrolled in Country Day’s sixth-grade class, beginning an association with the school that continued throughout Price’s life.

In sharp contrast to the beautifully landscaped 110-acre campus in Ladue, Missouri, which houses the combined Mary Institute and Saint Louis Country Day School today, the facilities where Price received his secondary education were much more humble. Country Day had been founded in 1917, along with several other schools, after Washington University-affiliated Smith Academy, a large private school in St. Louis’ closed its doors. Price had transferred to Country Day from Community School, which had been founded in 1914.

Country Day School initially occupied a rustic, 55-acre former country estate northeast of the fledgling St. Louis airport, using the estate mansion for classes until finances permitted the addition of its own buildings, including a combination dining hall/gymnasium/auditorium constructed in the mid-1920s. (The school moved to Ladue in late 1957, and the campus fell victim to airport expansion, the old location now beneath the eastern end of the main runways.)

Travel to and from Country Day in the 1920s was an adventure unlike that of any other school student in St. Louis. To ensure that the boys all arrived on campus by the 8 a.m. start of classes, virtually the entire student body was transported on a chartered, two-car electric trolley known as “The Special.” Starting in what is today the Central West End next to the Park Plaza Hotel, the trolley wound its way for 40 minutes through the city and such suburban towns as University City, Normandy, and Wellston, depositing its passengers at the bottom of a long, hilly path which led to the school. Vincent Price, known as “Vinnie” to his classmates, lived at 6320 Forsyth in Clayton and was likely shuttled by his family between his home and a nearby stop of The Special.

After climbing the hill and once in the classroom, Price found himself generally in the middle of his peers academically, achieving his best grades in music, history, and mathematics and maintaining a good attendance record. During his senior year, he ranked 7th of 15 students in his class on the basis of his studies in solid geometry, trigonometry, college algebra, French, and chemistry, compiling an academic record sufficiently strong to gain him admission to Yale University.

Young Price’s father, Vincent L. Price, took an active role in Country Day’s early activities as a member of the school’s Board of Trustees for eight years, from the 1924-25 academic year to 1931-32. An executive with St. Louis-based National Candy Company, the senior Mr. Price saw to it that his firm took out numerous advertisements in the school’s weekly News and the annual yearbook, The Codasco.

At 3 p.m. when classes ended and the boys took part in required sports, Price proved himself a solid athlete, playing varsity soccer during his sophomore, junior, and senior years, and participating in track. He was also known for his artistic abilities, serving as art editor for The Codasco during his senior year. His yearbook page took note of his popularity with pen and ink during study periods “when he rapidly distributes pictures of good looking girls.”

Price’s true vocational course was set in 1926 when he joined the Troubadours, which was one of Country Day’s two drama organizations and was inspired by the Princeton Triangle Club. In later life on one of his many return-visits to Country Day, Price recalled with fondness his first experiences with theater, made possible by the school’s construction of a new auditorium which opened February 27, 1925, and seated 500. It was on the stage of the new facility that Price got his formal theatrical start. After appearing in the chorus of the 1927 Troubadours production “Pickles,” in 1928 he was cast in the role of Don Lozono, Captain in the Spanish Army, in the Troubadours production of “El Bandido.” In his senior year, during which he served as treasurer of the Troubadours, he again took to the stage in “All At Sea,” in the role of Sir Joseph Porter, First Lord of the Admiralty.

Price’s steady ascension to prominence as an actor on the national stage was chronicled by Country Day Headmaster Robert H. B. Thompson and his wife, who maintained scrapbooks containing reviews, theatrical programs, playbills, and other news articles about the promising young thespian. Beginning with his early success in a London production of “Victoria Regina,” the clippings chronicle his triumphant debut on Broadway in the same play; picture him with theatrical co-stars Helen Hayes and Constance Bennett; reveal his desire to move from the stage into movies; and announce the birth of his son, Vincent Barrett Price.

Country Day’s faculty and students followed Price’s career with great interest.
Price reciprocated. Through the years, he returned to the school on a number of occasions, including the 1984 ceremony during which he received the school’s “Distinguished Alumnus” award.

In October 1992, just a year before his death, the 81-year-old Price was unable to be on hand for the dedication of the school’s Vincent L. Price Theatre, a venue for experimental productions formerly known as “The Black Box.” In his honor, the school presented a Walt Disney-funded film, “Vincent,” about a young boy who dreams of growing up to be the actor. The film, narrated by Mr. Price, was a centerpiece of the event.

In a message he sent to be read at the dedication, Price thanked the school for the recognition. “Theatre is one of the great teachers,” he wrote, “and, for me, it has been a great profession and life — adventurous, varied, exciting and, yes, glamorous….I would rather that my name be remembered here than at some great auditorium with bad lighting and even worse acoustics, for it is the intimate thing that happens in the experimental creation of a character that is of interest to me — and it should happen here. That moment of creation is one of the greatest excitements life offers, and I wish every young person who steps out on this tiny stage will know the joy of being a member of the highest rank of human beings: the artists!”

Program for ‘Pickles’, Vincent Price’s first formal theatrical production, performed at St. Louis Country Day School in 1927 and a program for Vincent Price receiving the school’s Distinguished Alumni Award in 1984

Victoria Price with Cliff Saxton, Archivist at MICDS in May of 2011 visiting her father’s Alma Mater