Vincent Price

“The pencil mustache of a thousand elegant villains.”

84STACH SCORE

✂ Pencil Celebrity Era: 1960s Born 1911

Is this a Legendary Stach?

Stach Stats

Stash Power58

Ruggedness30

Curl Factor5

Legend Status91

Stats are for entertainment purposes. The mustache committee's decisions are final and occasionally arbitrary.

Style: Pencil
Peak Era: 1960s
Born: 1911
Fan Votes: 0 legendary · 0 meh

The Story

About Vincent Price

Vincent Leonard Price Jr. (1911–1993) was born in St. Louis, Missouri, to a prosperous candy-manufacturing family, studied art history at Yale, and began acting on the London stage in the 1930s. He worked in Hollywood dramas and film noir, including Laura (1944), before House of Wax (1953) redirected his career toward horror, where his silky voice and sinister charm made him a genre legend.

The Fly (1958), House on Haunted Hill (1959), the Roger Corman Edgar Allan Poe adaptations of the early 1960s, The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971), and Theater of Blood (1973) cemented the persona. A new generation met him through his spoken-word section of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" (1982) and his final film role as the Inventor in Tim Burton's Edward Scissorhands (1990).

Off-screen he was a serious art collector and lecturer, a gourmet cook who co-wrote the bestselling cookbook A Treasury of Great Recipes (1965) with his wife Mary, and a generous supporter of public art education. The thin mustache was there for nearly all of it.

The Verdict

Why the Stach Became Iconic

Vincent Price's pencil mustache is the mustache of refined menace. It made him look like a man who would poison your wine and then recommend a better vintage. Paired with that voice, it became the template for every gentleman villain in film and animation that followed.

It is telling that Price's mustache looked equally correct in a haunted mansion, a Poe adaptation, and a cooking segment. Not many mustaches have that kind of range.

On the Record

Appearances

Laura (1944)
House of Wax (1953)
The Fly (1958)
House on Haunted Hill (1959)
The Pit and the Pendulum (1961)
The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971)
Theater of Blood (1973)
Edward Scissorhands (1990)

Fun Facts

He studied art history at Yale and was a respected art collector and lecturer.
He and his wife Mary co-wrote the bestselling cookbook A Treasury of Great Recipes (1965).
He voiced the spoken-word passage on Michael Jackson's "Thriller" (1982).
He played Egghead on the 1960s Batman television series.
His final film role was the Inventor in Tim Burton's Edward Scissorhands (1990).