1954: On Saturday nights at 11:00 pm, KABC-TV in greater Los Angeles aired a new program. The opening sequence showed a raven-haired, pale-skinned woman. Her tight black dress highlighted an impossibly thin waistline. She walked down a fog-shrouded hallway toward the camera in a zombie-like trance. Then she released a blood-curdling scream.
The woman would then introduce an old, low-budget horror movie. She would reappear from time to time throughout the show to offer puns or make fun of the film.
Her television name was Vampira.
Other weekend horror movie TV hosts would follow her lead - like Joe Bob Briggs, Elvira, and Svengoolie - but Vampira was the pioneer.
Her campy late-night monster movie show aired for only one year and only in Los Angeles, yet she achieved long-time cult status.
The actress’s real name was Maila Nurmi.
She was born in 1922 in Gloucester, Massachusetts to two Finnish immigrants. The family later moved across the country to Oregon.
1940: Maila sought an acting career, so as a teenager she moved to Los Angeles and later made her way to New York City. She performed acting and dancing on Broadway in minor roles and did some modeling work.
In Los Angeles in 1949, she married for the first time to Dean Riesner, a former child actor and aspiring screenwriter. It didn’t last.
Maila then befriended a young up-and-coming actor named James Dean. They spent their days at Googie’s coffee shop getting highly caffeinated. Their relationship, like James Dean’s career and his life, was brief.
1953: Maila attended a costume ball. She appeared in a tight black dress fashioned in part on the character of Morticia Addams from the Addams Family cartoons that appeared in the New Yorker magazine. The Evil Queen in Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs also inspired the costume. Her husband came up with the name Vampira.
Also in attendance at the ball was a Los Angeles-based TV producer. He spotted her in the ghoulish attire and thought she would be perfect to host televised monster movies. She took the job.
May 1, 1954: The Vampira Show aired for the first time. Ratings showed it was an instant hit.
The publicity machine rolled out, and Vampira appeared in Life magazine. She also did guest appearances on other popular nationally-televised shows hosted by Red Skelton and George Gobel.
However, by April 2, 1955, her show went off the air. Like her relationships and her career, it did not last long.
At the same time, James Dean’s career skyrocketed. But within six months he died in a car accident.
1956: Another LA station, KHJ-TV (now KCAL) picked up her series and aired them on Friday nights. That show, too, lasted only one year.
Maila had little work until 1959 when director Ed Wood cast her in the cult classic Plan 9 from Outer Space. She had no dialogue in the movie, and in later interviews she claimed she wasn’t portraying her famous character - she was a zombie alien - although the credits listed her as Vampira.
By the ‘60s, her career was dead (pun intended). She opened a Los Angeles boutique where she sold clothes and jewelry. Among her famous customers was rock star Grace Slick.
Meanwhile, her ex-husband Dean Riesner had writing credits on such famous ‘70s films as Dirty Harry and Play Misty for Me.
When audiences rediscovered the campy classic Plan 9 in the 1980s, Vampira became more popular than ever before.
However, she was upstaged when another late-night horror movie actress named Elvira went on the air. Maila Nurmi threatened to sue. Nothing came of it, though, and she remained embittered by the ripoff of her character.
For the rest of her life, Maila only appeared as Vampira sporadically in documentaries or on cable access TV shows.
She died in her Hollywood apartment in 2008 at the age of 85. Thanks to her fan and friend, comedian Dana Gould, she is now buried at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.
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