Halloween 2024 - WIP and cosplay reveal

Hello! I have a lot of work to do and many projects to finish, but I started working on my spooky-themed cosplay these evenings when I get home (also I'm at last finishing my big Risa set that will be ready for the end of the month and to celebrate the new Lower Decks season).

But let's talk about the spooky season.... Here's a little bit of the process of creating my new dress for this Halloween, a very dear character of mine: Vampira.

Vampira (Maila Nurmi) was an iconic actress, model and horror host, and although she became inmortal famous inside the B-movie genre for Ed Wood's aberrant “Plan 9 from Outer Space”, her life and story is way more interesting.

Maila Nurmi (better known as Vampira), was a pioneering figure in horror television and a cultural icon of the 1950s. Born on December 11, 1922, in Finland, she moved to the United States in her youth.

While living in New York City in 1944, Maila Nurmi appeared with a burlesque group called Spook Scandals for a two-night performance, December 8-9. During the show, she came out of a coffin and shrieked, laying the groundwork for what would become her Vampira persona. Even if she didn't know her skills were going to be put to use as a late-night horror host, it was clear she was already working out the ideas that would make her name.

If nothing else, her combination of the macabre, the sensual, and the campy - typifying a specific brand of mid-20th-century horror - was a consistent trademark throughout her short performance career.

After creating her iconic character, the Vampira look and dyeing her hair from blonde to black for the first time to attend a Hollywood party (the dress was inspired by Addams family cartoons on the newspaper), soon Maila captured the attention of some TV producers and was hired to have her own show.

On April 30, 1954, Los Angeles area got their first taste of Vampira. As her series premiered, this scantily clad, pale, witchy woman emerged from a puff of white smoke. Armed with fingernails that could double as knives, she was possessed of a macabre sensibility that dared viewers to stay tuned - no doubt repelling anyone whose inner goth had not yet been awoken.

Each episode began with Vampira delivering an ear-splitting shriek before she took to her Victorian fainting chair and mercilessly ripped into the feature of the evening - be it horror, science fiction, or a detective film. While the show was on the air, one of her many publicity stunts was to ride around in a 1932 Packard touring car holding a black parasol. Around that time, Life magazine even ran a feature on Vampira. For a moment, at least, it seemed Maila Nurmi had finally hit the big time.

Maila, who presented herself in public as her Vampira personality, attracted the interest of very powerful men at the time: Marlon Brando, Elvis, Orson Welles... and soon she became the target of many rumors and accusations due to her macabre public perfomances. She nevertheless enjoyed provoking without stepping out of her character, but then, shortly after James Dean passed in 1955, The Vampira Show was abruptly canceled by KABC. At the time, Maila Nurmi's close friendship with Dean put her in unsavory celebrity gossip magazines and ABC thought she was too much trouble for their investment.

On top of everything - Dean's tragic passing (some magazines even blamed her for Dean's death accusing her of witchcraft on the actor and other nonsense) and the cancellation of her series, Nurmi said ABC tried several times to take away the rights to her own character, asking her to sign over the rights while they were kicking her to the curb:

"The head of the studio at ABC tried to make me sign a contract in which they would own my character, and I wouldn’t sign it. That’s what it was. They just did the reasonable facsimile, which would work really well. They didn’t need me, but they also didn’t want me around. He was pissed at me. Oh, he was nagging me and nagging me over the phone. He kept calling and calling. I said, 'Mr. Solomon, my answer is no. It is no. Unequivocally, no. I’m not going to say anything else. That’s my answer. I can’t keep talking all night. Please hang up, Mr. Solomon. If you don’t hang up I will have to hang up.'

So, I was blacklisted. He went and got me blacklisted. Nobody was allowed to hire me. I’d get a job once in a while. I used to do one network show a week. An outside show, outside of Vampira, and they would pay me $500, but the little nickels I brought home at this point were no good now that I was trying to support myself. Once they had me off the air, my contract still held, so they were sending me this little weekly check, but they hadn’t had me on the air for months. I would call a studio, or a station and I would say, 'I’m Vampira and I’m available.' And they’d say, 'Wonderful, wonderful. We’ll get right back to you. "

Following the demise of The Vampira Show and a series of failed attempts to resuscitate her ghoulish character on Las Vegas, Maila Nurmi was soon out of money, forced to move in with her mother and draw unemployment checks. When B-movie director Ed Wood came along in 1959 with a role in the science-fiction film Plan 9 From Outer Space (and co-starring with the late Bella Lugosi) she leapt at the chance to get a little work. 

It was Maila's idea that her appearance in the film be completely silent, and that she confessed years later that it was upon reading the terrible scripts and lines Ed Wood had written for her role.

Years later Plan 9 from Outer Space would be named the worst film in the history of cinema.
That same film would eventually become the precursor of Z movies, an example for many indie filmmakers to follow and a cult legend.

After many years staying away from producers and finding her new peace away from the cameras, in 1981, Maila was poised to make a comeback. KTTV wanted to bring her back for a new version of Vampira. But the deal fell apart shortly after producers thought it would be more lucrative to hire a new younger actress and steal the character. They hired Cassandra Peterson to play the same character, same look, same car, same horror host background... but with a few minor differences to not pay Nurmi for the rights of Vampira, rights she had wisely withheld all these years... And that's how they created Elvira.
Nurmi told Bizarre that she didn't even know about Peterson until she arrived for a new contract signing. 

After Nurmi was totally removed from the project, the project was promptly renamed Elvira, Mistress of the Dark and became the movie we all know. Nurmi attempted to file a lawsuit against the producers and against Peterson for infringing on her character, stealing specifically the "distinctive, low-cut, tattered black dress, emphasizing cleavage and a voluptuous figure."

After a career that moved in fits and starts, Maila Nurmi finally shuffled off this mortal coil on January 10, 2008. After her body was discovered in her Hollywood home, it was determined she passed alone, of natural causes. Some time earlier, Nurmi spoke to KABC about her legacy and a series of hand-drawn Vampira portraits she was selling: 

"I don't have any babies or any social history that's remarkable, so I'm leaving something behind, you know, when the time comes to say goodbye, I'm leaving something."

Rest in peace Maila. You left a legacy, a trail of light and darkness that shines brightly to mark the path of all the weirdo girls who came after you to attempt only a fraction of what you achieved. You will always be remembered.