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The Price of Fame: The Biography of Dennis Price
Charming, erudite and the very personification of the English gentleman, Dennis Price was without doubt one of the most promising and talented newcomers to the world of theater and film in the late 1930s, and he arguably reached his screen best in the classic Ealing comedy K ind Hearts and Coronets.
Huge praise was lavished upon him and he was compared alongside theatrical contemporaries such as Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson as being destined for great things. Scene-stealing performances followed over the next few decades in such differing films as The Dancing Years, The Intruder, Private’s Progress, The Naked Truth, Tunes of Glory, Tamahine and Theatre of Blood to name but a few.
Though while his career was blossoming, Price’s private life was going through turmoil when, after one of his several affairs was discovered by his wife, he faced the shame of divorce, separation from his two children, and when coupled with significant tax bills, it all proved too much, and he attempted suicide.
Eventually bouncing back, he reinvented himself as a character actor and appeared in scores of notable films and was often the best thing in them.
The Price of The Biography of Dennis Price is a beautifully researched work with many unpublished interviews and photographs on what should have been the country’s finest actor.
Huge praise was lavished upon him and he was compared alongside theatrical contemporaries such as Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson as being destined for great things. Scene-stealing performances followed over the next few decades in such differing films as The Dancing Years, The Intruder, Private’s Progress, The Naked Truth, Tunes of Glory, Tamahine and Theatre of Blood to name but a few.
Though while his career was blossoming, Price’s private life was going through turmoil when, after one of his several affairs was discovered by his wife, he faced the shame of divorce, separation from his two children, and when coupled with significant tax bills, it all proved too much, and he attempted suicide.
Eventually bouncing back, he reinvented himself as a character actor and appeared in scores of notable films and was often the best thing in them.
The Price of The Biography of Dennis Price is a beautifully researched work with many unpublished interviews and photographs on what should have been the country’s finest actor.
256 pages, Hardcover
Published May 30, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 4, 2018
This book was quite something. Dennis Price is my favorite actor though I really only love him because of Kind Hearts and Coronets. I've seen the other films he's been in, and even though I'm sure he did his best in those, Kind Hearts was so amazing that it superceeded anything else. (That being said, Tunes of Glory is worth a rental or stream.) I read Elliot Huntley's book and a BBC short book about Kind Hearts that focused on his life and they piqued my interest into what he was like away from the screen. He died young - 58 - which always will make you interested about a celebrity and according to the BBC book was gay or bisexual, which interests me as a queer person. And there is also this: how did this actor -- who gave the best performance in one of the best films of all time -- fall out of fashion in the film world so quickly? Oh, he was in a lot of movies, but he did not have the career of an Oliver Reed, a Dirk Bogarde or a Peter O'Toole. Yet if you ask me he had more charisma than Bogarde. He did not have a string of great movies you could point to and say -- now there is a career. He was a character actor -- no shame in that -- but with his looks and charisma, you feel he was destined for more.
So that's the subject. Now, the book. What a bang-up research job the authors did. I know as a writer myself that it is very hard to research someone who is a) dead, b) lived in the pre-Internet age and c) was very private and hardly talked about his life. And how do you find something new to say when there was already a book written about the actor? (Elliot J. Huntley's book) Challenging. But they did the deep dive, and the result is an exhaustive account of both his career and his private life. Overall, it gives a good sense of how someone could let his life fall apart the way he did. I feel it did go a little too deeply into his career, so I just went through those pages faster than the others. But for someone else, that might be a benefit, to learn so much about it. I do wish they had gotten more into Kind Hearts and his relationship with Alec Guinness, Joan Greenwood and Robert Hamer, who also met a bad end like Price.
I'll sum up the story of his life really fast, just so you can see what you're getting into. Fame with Kind Hearts -- involvement in a film heavily disliked (The Bad Lord Byron) -- never finding another role in the league of Kind Hearts but working as a character actor or minor player or in roles that were light or horror -- not being willing to travel to Hollywood to make it there -- adultery (he cheated on his wife) -- divorce (she found out) -- suicide attempt (he survived) -- alcoholism -- gambling -- tax problems -- early death from alcoholism.
A lot of this I knew going in, but the authors really get into what a huge stigma there was being a divorced man at that time, how private he felt he had to be about his alcoholism, the demands of stardom causing him to develop an eating disorder (!). Huntley's book on Price is also good but reading that I did not come away with a 3-D feeling about what this man was like, and in this book, I did. He was a nice guy whose personality traits/alcoholism led him to an untimely death. Had he been pickier about the roles he played... Had he gone to Hollywood... Had he not let the stigma of divorce keep him from another relationship.... Had he gotten help for the gambling and alcoholism. The book reads more like a novel than a bio. What a character this was and what a tragic end.
Maybe I am biased as a queer person, but I do think the authors kind of missed the boat when it comes to the relationship between this man he hung out with in the later part of his life -- Wooten. I kinda think both men were bisexual or Wooten was gay for pay, and that was why Price was keeping this guy around. They can't say it because there's no proof, but unearthing a 40s actor's homosexuality is a difficult thing to prove. But the fact that he did not get involved significantly with a woman after the divorce, the suicide attempt, the fact that he was in the film, Victim, the fact that nobody understood why he'd be involved with such a guy that had a terrible personality. I kind of read between the lines, but who knows, I could be wrong too. I guess I just like Dennis Price so much I want him to be on my team.
At any rate, this is a great book, one of the best bios I've read this year. Very much worth getting at the Kindle price, but hell, if you are a super fan, grab the hardcover. The pictures are amazing. This is the deep dive Dennis Price's life needed and I am so happy these authors did the hard work on behalf of movie fans everywhere. (For its minor flaws, I technically give it four and a half stars, but Goodreads does not give you that option.)
So that's the subject. Now, the book. What a bang-up research job the authors did. I know as a writer myself that it is very hard to research someone who is a) dead, b) lived in the pre-Internet age and c) was very private and hardly talked about his life. And how do you find something new to say when there was already a book written about the actor? (Elliot J. Huntley's book) Challenging. But they did the deep dive, and the result is an exhaustive account of both his career and his private life. Overall, it gives a good sense of how someone could let his life fall apart the way he did. I feel it did go a little too deeply into his career, so I just went through those pages faster than the others. But for someone else, that might be a benefit, to learn so much about it. I do wish they had gotten more into Kind Hearts and his relationship with Alec Guinness, Joan Greenwood and Robert Hamer, who also met a bad end like Price.
I'll sum up the story of his life really fast, just so you can see what you're getting into. Fame with Kind Hearts -- involvement in a film heavily disliked (The Bad Lord Byron) -- never finding another role in the league of Kind Hearts but working as a character actor or minor player or in roles that were light or horror -- not being willing to travel to Hollywood to make it there -- adultery (he cheated on his wife) -- divorce (she found out) -- suicide attempt (he survived) -- alcoholism -- gambling -- tax problems -- early death from alcoholism.
A lot of this I knew going in, but the authors really get into what a huge stigma there was being a divorced man at that time, how private he felt he had to be about his alcoholism, the demands of stardom causing him to develop an eating disorder (!). Huntley's book on Price is also good but reading that I did not come away with a 3-D feeling about what this man was like, and in this book, I did. He was a nice guy whose personality traits/alcoholism led him to an untimely death. Had he been pickier about the roles he played... Had he gone to Hollywood... Had he not let the stigma of divorce keep him from another relationship.... Had he gotten help for the gambling and alcoholism. The book reads more like a novel than a bio. What a character this was and what a tragic end.
Maybe I am biased as a queer person, but I do think the authors kind of missed the boat when it comes to the relationship between this man he hung out with in the later part of his life -- Wooten. I kinda think both men were bisexual or Wooten was gay for pay, and that was why Price was keeping this guy around. They can't say it because there's no proof, but unearthing a 40s actor's homosexuality is a difficult thing to prove. But the fact that he did not get involved significantly with a woman after the divorce, the suicide attempt, the fact that he was in the film, Victim, the fact that nobody understood why he'd be involved with such a guy that had a terrible personality. I kind of read between the lines, but who knows, I could be wrong too. I guess I just like Dennis Price so much I want him to be on my team.
At any rate, this is a great book, one of the best bios I've read this year. Very much worth getting at the Kindle price, but hell, if you are a super fan, grab the hardcover. The pictures are amazing. This is the deep dive Dennis Price's life needed and I am so happy these authors did the hard work on behalf of movie fans everywhere. (For its minor flaws, I technically give it four and a half stars, but Goodreads does not give you that option.)
January 25, 2026
Poor quality 'biography'
You'll get no insights from this book - Elaine Parker is clearly a huge fan of Dennis Price's which is fine but this makes her a poor biographer when she and Gareth Owen let it lead the narrative, it is way too biased towards Price. Her interviewees offer no insight as many are only passing acquaintances at best. Most of the book appears cribbed from newspaper clippings and available data.
Dennis Price was clearly a very private person and so getting under his skin at all was a remote possibility but this poor fare gets nowhere near.
You'll get no insights from this book - Elaine Parker is clearly a huge fan of Dennis Price's which is fine but this makes her a poor biographer when she and Gareth Owen let it lead the narrative, it is way too biased towards Price. Her interviewees offer no insight as many are only passing acquaintances at best. Most of the book appears cribbed from newspaper clippings and available data.
Dennis Price was clearly a very private person and so getting under his skin at all was a remote possibility but this poor fare gets nowhere near.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews