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TYRONE POWER IS DEAD

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I remember this story from years ago, told by Hammer film actor Vincent Price, and it kind of struck me in its uniqueness. I wonder if there are any similar stories out there, or was the old master of horror having a laugh?

You decide....

"The late Hollywood film star Vincent Price was a master of terror and suspense, and starred in such horror films as the House of Wax, the Witchfinder General, and The Fall of the House of Usher. Although Price was always typecast to play sinister roles, in real life his only interest was cooking, and he wasn't interested in the occult or the supernatural - but in the year 1958, something weird happened to him which made him realise that there are, as Shakespeare put it, 'more things in heaven and earth' than we know about.
Price was a good friend of another Hollywood star, the handsome heartthrob Tyrone Power. Price lived near the star in LA and often used to give him advice, and Tyrone Power looked up at his friend as an older brother.

Anyway, Price was flying into New York airport, but the weather was particularly bad, so the plane had to circle the heavy grey clouds which were hanging over the Big Apple. Price was reading a book, when suddenly he had a strange and powerful urge to push the curtain aside from his window. He swished the curtain aside and peered through the porthole window at the grey dismal sky, and then the actor's heart palpitated when he saw something in the clouds that haunted him for the rest of his life.

Price saw huge glowing crimson letters which spelt out the chilling message, 'TYRONE POWER IS DEAD' across the clouds over New York.

Vincent Price couldn't believe his eyes, he turned to a woman sleeping in the next seat and woke her, then pointed out the window to draw her attention to the bizarre message in the sky, but the woman could see nothing; the illuminated message was no longer there.

As soon as the plane landed, Price rushed down the steps of the aircraft and asked several members of the airport police if they had seen the sentence flashed up on the clouds, but the police shook their heads and just smirked. Price then walked over to a news stand and scanned the headlines of the New York Times; there was no mention of Tyrone Power's death. Price decided that some practical joker in New York had probably projected the words he'd seen onto the low clouds using some powerful light. Anything was possible in New York.

But when Price checked into a hotel, a theatrical agent he'd worked with many years ago approached him in the foyer and grabbed his arm. The agent said, 'Vincent, have you heard the terrible news? Tyrone Power died of a heart attack half an hour ago.'

Price felt a cold tingle down his spine; half an hour ago he had seen the strange aerial obituary in glowing letters in the grey sky.

Up to his death, Vincent Price was haunted by the memory of the eerie message emblazoned on the clouds on that dismal rainy afternoon."
 
The one that springs to mind is the Alec Guinness/James Dean story - he talked about it on Parkinson once. Jimmy Dean showed him his brand new car, and Guinness told him not to drive it or he'd die...

More here. :eek!!!!:
 
I had that story about vincint price in a book once.
It didnt go into to much detail.The book was a part of a series called The Unexplained{not the old magazine}
 
I too read about this in a book written in the very early 1970s by Jess Stearn, called 'The Door To The Future'.
It also mentioned some confusion and mystery over the exact time and circs of the star's death. Anyone know wanything about that?
 
In Vincent's own words FROM THIS SITE

Did he believe in evil? "Yes. I do believe in the power of evil." he said. "If there's a power of good there must also be a power of evil. inside of us we all have' a sense of evil -- and seeing a horror movie is a sort of getting it out -- a release. You know. I've been invited to witness voodoo in Haiti and a Black Mass in California and I've accepted out of interest. I have had some very strange experiences myself as a matter of fact. Once when I flew to New York from Hollywood we got stacked up over New York because of bad weather. We were up there for two hours. and I suddenly saw written clearly on the clouds, Tyrone Power Dies.'

"He'd been alive and filming when I'd left Hollywood eight hours before, so I couldn't possibly have known. And when I landed I found it was true.

"Another time I woke in the night and heard the unmistakable laughter of my friend Rachel Field. the writer All This And Heaven Too filling the room. I learned she had died at precisely that moment. Odd, isn't it?"


Also, comedian FLIP WILSON had a run-in: He also claimed (seriously) that one of the homes he lived in was haunted in some way.

I remember seeing him talking about the ghosts in his house, he believed they communicated with him, but ither than the above quote from IMDB, I can't find any other details. Here is a page about his show if anybody's interested!
 
Good stories! ... And what purpose did the message in the clouds actually achieve?

I remember watching a programme on the end of The haunting DVD (most recent version) and it had a bit where Roy Dotrice was talking about his encounter with a malevolent spirit. He was staying in a hotel with his wife and daughter and his daughter kept crying out in her room saying there was someone there. He swapped rooms with her and his daughter (mIchele I think) went to sleep with her mother. He didn't stay in the room long as he felt something pushing down on him in the bed. He managed to get up (can't remember if he threw it off or not) and they left the hotel the next day.
Sorry I can't remember all the details, but it was a very creepy story that spooked me! Maybe someone could find the story online somewhere. :)
 
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Not 100% on topic but close-ish, Here is a list of Hollywood Haunted Locations and Celebrity Ghosts

And from another site:

The Joan Crawford House

When she was a child, Christina Crawford saw and heard phantom children in this Brentwood house. Her mother, Joan Crawford, arranged for an exorcist to "cleanse" the house after she, too, heard the ghostly voices.

Since Joan's death, an evil presence has permeated the atmosphere of the house. Unexplained fires sometimes erupt in the house on the wall behind Crawford's bed. Even after four days of investigation, the Fire Department couldn't explain the mysterious blaze.


LINK 2
 
In one of his last interviews, John Lennon acknowledged that the stories regarding ghosts inhabiting his apartment building, the 'Dakota' were true, and even claimed to have seen one of the phantasms himself. In light of claims that his spirit now haunts the location following his untimely demise, one wonders if he gets on with the other ghosts.
 
The late Doris Stokes claimed to have regularly chatted with Lennon after his death. IIRC she called him an irritating young man with an American accent. :D
 
Jimi Hendrix lived in the house in which Handel resided in London. Apparently he leapt out of bed one night shouting that some "Old Dude in a nightcap " was wandering around the place.
 
Thora Hird once had to act in a haunted bolero jacket, she claimed. When she put it on, she felt as if she were being choked. Story is that an actress had been strangled in it, a while before.

The moral of the story? Never wear a bolero jacket. Even inhabitants of the spectral plane know that it's not a good look.
 
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