VAMPIRA – where was she during the "monster boom"? in Our Favorite Horror Hosts Forum

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VAMPIRA – where was she during the "monster boom"?

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Wich2		#161	[-]
Mar 12 11 12:01 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Mary Beth Hughes. This is almost as tough as some of the FMTW Stunt i.d.'s - but it's still not clinched for me either way. The IMDB thing could just be some Skelton fan assuming it was Hughes, as she was a regular. And Ray's idea - Maila did not do her own makeup, and was playing a different character - was my theory a few pages back. We'll see!
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GaryP11111		#162	[-]
Mar 12 11 11:12 PM Burgomaster Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Wich2 wrote: Mary Beth Hughes. This is almost as tough as some of the FMTW Stunt i.d.'s - but it's still not clinched for me either way. The IMDB thing could just be some Skelton fan assuming it was Hughes, as she was a regular. And Ray's idea - Maila did not do her own makeup, and was playing a different character - was my theory a few pages back. We'll see! Hughes did twelve episodes in twenty years; that's why I didn't use the word regular to describe her. I think the Hughes credit is correct because the other credits (other than the Vampira credit) are spot on, including Muriel Landers as Trixie Norton, which leads me to believe somebody has seen the complete episode. What also bothers me a little about the Vampira credit is that the character name is given as Alice Kramden. Lorre refers to her as "Malice." I also mentioned the possibility of a makeup artist ruining Nurmi after Sid countered that Nurmi mentions her appearance on the Skelton show in her personal journal, though in all honesty I was being diplomatic. Nurmi is simply a bajillion times more exotic-looking than Hughes. And the vampira knock-off is certainly not exotic. I just think the evidence is mounting that it isn't Nurmi. To sum up... Nurmi's niece says point-blank it isn't her. Everybody agrees it doesn't look like Nurmi (though some think it could still be her). There is no contemporary newspaper publicity that credits Vampira as appearing on that episode even though there is plenty of notice for all her other appearances including her known June 15, 1954 appearance on the Red Skelton Hour with Lugosi and Lon Chaney, Jr. There is also photo corroboration of her appearance on that episode and the makeup talent sure didn't ruin her appearance there. As Sid later reconsidered, Nurmi's journal entry quite likely is referencing the Skelton "Mad Scientist" episode with Lugosi and Chaney. BTW, I just learned that Peter Lorre also was cast in that episode. Now THAT is the episode I pray is still extant! GARY L. PRANGE "Sic gorgiamus allos subjectos nunc." Check out my YouTube Video of the Week! (updated 8-3-09)
davlghry		#163	[-]
Mar 13 11 11:10 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Not meaning to hijack the discussion (just a short detour)... but seeing Peter Lorre next to the Vampira/Morticia wife in the Skelton sketch, made me wonder if Lorre was perhaps an inspiration for Gomez Addams in the Charles Addams cartoons.
Ray Greene	re: IMDB and Mary Beth Hughes	#164	[-]
Mar 13 11 2:00 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Great stuff re: Mary Beth Hughes! The IMDB is an invaluable resource, but it is about as reliable as Wikipedia (whichmeans better in aggregate than on specifics) in that it's also crowd-sourced in a lot of instances. I had noticed the "Malice"/"Alice" thing too. And to work the other side of the street, here's a link to a page where there's a hand-colored photo of Mary Beth Hughes that makes the idea of her in the part still more plausible (if someone would post it here, that would be great--again, yuku won't give me a way to do that): http://www.briansdriveint....com/marybethhughes.html There's only one close shot of "Malice" in the sketch--when Lorre says "I think we need a Waltz." Take a close look at the eyebrows on her face in that shot. That errant eyebrow I think I might have seen under the make-up? It would appear to conform to Mary Beth Hughes' features. So instead of Maila on Skelton, what we may have here is the first-ever example of someone directly ripping off Maila's character without acknowledgement--a different and more ominous historical event.
TomWeaver999		#165	[-]
Mar 13 11 2:16 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Welllll, did Vampira ever acknowledge the similarly ghoulish gals who came before her? From the deepest vaults of trivia: Mary Beth Hughes' last movie (THE WORKING GIRLS, from the '70s) may have been Elvira's first! Last Edited By: TomWeaver999 Mar 16 11 9:28 PM. Edited 1 times.
doktorgoulfinger		#166	[-]
Mar 13 11 2:47 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Welllll, did Vampira ever acknowledge the similarly ghoulish gals who came before her? She absolutely did. Of course she was always clear about the then-unnamed Morticia Charles Addams inspiration. She and I talked about Carol Borland as well. She was very aware of her roots. Her inspired contribution was in combining established Gothic designs with fetish magazines.
doktorgoulfinger		#167	[-]
Mar 13 11 2:57 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	On the F-bomb story. When we talked about it, she used the phrase "rape a snake". Maybe she was being a bit more polite that day, or maybe just feeling ruder other times she told the story. I get the feeling she probably actually used "rape" originally. I could see that as an exercise in envelope-pushing that proved too strong for mid-50s TV. The other would have been recognized as a career-killer to even the most untamed spirit.
Ray Greene	Maila's influences...	#168	[-]
Mar 13 11 4:18 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Maila was pretty open about her influences, I would say. Some of the ones she cited most frequently were Charles Addams, the Dragon Lady from Terry and the Pirates, and BIZARRE Magazine, by which I'm assuming she meant the drawings of John Willie. She loved Theda Bara too. I don't know if she was aware of the EC "hosted" horror comics, but I assume somebody in the chain may have been--Stromberg Jr. or maybe some of the writers. Not a question I ever asked her, though I wish I had. But anyway, if you accept the Mary Beth Hughes postulate, in this instance you've got a show that paid Maila to appear as Vampira about ten weeks earlier and presumably observed her character at close range then putting on a clone of her so close as to be almost indistinguishable except by a very close comparison. It's a parody show, and I think that gives them a bit of a pass in terms of this sort of thing, but for me it's different from Maila adding sex and breasts and quips and a lordly hauteur to the Addams sketches which just isn't there in the original and making something new from them, which is what I would say she did. And I'm not knocking Addams by saying this (I'm a fan, believe me), or demeaning his importance to the Vampira character. In addition to the obvious visual debt, the comedic space Vampira occupied, where the abnormal is the normal as a way of satirizing the normal, is one he did a huge amount over many years to open up.
Ray Greene		#169	[-]
Mar 13 11 5:45 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	You know, I just want to say to all that what you guys are doing here--this level of dedication to patiently going through the scattered but available data about Maila and Vampira and getting it right--is an amazing service to her legacy, and I think you should all be very proud of yourselves. I just reread David Skal's book not too long ago, and while I still find it a wonderful read, there are things in it concerning Vampira that are just plain wrong and which could have been corrected for the revised edition--stuff like the date of the attack by Ellis Barber in New York; the opening tag, which he's still quoting from the LIFE piece ("Good evening.... I am Vampira") rather than the greeting we can actually see her perform in the KABC promo; and I think it also still says there is absolutely no extant footage of the character, which is obviously not true. Skal got there early in the pre-internet era, and I'm sure did his best, but it shows how tricky measuring her legacy has been down the years. Just this brief little conversation that I've been a part of here re: Skelton/Lorre represents a small but measurable advance in understanding the national TV aspects of her career--not thanks to me in any way, but thanks to all of you. And the very cordial and respectful level of discourse, and the obvious affection for Maila, is really a wonderful thing, not just because it makes this a comfortable place to hang out but also because it allows people to advance theories that help to spark new lines of inquiry without fearing they'll be flamed for it, with very productive results. I hesitate to speak for Maila (and I won't), because I always feel like that's presumptuous and I know there are others here who were closer to her than I was, though we were for a time rather close. But I feel sure she'd have been very, very pleased by this kind of attention. It's like her in a way--extremely smart but also with a lot of heart.
The Drunken Severed Head		#170	[-]
Mar 13 11 7:06 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	TomWeaver999 wrote: From the vaults of trivia: Mary Beth Hughes' last movie (THE WORKING GIRLS, from the '70s) may have been Elvira's first! A side note: That's probably not Mary Beth Hughes' last film. The websites The Official Mary Beth Hughes Website, Brian's Drive-In Theater, and Wikipedia all credit TANYA (1976) as the last film for Mary Beth Hughes. IMDB does not. It's a surprising credit, since TANYA is supposed to be a "sexploitation spoof"! http://universalmonsterarmy.com/blog/
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GaryP11111		#171	[-]
Mar 13 11 11:09 PM Burgomaster Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	davlghry wrote: Not meaning to hijack the discussion (just a short detour)... but seeing Peter Lorre next to the Vampira/Morticia wife in the Skelton sketch, made me wonder if Lorre was perhaps an inspiration for Gomez Addams in the Charles Addams cartoons. Interesting question. I think Charles Addams introduced the characters that would become known as the Addams Family in the late 1930s -- for some reason 1938 sticks in my mind as the year. If that is correct, Lorre was already an established film presence by then and was marketed as a horror personality along with Karloff and Lugosi. I know when I see the the character I think of Lorre. The butler character we would come to know as Lurch originally had a beard and I recall reading that he was inspired by Karloff's Morgan character from THE OLD DARK HOUSE. Don't know, though, if the connection is an assumption because of the resemblance or if Addams acknowledged the inspiration himself. GARY L. PRANGE "Sic gorgiamus allos subjectos nunc." Check out my YouTube Video of the Week! (updated 8-3-09)
GaryP11111		#172	[-]
Mar 13 11 11:15 PM Burgomaster Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Ray Greene wrote: In addition to the obvious visual debt, the comedic space Vampira occupied, where the abnormal is the normal as a way of satirizing the normal, is one he did a huge amount over many years to open up. And it's the added texture of innocence that makes that black comedic form so damn charming. It became a staple of horror hosts everywhere (and radio show hosts like Inner Sanctum's "Raymond" built upon that legacy), but as a TV host, Vampira did it first. GARY L. PRANGE "Sic gorgiamus allos subjectos nunc." Check out my YouTube Video of the Week! (updated 8-3-09) Last Edited By: GaryP11111 Mar 14 11 12:38 AM. Edited 2 times.
GaryP11111		#173	[-]
Mar 13 11 11:25 PM Burgomaster Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	doktorgoulfinger wrote: On the F-bomb story. When we talked about it, she used the phrase "rape a snake". Maybe she was being a bit more polite that day, or maybe just feeling ruder other times she told the story. I get the feeling she probably actually used "rape" originally. I could see that as an exercise in envelope-pushing that proved too strong for mid-50s TV. The other would have been recognized as a career-killer to even the most untamed spirit. I believe you're spot on. She also used the phrase "rape a doorknob" in that DVD documentary. It kind of looks as if the "rape a snake" incident coupled with the nation-wide exposure of appearing with a friend who wore that "resurrected James Dean" costume roughly one year after Dean's death -- when newspapers were filled with retrospective analysis of his popular appeal -- tarnished her professional reputation to the point of damaging her hosting career. She had TWO horror host shows prior to the host explosion that began roughly one year later. And not one station in the LA area is known to have sought her out in the late 1950s or early 1960s. I think her risque factor became her risk factor. GARY L. PRANGE "Sic gorgiamus allos subjectos nunc." Check out my YouTube Video of the Week! (updated 8-3-09)
GaryP11111		#174	[-]
Mar 14 11 12:00 AM Burgomaster Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Ray Greene wrote: So instead of Maila on Skelton, what we may have here is the first-ever example of someone directly ripping off Maila's character without acknowledgement--a different and more ominous historical event. Ohmygosh, it's amazing how quickly Vampira penetrated popular culture. She became the archetype ghoul girl. And this was going on nationally, far beyond the reaches of those LA television stations. When somebody wanted to assemble a menagerie of monsters on a TV show or at a party or a charity haunted house, a Vampira was the female ghoul of choice. I found that sort of thing over and over again perusing Vampira search hits in newspapers from across the country. And it is even more remarkable when you realize how long it lasted without the support of Maila Nurmi in a weekly TV show after 1956. There was even a Collegeville Vampire Girl costume many years later that bore a certain resemblance to a certain TV personality: http://www.flickr.com/photos/toyranch/2819629490/in/set-72157607064280847/ (from toyranch's Flickr site) GARY L. PRANGE "Sic gorgiamus allos subjectos nunc." Check out my YouTube Video of the Week! (updated 8-3-09)
TomWeaver999		#175	[-]
Mar 14 11 12:20 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Mary Beth Hughes was also in the X-rated HOW'S YOUR LOVE LIFE? (1971) alongside ... get this ... John Agar, Grant Williams, William 50 FOOT WOMAN Hudson, Mel Blanc and Eve Brent ("Jane" in the Gordon Scott Tarzan stuff of the '50s). Last Edited By: TomWeaver999 Mar 17 11 10:19 AM. Edited 1 times.
Wich2		#176	[-]
Mar 14 11 11:36 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	>the added texture of innocence that makes that black comedic form so damn charming. It became a staple of horror hosts everywhere (and radio show hosts like Inner Sanctum's "Raymond" built upon that legacy),< Ray Johnson (starting in '41) was as much a builder OF that legacy, as a builder on it. He, and other Net Radio characters like Old Nancy the Witch (who actually came several years before the Addams characters) and The Man in Black, not only preceded the TV gang like Vampira and Zach; they also inspired the EC Comics hosts, who in turn were incredibly influential. -Craig
davlghry		#177	[-]
Mar 14 11 1:35 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	What he said.
thehorrorboy		#178	[-]
Mar 14 11 4:03 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	TomWeaver999 wrote: Mary Beth Hughes was also in the X-rated HOW'S YOUR LOVE LIFE? (1971) alongside ... get this ... John Agar, Grant Williams, William 50 FOOT WOMAN Hudson, Mel Blanc and Eve Brent (Jane in the Gordon Scott Tarzan stuff of the '50s). MEL BLANC??? In an X-rated movie??? Geez! That IS all, folks!
The Drunken Severed Head		#179	[-]
Mar 15 11 2:30 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	GaryP11111 wrote: The butler character we would come to know as Lurch originally had a beard and I recall reading that he was inspired by Karloff's Morgan character from THE OLD DARK HOUSE. Don't know, though, if the connection is an assumption because of the resemblance or if Addams acknowledged the inspiration himself. I've read that same assertion, but it is apparently not so. Susan Tyler Hitchcock's book Frankenstein: A Cultural History asserts that Addams was drawing Lurch-like butlers from his youth. You can preview the relevant page of the book here. http://universalmonsterarmy.com/blog/
davlghry		#180	[-]
Mar 15 11 4:56 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	In his earliest New Yorker appearances, Lurch (not yet named) looked much more like a cross between Karloff's Frankenstein Monster and Karloff's Morgan the Butler. Over the years, his looks changed a bit. Whether or not Addams was drawing creepy butlers in his youth or not, he was clearly aware of the FRANKENSTEIN and OLD DARK HOUSE films (and Karloff) and likely inspired by them in his creation of Lurch.
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VAMPIRA – where was she during the "monster boom"?