# Vincent Price's voice: how and why? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 31, 2015, 8:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vincent-prices-voice-how-and-why/741804 "2015-12-31T08:37:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2016, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vincent-prices-voice-how-and-why/741804/21 "2016-01-01T21:41:14Z")
Has anyone the joy of hearing Raymond Lewenthal (pianist) speaking? He did a little music-appreciation disk, speaking on the music of Alkan, and his voice his very strongly reminiscent of Vincent Price. [Here is a YouTube sequence](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opW1dF00RTk) (audio only) of a radio interview, where you can get a good sense of Lewenthal’s voice. The file is half an hour long, but just jump in anywhere and listen to Lewenthal speak for a bit. Doesn’t he just echo Price wonderfully? ---
**Author:** ![botsgotme](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@botsgotme](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/botsgotme)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2016, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vincent-prices-voice-how-and-why/741804/22 "2016-01-01T22:11:09Z")
Good thread…I have been trying to find a Vincent price recording (he was reading selections from the “Rubayat of Omar Khyyam”. i heard it years ago, but haven’t been able to find the CD. Anybody ever heard of this? ---
**Author:** ![Gunslinger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4491bb/32.png) [@Gunslinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gunslinger)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2016, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vincent-prices-voice-how-and-why/741804/23 "2016-01-02T05:14:39Z")
> [@Kimballkid](#): > > If you Google ‘Vincent Price interview’ it will come up with a few, including [this one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVGnWgxmHZk). Sounds a lot like the American equivalent of RP, heavily influenced by RP itself (RP being the interviewer’s accent – i.e. Price practiced the “generic no-accent American newsreader” accent, and being an Anglophile, mixed into it a bit of the British equivalent.) Turns out that thing I said is [actually a thing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_accent). Basically a blend of both US and UK “standard” (or “uppity”) accents. ---
**Author:** ![UncleFred](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f0a364/32.png) [@UncleFred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleFred)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2016, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vincent-prices-voice-how-and-why/741804/24 "2016-01-02T16:20:30Z")
Folks may disagree, but I find the dialect of Christoph Waltz reminiscent of Vincent Price. Sort of ‘formal’. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2016, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vincent-prices-voice-how-and-why/741804/25 "2016-01-02T16:36:20Z")
> [@the\_diego](#): > > I tend to attributed his speech and deportment to his somewhat aristocratic background. The wiki might be wrong on this though. I don’t think so. By US standards he was Old Money. > [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > OT: I think it’s sweet that Jonathan Harris married his childhood sweetheart in 1938, and they stayed married until he died in 2002. They used to lie in bed thinking up insults for the Robot. > [@CalMeacham](#): > > After Leonard Nimoy’s death, the PBS station ran an interview with him in which he said that he originally had a VERY heavy Boston accent\*, and he took voice training to “erase” it, resulting in his style of speech. Wife squired him around campus once, feeding him the cigarettes and coffee on which he lived, and said that when he got comfortable the erasure became less complete. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2016, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vincent-prices-voice-how-and-why/741804/26 "2016-01-02T18:53:26Z")
Not too long ago I started a thread about John Noble’s accent. In his personal life he has a mild pleasant Australian accent. When he is playing anything else like a Gondorian, Sherlock Holmes’ father or a mad American scientist he has the same accent. It’s an upper crust accent that I equated to Frazier Crane. I think Vincent Price is in that category too. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2016, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vincent-prices-voice-how-and-why/741804/27 "2016-01-02T20:26:34Z")
Price actually hosted the Tonight show one night during the summer around 76. I think he was a last minute substitute. He came out and said he did not have any jokes to tell so instead he sang a song to start the show. (for those who don’t know back then Carson took almost the whole summer off so he had lots of guest hosts from June to August. ) ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2016, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vincent-prices-voice-how-and-why/741804/28 "2016-01-03T01:20:05Z")
> [@botsgotme](#): > > Good thread…I have been trying to find a Vincent price recording (he was reading selections from the “Rubayat of Omar Khyyam”. i heard it years ago, but haven’t been able to find the CD. Anybody ever heard of this? haven’t heard that one, but he and Basil Rathbone both did recrdings of Edgar Allen Poe poems and stories. A few years ago someone combined these and sold them as a six-cassette set, and later a sic-CD set. The readings are excellent, and I highly recommend them. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2016, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vincent-prices-voice-how-and-why/741804/29 "2016-01-03T04:00:49Z")
> [@Gunslinger](#): > > Turns out that thing I said is [actually a thing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_accent). Basically a blend of both US and UK “standard” (or “uppity”) accents. Pssst…post 10. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vincent-prices-voice-how-and-why/741804.md?page=1)