October 24, 2022 • 60 mins
The original, spooky, late-night TV host and one of the most influential characters in horror media, Vampira was the alter ego of Maila Nurmi, whose personal life was just as interesting offscreen. We talk with Maila's niece Sandra Niemi, author of the new biography "Glamour Ghoul."
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
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Speaker 2 (00:13):
It's that magical time of year, full of monsters, ghouls,
and all manner of horror movies. In the nineteen fifties,
a new idea in horror hit the airwaves, repurposing vintage
scary films for a TV audience. The host of this
endeavor was also something the public had never seen before,
(00:35):
iconic for her piercing screams, morbid humor, and suggestive costume.
Her name was Myla Nermi, better known by the character
she created, Vampira, not to be confused with Elvira, but
more on that later. Today, producer Trevor Young takes us
through the haunting life and legacy of one of horror's
(00:58):
most influential character, Vampire.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
What I need is a vampire of cocktails to settle
my nose. It'll not only settle them, it will petrifize
a vampire cockpail. You like it, it hates you.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
She was sexy, but she was untouchable. She had a
sense of humor, a bizarre sense of humor.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
I've had several letters asking whether olives or carries should
be used in making my cocktail. Well, actually neither is necessary,
since they'd only disintegrate upon being put into the cocktail. However,
if you want to use some gun, if you can
drop in an eyeball once you happen to have an
extra one around the house.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
This was the nineteen fifties, this was during the Eisenhower administration,
and no one had ever seen a person like my
And she was on television and here she was talking
about how sad it was that her sister had died
and they had to bury her alive, and that she
(02:12):
had Yellow Cross insurance that you could buy because if
you were an unsuccessful suicide, you would have insurance to
try again. My name is Sandra Niemi, and I am
the author of the book Glamour Ghoul, which is a
biography of my aunt Mila Normie aka Vampire.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
Sandra. So she never really knew her aunt Mala all
that well, but knew about her from TV. Decades later,
in the nineteen eighties, Sandra decided to track her aunt
Mila down, who by this point was in her mid
to late sixties.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
I was always obsessed with her, and I think that
was because I was an only child and I always
wanted a family, a bigger family. And I had this
aunt Mila in Hollywood that I knew was beautiful and
I thought as a child, kind of a celebrity. And
(03:15):
I enlisted the help of the Red Cross to try
to find Myla, and they couldn't find her. Well. At
that time, she was going by an alias, and that
alias was Helen Heaven, so that's why they couldn't find
Mila nor Me. I remained obsessed. I have to know her.
I wanted to talk to her. And then one day
a state would have it. I got a Star magazine
(03:38):
and there was Mila nor Me suing Alvirah for ten
million dollars, and I went, she's a live. Mila's alive.
And I immediately sat down and wrote a letter to
her attorneys who were mentioned in this article, and I said,
(03:59):
please for this letter, and they did, and Mila responded
right away, and we had a long letter writing campaign,
and it wasn't that long before I said, you know,
I'm going to come to Los Angeles and off my
daughter and I went to Hollywood to see Mila. I
(04:20):
spent a week with Mila. I got to know her.
We continued writing and then at Christmas time of ninety two,
she quit writing, and that hurt my feelings. I thought
I had her her feelings or she was mad at
me for whatever reason. I didn't know. And I even
(04:43):
called the police to get a welfare check because I
thought maybe she died, but they said no, she's fine,
and so I just left her alone. Then I found
out in the newspaper that she died in two thousand
and eight. January tenth went to Los Angeles and got
granted to go into her apartment and started picking up
(05:07):
all of her writings.
Speaker 4 (05:10):
Inside Myla's apartment, Sandra found an astoundingly detailed record of
her aunt's life.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
It was full of papers and magazines and folders, and
I thought, oh, well, this is how I can know
who she really was. This is exciting to me. And
I had a friend with me helping me, and I
told her anything that you find with Mila's handwriting, keep
(05:39):
it well, put it in plastic bags and pictures and
you know, photos and things like that. When we came
out of there, I had three black garbage bags full
of writing, and sometimes there was a cohesiveness to it.
There were pages and pages and pages on notebook paper
(06:00):
that she had written on both sides, and sometimes it
was just a little note, like a scrap of paper,
or written in the margin of a calendar. I found
a half page glued to the back of a picture
that was hanging on the wall. I found wadded up
(06:21):
pieces of notebook paper in pockets of old clothes, and
I just gathered everything up. I also found a real
Turreal tape, and when we played it, she had recorded
it in nineteen sixty six. But anyway, I have two diaries,
(06:42):
a nineteen forty forty one forty two diary and a
nineteen fifty six diary. And boy, am I glad I
got the nineteen fifty six diary because that was a
very busy year for Vampire.
Speaker 4 (06:58):
And since then Sandra has spent years sifting through that ephemera,
dedicating herself to chronicling the story of Myela Nurmi aka Vampire.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
She was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and then her father
got a job in Pittsburgh, Massachusetts, so they moved there.
And in nineteen twenty six, her father, who was an
editor of a Finnish newspaper in America, there was a
civil war going in Finland and he wanted to be
(07:31):
right there to see what was going on so he
could report it. And he decided to take his wife's
inheritance and go to Finland for maybe a year, he said,
And he left his wife and his two small children,
and he came back a year later, and my grandmother
had completely changed. She was no longer this submissive housewife.
(07:57):
She was defiant, and she had learned to alcohol. Then
the family moved to Ashbuela, Ohio, and they were there
for maybe ten years. Mila had friends, and then in
the winter of nineteen thirty four he was sent to Duluth,
and it was in the heart of the depression, and
(08:17):
they almost starved to death when they lost his job.
He was only doing a few hours on the radio
a week, and it wasn't enough to sustain them. They
didn't even have electricity, They had very little food. Finally,
an angel came through and said they wanted him back
in Ashabula, So back they went and thrived. Mila accompanied
(08:44):
her father on lecture tours. He was much in demand,
he said himself. He was the man of ten thousand speeches,
and he lectured against the evils of alcohol, of course,
and he lectured for a president. He was paid to
stump for Herbert Hoover, and later on he became a
(09:07):
huge ponent of FDR. But Mala went with him and
sometimes she spoke too, but she listened to all of
his sermonizing. She knew his fire and brimstone approach. Mala
told her father that she wanted to be an artist,
and my grandfather thought artists meant someone who painted or
(09:32):
drew pictures. He didn't know the meaning of what she meant.
She wanted to be an artiste, you know, to be
free and to be friends with people like her and
nothing to do with domesticity at all, no way. She
wanted freedom to express herself, to be created.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
Eventually, the family settled in a story at Oregon, but
apparently Mala quickly got bored and yearned for a more
exciting life.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
She was going to go to New York, and the
parents put the kibosh on that and only agreed to
allow her to go to Los Angeles, where her mother's
brother and wife lived. And that's how she got to Hollywood,
and that's where Mila started looking for work, first as
a radio moonologist. She was interested, very very much interested
(10:27):
in being the first female or some wells because she
was enamor with Orson when she heard him speak on
the radio.
Speaker 5 (10:36):
Strange.
Speaker 6 (10:37):
It now seems to sit in my peaceful study, Princeton
writing down.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
This last chapter of the record. Begun at a deserted
farm and.
Speaker 6 (10:45):
Grover's new Strange to watch children playing in the streets.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
The sound of his voice and the words that he chose,
and he was her God. That was who she wanted
to be. But she didn't have much luck getting a
job in that area.
Speaker 7 (11:03):
You know.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
She tried a few things. She worked in a department
store and was a model perhaps and print ads because
she had this beautiful face.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
It was also around this time that Mala started developing
her unique fashion sense, and it was largely inspired by
a certain Disney movie.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
This is no Alder.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
It's a magic wishing apple, wishing apple, one Mike and
all your dreams come true.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Real, yeah, girl. She went to see snow White and
she was watching it and there was snow White and
coming and happy and this good little girl and washing
the dishes of the dwarfs and doing their laundry and
singing while doing it, and oh my god, Mila was
(11:59):
sickened by that. But then when the Evil Queen came
on the stage, all powerful and sexy and beautiful and
demanding and in control. That's when Mila's brain exploded, and
that's when she said, that's who I want to be.
I don't want to be evil, but I want to
(12:20):
be everything. She is the evil Queen, and she never
forgot that. She adapted part of the evil Queen persona
into vampire.
Speaker 4 (12:32):
Like many people starting off in Hollywood, Mila had a
number of tough breaks and terrible experiences. Early on.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
She went to I can't remember the person's name, but
they were advertising for a radio monologist, exactly what Mila did,
and so she applied. Now, mind you, she's only nineteen
years old from Astoria, Ore again and goes into this
shabby little studio type thing and the guy is there
(13:00):
by himself, and he tricks her into signing a piece
of paper and he takes her in the bag to
take her picture, and then he asked her to become
nude from the waist up, and all she had to
cover herself was some see through scarves. And Mila was horrified.
She knew she was locked in and to that office,
to that back part of that office, she couldn't escape,
(13:23):
and it was upstairs. No one would hear her scream,
so she complied, and he took pictures of her with
these scarves. She couldn't wait to get dressed, and as
she flew out of the office after he unlocked it,
he said, the proofs will be ready on Wednesday or whatever,
(13:45):
and she just stormed out, running away from the man.
And of course it was just a sham because the
proofs never showed up, and even when she went back
to the office, the guy was gone and locked up.
He was charlatan. And then she tried to I can't
remember who mister Clark, I think his name was. She
(14:07):
went to interview for a job there, and he made
a pass at her. He started moving his hands up
her skirt and she wrestled him and ended up breaking
his glasses and ran out of his office. And then
she said to herself, Hollywood is just filthy. Those were
(14:28):
her words that she wrote.
Speaker 4 (14:30):
But one day she met someone who had changed her
life forever.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
She went with a friend of hers because it was
the friend's birthday, ended up at Musso and Franks. They
had grabbed a serviceman outside to be their escort into
the bar because Mila wasn't twenty one yet. But they
went in with the soldier and they sat down. Of course,
they got served, and then Mala heard this voice in
(14:56):
the back of her and she couldn't believe her ears
was Orson Wells in person, her God, and she couldn't
help herself, and she ran over to his table and
started babbling whatever it is that she did. Then realized
that she had interrupted him in his dinner companions and
(15:18):
apologized and went back to her table, which was now gone.
Her friend and the soldier boy had decided to googigan out,
so now she was alone. So she just sat there
wondering what to do. And here comes Orson Wells over
to her cable by himself and invites her over to
(15:40):
his table. So she goes over there and it's time
to go, and he calls the cab and gives her
a kiss. She lived in a hotel then, I think
the Commodore hotel. He got out of the cab and
he said, I want to see where you live, and
he walked her to the door. He didn't kiss her again.
(16:01):
He left shortly thereafter. A bouquet of flowers arrived at
the desk they began a romance. At the time, it
was during the war, and Orson was always into magic,
and he was putting up a type of carnival off
LaBrea in Los Angeles, where there were all kinds of
(16:23):
tints and games, and he had his celebrity friends come
and do tricks like sawing a woman in half and
eating snakes and all of this sort of carnival kind
of stuff. Well, Orson had quit sending flowers or coming
after Mila and had been quite a while, and Mila
(16:45):
was getting a little alarmed. What has happened? Has he
ditched me? Is he not interested in me anymore? What's
going on? She went to the little house on Hacienda
that she had been seeing Orson at, and a man
showed up in a bath robe and it wasn't Orson,
and he said he didn't know him, mister Wells, And
(17:06):
so Mila left. She thought, well, maybe he's moved. I
don't know that man. Then she went to the carnival
to look for Orson. There were pictures of all these
celebrities that were going to be appearing, and she looked
up one of these pictures and it was the man
in the bath robe and his name was Joseph Cotton.
(17:27):
He was a famous actor in those days and also
a very close friend of Orson else. So then Mylea
put tuned two together. H these two men have rented
this house to entertain their girlfriends, whoever they may be,
(17:48):
and so I'm just one of his girlfriends. God only
knows how many more girlfriends he's gone. Then, while Myla
was stewing in her apartment and not working, she realized
that she was pregnant and it was Orson Wells's child.
(18:09):
And very shortly, like the same day or the next day,
she was listening to the radio and they announced that
Arson Wells had married Rita Haywarth that morning at city Hall.
So Mala's world was plunged into complete blackness, if you
can imagine.
Speaker 4 (18:31):
The sun was put up for adoption, and up until
only very recently, no one knew who the secret child was.
But after she gave birth, Mala decided to shake off
her grief and focus on her career, and that's when
she got her first big break. After an initial string
(18:57):
of disasters in Los Angeles, Mala moved to New York
City and there she nailed a role in a stage
play called Catherine was great with May West.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
She got a part as a handmaiden, and Catherine was great,
but she irritated May West because she overacted, and May said,
as an asside to the director, doesn't have to be
so big, because Mala was supposed to scream and fall
(19:28):
to the floor and faint as she was informed her
husband died and Mala went overboard, and May didn't like it.
She didn't want to be upstaged, and eventually May fired
Mila after several months on Broadway.
Speaker 4 (19:44):
While she was in New York, Mila made another celebrity friend,
Marlon Brando.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
And yet before this evening is over your mind and
give me the brush, you might forget your manners. You
might refuse to stay. He was in his first Broadway
plate and it was called I Remember Mama. So they
were both on Broadway at the same time. And one
(20:11):
of the other handmaidens that was in Catherine was Great
was dating Marlon Brando, and she was bitching and complaining
about what a cad he was. He was there one
time for her and then he was missing, and she
just couldn't take it anymore. So Mila listened and listened, thought,
you know, give me this guy's address. I'm going to
(20:31):
go over here and take care of him. He's just
not going to treat you like that. So she did.
She went over there about two thirty three o'clock one morning,
knocked on the door, and this guy answered, and it
was Marlon, and she started reading him the Riot Act
and he invited her into his apartment, and she didn't
leave until noon the next day. And her friend from
(20:52):
the play never spoke to her again, because obviously Myla
enjoyed herself with Marlon Brando. They started well. She never
came right out and said it was a romance, but
I'm pretty sure it was because she said I have
to keep my female side under control, because obviously she
(21:14):
found him very attractive. And they dated. I have a
photo as an eight by ten and Marlon is in
costume for a movie. It looks like a revolutionary four
type uniform and Mala's dressed at the nines like she's
going out for dinner. I have it and it's very
very important to me.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
Then Mala got cast in a horror slash burlesque Broadway
show called Spook Scandals.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
And it only played for one night, but that one
night turned out to be pretty great for my love,
because she was inundated with offers from Hollywood by famous
directors and producers, and she had her pick of who
to choose to go to Hollywood and be interviewed by,
(22:04):
and she chose Howard Hawks. He was the man who
discovered Lauren Bacall, and he was very, very famous. Everybody
knew Howard Haws. He was a big deal. And she
went home. She had a contract with Howard Hawks, and
she waited for I don't know how long, maybe it
(22:25):
was a couple of days, and the phone never rang. Well.
Mila was incensed, and she went back to Howard Cox
and sat in his office and took out the contract
from her purse and ripped it up into pieces and
threw it on his desk and said to him, and
she wrote this down, please kindly dispose the piece in
(22:48):
your nearest wastebasket. And out the door she went, thus
killing any opportunities she would ever have to be an actress.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
Since she was blacklisted from traditional acting roles, Mila decided
she would work on doing her own thing, something entirely
unique and fringe from Hollywood, and in October of nineteen
fifty three, she unveiled a new persona at the bow
Karribe Masquerade Ball.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
Apparently this val Cared was an annual event right before Halloween.
It was a costume ball and it was held at
the Moulin Rouge. So he told Mila about it, and
he said, you have to come and just put on
a costume. Income it's so much fun and they'll be prizes.
And Mila thought, wow, maybe I should do that because
(23:39):
I'm wanting to get discovered. I want to be on television.
Because she knew the door to movies was shut, so
she decided to go as Charles Adams unnamed character at
the time from his cartoon strip The Adams Family.
Speaker 5 (23:57):
So I went there and I practiced my mctory Marian
Kourtchy because I expected to win. But I had lavender makeup,
you know, partty with a little lavender looking as I
had risen from the grave turned a little blue, you know.
Therefooted like that. The lady was flat chested.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
She bought some rayon from a fabric store, and she
rented a wig from Max Factor and Indian Wig, so
it was a long black wig, and then she applied
her own makeup. She went barefoot and The dress was
low in the back, eye in the front. She did
not sins her waist, She just wore it. The dress
(24:35):
loose and raggedy. The sleeves were tattered and the hamline
was tattered. And she put on tomb like makeup. She said,
very very white, with a little bit of purple lavender.
They went to the ball and Mila won the costume prize,
which was a transistor radio. But she had caught the
(24:57):
eye of Hunt Stromberg program manag ABC Channel two, Los Angeles,
and he looked for her for five months, from October
to March. He finally talked to this guy, the one
who had encouraged her the beginning to go to the
Bowl thrib and he says, oh, she's easy to find.
Speaker 5 (25:19):
So they found me and they told me to come in,
and I came in. He said, come in costume. And
I came in during the Eyes of March wearing a
great Valenciaga cape coat and the winds winds of the
Eyes of March were flapping it and people were coming
out of a little bummelow saying, oh, there's Hunts vampire there.
I had no hair. You just didn't see ladies with
(25:40):
crew cuts in those days. But I had all sorts
of things women didn't see in those days, you know.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
And Mila was interviewed by hunt Stromberg. He told her
what he wanted. He wanted her to be the horror host.
And she said, well, who else are you going to have?
From Adam's family. It was a cartoon that was published
in the New Yorker in those days. And he said, oh, well,
you know, we can't afford anybody else. We just want you.
And Mala said, well, I can't possibly do it then,
(26:06):
because you would be ripping off Charles Adams. This particular
character is his character. And he says, well, then I
don't know what we're going to do. And she says, well,
can I come up with something a little different? And
he says, I'll give you four days. So Mila went
home and she took her costume from October and turned
(26:29):
it backwards.
Speaker 5 (26:31):
So then I saw a book by John Willie Bondage
and Discipline. I said, ah, that's it. I had been
a pinup model. I've been doing cheesecake right at that time.
So I took the cheesecake and the Bondage and Discipline,
and I sinched to waste.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Her waist she sensed to in those days, nineteen inches,
and I.
Speaker 5 (26:52):
Put in the fish net hose, I slipped the dress.
I changed Mortitio's statement. I gave her Hollywood makeup, and remembering.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Too that there was a.
Speaker 5 (27:04):
Bit of Greta Garbo in here in, something a little Dostoevsky,
and something just a wee bit spooky like Norma Desmond.
Were just turned me on big and Suset Boulevard. I've
made up my mind we'll bury him in the garden.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Any city laws against that, I wouldn't know. I don't
care anyway.
Speaker 5 (27:20):
I want the coffin to be white, and I wanted
specially lined with second. Now when you see it, it
looks like I'm imitating Norma Desmond, which I was, but
I didn't know it, you know, a subliminal.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
She wore bust pads because she wanted the bust in
the hips to be remarkably larger than this teeny tiny ways.
She wanted to look like she was not even human,
like she came in parts. Then she glued on some
false fingernails that were three inches long and painted the nails.
(27:53):
She made them out of margarine tubs, and she got
herself a black wig that she from a store downtown.
She walked in to an interview with hunt Stromberg four
days later, dressed as what we know now as Vampira.
(28:14):
Hunt Stromberg goes forward. Of course, this was exactly who
he wanted, and a star was born.
Speaker 4 (28:23):
And so Milo was signed to bring her character to
live TV on The Vampire Show.
Speaker 5 (28:34):
Me Reading that show.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
It premiered on April thirty, nineteen fifty four, and then
the next night it was on at its regular time midnight.
Made first nineteen fifty four. She didn't have the beginning
where she walked down the corridor with miasthma of dry eyes.
She didn't have that yet. That came a few weeks Slater.
(29:00):
But she would just introduce herself. Hellow, I am vampire.
And she had this tiny, tiny waist and this low
cut blouse and the tattered sleeves and hemline and like
she said, my tall tall shoes, black hair, bizarre makeup
with boomerang eyebrows that arch sway up, and an overly
(29:24):
pronounced spread lip where she didn't see it because it
wasn't colored television, but you could tell it was a
different color of lip. And started talking about death and
how beautiful death was, and diatines and electric chairs.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
You know, I've often been asked why I don't like
My attic is electricity.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Everybody knows electricity.
Speaker 8 (29:49):
Is the chairs.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
And you can imagine what the audience thought in this
Eisenhower era, like what is this? Who is that woman
that had never seen anything like her?
Speaker 4 (30:06):
The idea was that Vampire would host a new horror
movie each night. She'd introduce the movie, come back for
ad breaks, and close it out when it was finished,
all while making clever quote unquote jokes.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
Our little fairy tale to night. It's called the thirteenth Guest.
The thirteen makes it timely, topical and terrifying. It's about
a humorous.
Speaker 5 (30:32):
Fellow who dies telling a joke, something of a dead
pan comedian. Yes, put me.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
Down in the room and we.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
Come in. And right from the get go, she was
insanely popular. People were writing to the station wanting to
know more, more information, and within a couple of weeks
they had to bump up the time start from twelve
(31:09):
to eleven so more people would be awake. And then
Life Magazine called Life Magazine. If you made Life Magazine
in those days, you were a star. You had made it,
And Life Magazine sent a photographer here down to Los
Angeles to film Myla, and that's when the hallway Candelabra
(31:34):
dry Ice entrance mark is beginning. They did that for
Life Magazine. I think she had a four page spread.
It wasn't just one page, it was four pages. It
might have even been five. He took pictures of her
in the back of I can't remember what make car
it was, but it was a convertible and was an old,
(31:57):
tiny Victorian age car, and Myla would sit in the
back with a parasol over her head to keep the
sun out, but the parasol was all shredded up. And
then she would scream at green lights and want the
convertible to go through the red lights. So she was
(32:19):
photographed doing that, people staring at her, like in broad daylight,
like who is that woman dressed like that screaming. She
was a hit. She was a huge hit. It was
nineteen fifty four, somebody talking about death AND's beautiful suicides
and eyeballs and frog brains and beteens and oh my word,
(32:42):
what else is she going to come up with?
Speaker 4 (32:45):
Sandra says that Mila felt more comfortable as vampire than
she did as.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
Herself, especially at the beginning. I think that was her
alter ego because sometimes she would just put on vampire makeup.
She had short blonde hair, and she would just leave
her short blonde hair and put on her Mala clothes
and go down to Googie's with a vampire face. I
(33:11):
think there's a quote in the book something about hiding
behind the makeup. She could be more aloof, she could
feel more powerful, she could be more distant if she
had her vampire face. Some vampire gave her permission to
be how she wanted to be. It was that little
bit of the evil queen persona. She liked it. Mala
(33:37):
claimed that she herself was very, very shy. She said
that several times. I don't see that. I don't see
Mala as being shy, but she claims that she was.
Maybe she was when she was younger. I don't know.
But she enjoyed being vampira. She enjoyed every moment of it.
(33:57):
She loved her. She's I love vampire irishoes my child.
I brought her up and I fed her and I
took care of her. And now when Mila was older,
she would say, now it's time for her to take
care of me.
Speaker 4 (34:14):
As Vampire became more popular, Mila was invited to join
Bella Lagosi on the Red Skeleton Show.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
I think there's somebody cold as it's my sister, the Vampire.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (34:32):
The Vampire Show was eventually canceled in nineteen fifty five,
but Mala briefly took the show over to KHJATV, where
she retained rights to the Vampire character. Meanwhile, Mala started
hanging out among the Hollywood elite.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
Schwabs was the celebrity hangout drugstore. Everybody went to Schwabs.
That's where they got their medicine, their pills and their
narcotics and everything else that they needed to function and
is oftentimes standing lonely, and so Mila hung out there too.
But then a new coffee shop was built next door.
(35:10):
In fact, they shared a common wall Schwabs and Googies.
Googie's was a coffee shop. You walked in and to
the left there was a horseshoe type counter, probably with
a Fike case in the middle. So the people like
Mila started hanging out in Googies. It was the place
(35:33):
to be in Hollywood if you were just starting out
in the movies. If you hope to be an actor
or an actress, if you were a rebel, if you
were a free spirit, if you were young, you went
to Googie's. The old school stayed at Schwabz, and Mila
often said that there almost was a battle between the
(35:54):
Schwabieros and the googie Items, and every once in a
while they'd back and forth. Maryland and Rowe would come
from Schwabz and come over and hang out at Googie's
once in a while, and so would Shaja Kabor, and
a few of the others would drop in to say hi.
But mostly it was the young rebel type people.
Speaker 4 (36:15):
One of those rebels was perhaps the most famous rebel
of all time, James Dean.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
You're tearing me abar what you say? One thing, he
said another and everybody changes back again. She didn't know
who he was. So Mala's sitting there with another guy,
and a motorcycle drives up, and that was James Dean,
and into goog Ese he comes, and she said, she
(36:44):
jumped up out of her boot and banged her crazy bones.
And the guy with Jack and her said he thought
Mala had a stroke because she was just mess prized,
just staring with a peculiar look on her face that
didn't change, and he said, what what myla and Malasen?
Is that guy right there, right there, right there that
(37:06):
came in the door, who is that? I must meet him?
And the guy turned around and looked. He said, oh,
that's James Deen. I was just in a movie with him.
I want to meet him. I've got to meet him
right now. They were introduced over by the cigarette machine. Anyway,
that very same day he asked her to go on
(37:27):
his motorcycle up to his apartment. They became thick and
fast friends after that very platonic relationship because I think
from the get go this is nothing, Mila wrote. Jimmy
became the son she had to give up for adoption,
and Mila became Jimmy's surrogate mother. She was always giving
(37:50):
him advice because she was eight years older than he
was a lot of years, but she was more mature
and wise, and she was always giving it, don't do that,
don't do that, do it this way, do it, you know,
and usually he just ignored her, but he listened and
they were good friends. And then here's the bizarre part.
(38:14):
Jimmy was an unknown when they met. He had just
completed East of Eden, which was his very first movie.
He only ate three. In East of Eden, his character
name was Cal spelled with the C, and Mila had
given her adopted son a name so she could talk
(38:35):
to him even though he wasn't there, and she named
him Cal with the key. So I wonder what Mala
thought when she went, Oh, he's Cal Prass and I
have a col. So this is the Great Universe telling
me you're not alone. Your surrogate son is here. That's
my thoughts.
Speaker 4 (38:56):
Mala and James Dean developed a passionate friendship lasted for years,
but it was also a friendship that would end in
disaster for both of them. On September thirtieth, nineteen fifty five,
(39:17):
James Dean died in a tragic car accident, and it
blew apart Mila's world.
Speaker 1 (39:23):
I don't think Mila ever loved anyone in this world
as much as she loved James Dean. She never got
over his death ever. She loved him like a mother would.
She couldn't believe that twenty four years in his life
was snuffed out. She had to leave town because there
(39:45):
were too many memories of Jimmy here. She was going
to go to New York. Marlon heard she was going
to go to New York, and he offered to give
her some money to get to New York, and she
wouldn't take it. She had a couple hundred bucks, and
so off she went to New York and about herself
an apartment. And as soon as she got back to
Los Angeles, here was Whisper magazine on the newsstand. And
(40:10):
Whisper Magazine was the lesser cousin of Confidential magazine. It
was the gossip magazine of all the stars. And on
the cover was a picture of Vampire and Jamesteen, and
the headlines screamed something about that Vampire had caused the
(40:30):
death of James Den because she put a curse on him,
and Mala contemplated suicide. That was it. That was the
straw that broke the camel's back, the person that she
loved more than anything in the world, she was accused
of killing him.
Speaker 4 (40:51):
With her show canceled and her best friend killed, Mala
fell out of work in Hollywood. However, in nineteen fifty six,
she got an offer from director Ed Wood to play
a part in one of his movies.
Speaker 6 (41:04):
Can Your Heartstand The Shocking Facts about Grave Robbers from
Out a Space.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
She didn't leave a lot of information behind about Edward movie,
but I know that she had met Edwood at a
birthday party for Bela Lagosi's son. He had said something
to her, well, you're going to have to be in
one of my movies sometimes, and Mila said to herself,
(41:35):
not a check, are you kidding me? She thought he
was pathetic. One way to kill your career is star
with ned Wood movie. So then he sent one of
his people over to Mala's apartment to ask her to
be in his movie. Mila had lost her job as
(41:57):
a vampire due to creative differences. Let's say Jimmy was
dead and she said, na I don't think so, and
he says two hundred dollars, And boy did that look
good for my law because she was almost like a
cat food, like she said, and she had all these
cats to be so well, maybe just leave the script here,
(42:20):
but I don't know.
Speaker 4 (42:22):
At first, Mila decided to leave Edwarod hanging and instead
took a few other gigs.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
A few months later, Liberaci came calling.
Speaker 7 (42:32):
The Las Vegas Hilton takes great pleasure in presenting the
Liberacci Show and starring.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
Liberaci because Bella Lagosi was supposed to be co starring
with Liberacci in Las Vegas, but Bella became very very
ill and couldn't d opt out, so he suggested my law.
So Liberacci took him out upon it, and he asked
Mila to be his co star in Las Vegas for
(43:00):
two weeks, and she jumped at the chance because Liberacci
was the highest paid celebrity at the time. That's where
she went, and that's where she met Elvis. Mila would
keep running into these people. I'll tell you. Elvis was
starring at exactly the same type across the street at
(43:20):
the Old Frontier, and Mila was across the street at
the Riviera. So they formed a romance.
Speaker 4 (43:29):
But when she got home, Mala found waiting at her
doorstep the script for Edward's new movie, then called Grave
Robbers from outer Space.
Speaker 6 (43:38):
Reading is my friend. We are all interested in the future,
for that is where you and I are going to
spend the rest of our lives. And remember, my friend,
future events such as these will affect.
Speaker 1 (43:51):
You in the future. Mila never touched it. It just
sat there, and then finally Edward's friend came back and said,
we're going to start filming here in November. You know,
are you on? And she says, well, I've looked at
the script now, and the script is so inane. I
(44:12):
can't say any of it. I can't bring myself to
say a word. It's so stupid. And this guy apparently said, well,
we don't care. We only want your name anyway, and
so that's why she didn't speak the word during the
entire movie.
Speaker 4 (44:36):
Vampire's role in the eventually titled Plan nine from Outer
Space was entirely silent, but her presence was a huge
part of the film.
Speaker 8 (44:45):
I was initially offered some lines, but the fact is
that the character, although I was built as vampire, the
character wasn't Vampire as I had conceived her. Empire as
I had conceived her was giddy, outrageous, and this was
a different kind of a She was in a trance,
and I just thought it would better if she was
in a trance, and I asked her please do it mutely.
Speaker 4 (45:06):
Still, Mila was embarrassed to have done it.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
She didn't think anyone would see it. She was hoping
that nobody would see it or a recognize her or
think about it. And I don't think she saw the
movie in its entirety until like nineteen eighty four, but
she was shocked surprised that it had become a cult favorite.
(45:31):
And it was also voted the worst movie of all time.
And I used to like to think about Citizen Kane
orson Well's the best movie of all time, Planned nine
the worst movie of all time, and they had a baby.
Speaker 4 (45:45):
For better or worse. Plan nine is considered one of
Vampire's most famous and iconic roles. When the movie had
a cult resurgence in the nineteen eighties, Vampira also had
a new boost in popularity. Then Tim Burton made a
nineteen ninety four biopic called ed Wood, where actor Lisa
Marie portrayed Vampire in the film, pardon me, miss Vampire.
Speaker 1 (46:08):
Yes you don't know me, but I'm Edwood.
Speaker 7 (46:10):
I'm a film producer and I'm currently in production on
a science fiction piece with Bella Legosi and Swedish wrestler
Tord Johnson.
Speaker 4 (46:16):
I don't understand. Do you want my autograph?
Speaker 1 (46:19):
No?
Speaker 4 (46:19):
I think my film is perfect for you.
Speaker 2 (46:21):
You want me to show it on my TV program? Well,
I have nothing to do with that. You should call
the station Managret Channel seven.
Speaker 7 (46:27):
No no, no, no, no no. I don't want you
to show the movie. I want you to be in it.
Speaker 4 (46:32):
Look I'm with some friends and we're about to eat.
Speaker 7 (46:35):
Please it would just take one second. Come on over
a meet the backers. There is a really nice dentist
from Oxnark.
Speaker 2 (46:41):
Look, buddy, I've got real offers from real studios. I
don't need to blow some dentists for a part.
Speaker 4 (46:46):
Forget it.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
She went out to lunch with Lisa Marie and she
liked her because she was fellow Sagittarian. They both had,
you know, November December birthdays. The one thing she didn't
like that Lisa Marie did is she says, when I
posed as Vampira, I crooked my elbows and put my
hands on my abdomen so you could see my tiny waists.
(47:10):
That was very, very important to the character. And Lisa
Marie would put her hands on her hips. That is
not the way it's done. And I told her before
she did it how to pose herself. Mala was very
particular about her character and that's one thing she did
not like. I didn't think it was that true to Vampira.
(47:32):
I thought it showed Mala as Mala. She had long
blonde hair. Mala had short blonde hair always and sort
of a gloomy guss. Mila really was a funny person.
She cracked jokes. She his very personable. In the movie,
she was just sort of angry. That's how I looked
(47:55):
at it, So I didn't think it was accurate.
Speaker 4 (47:58):
Mala didn't do much acting or make too many vampire
appearances after Plan nine. She instead ran an antique store
called Vampire's Attic, on top of a few other odd jobs.
But when she got a second wind of fame from
the ed Wood hype in the eighties and nineties, she
reveled in the spotlight.
Speaker 1 (48:16):
I think it did have an effect on her. I
think she loved it because then on top of being
in demand, she was able to sell her artwork on
eBay and support herself. That made her very excited, and
so she did a lot of drawings and paintings, and
(48:38):
I don't think she ever did any pros. She did
some sketching that were very good. She did a pencil
sketching of Arland Brando. She did Jimmy very well, and
then paintings. I have one of her paintings. A fan
of hers sent it to me and I'd treasure it.
And she was able to sell photographs, and she went
(48:59):
to conventions, horror conventions, and she was able to sell
her photos for twenty dollars a piece autographs, so that
put money in her coffers and she desperately needed it.
Speaker 8 (49:15):
Fifteen silent minutes, which has given me an entire new career.
Thank you, mister Wood.
Speaker 1 (49:20):
You're listening.
Speaker 4 (49:22):
With such renewed interest in Vampira. KHJTV decided they wanted
to resurrect the Vampire show, so in nineteen eighty one,
they asked Mila to return to TV, but it didn't
quite go as planned.
Speaker 1 (49:36):
They had done a lot of talking to Mila. They
wanted to revive the Vampire's show, and Mala finally said, okay,
but I'm not going to appear on camera. I'm too old.
And they finally talked her into making appearances as Vampire's mother,
and she said, well, vampire doesn't have a mother. She
just evolved. And eventually she says, okay, I'll appear on
(49:59):
camera briefly once in a while and mostly in voice only.
But you will hire a vampire of my choice, and
they agreed to it, and they had a contest to
select a vampire. Mila wasn't too keen on that because
she wanted Lola Falana to be vampire, which wasn't going
(50:23):
to happen because Lola Falana was a big deal in
Las Vegas at the time. They requested if she had
anything from the original show, and she said, yeah, she
had some scripts and she had pictures of the set.
She would bring those over to Cage Jay so that
they could peruse them so they would know how to
(50:43):
set up this new show and how to make the
set look like her set original set that was such
a success for poison bar or marble coffee table, rolled
the spider, the death's head pouch, the color of the
sofa red. And she didn't hear from them anymore, and
she tried to contact them and tried to contact them nothing.
(51:07):
So she finally went to the studio and says, hey,
but gifts, well, such and so's on vacation and such
and so's sick and blah blah blah. And then she
finally what she found out was if you come back here,
we've selected a Vampiro and we'd like for you to
meet her. Mala thought, now, wait a minute, you told
(51:28):
me I was going to be able to pick the
new vampire. But she thought, well, the least I can
do is go and take a look at her. So
she went to back to the station and Cassandra Peterson
had not arrived yet, and she eventually showed up late,
and she was wearing a red wig and some kind
(51:49):
of a full black skirt, and Mala thought, oh brother,
what is this. And one of the bosses of Katee
Say said to her, this is the new Vampira, and
we gave her the rights. It's between you two girls.
You fight it out. And Mila lost her stuff right
(52:09):
in and air. You did what you gave her, the rights,
My rights, she said, some exploitive deleted Let's just say
out the door she went, and that was the end
of that. They started production the first day, calling it
(52:29):
the Vampire Show, and Mila had a CS and de
SIS letter sent to them, you stop right now or
I'm going to sue your butt saw and they changed
the name to Alvira, Mistress of the Dark. But she
was a ripoff, Mila. Milah said, the only thing that
was different between them was the big boobs and the
(52:51):
top nod on her head. Other than that, they were
the same.
Speaker 4 (52:56):
Elvirus first show called el Virus Movie macob ran from
nineteen eighty one to nineteen eighty six.
Speaker 1 (53:03):
Hello Darling, Yes, sire is Lilo may that gell with
a shape that drives me el viras Mistress of the Dark.
Speaker 4 (53:13):
It was a huge success, and the entire time Mila
was attempting to sue Elvira khjatv for taking the rights
to her character. She never won that lawsuit.
Speaker 1 (53:25):
It impacted her the rest of her life. She says,
she's going to the bank with my money and she's
buying fancy, million dollar homes. I don't even have electricity.
I can't afford to feed my dog. And you can't
blame her. You can't blame Mila for feeling that way.
I would too. That was supposed to be her show.
(53:47):
She was supposed to be making the money. There was
no al Vira at the beginning. There was only Vampira.
I'm bitter about it too.
Speaker 4 (53:56):
Still, Mala had acquired enough fame from the nineteen ninety
four Edward biopic that she was doing pretty well. She
started to appear in a number of documentaries about wood.
Speaker 5 (54:06):
And this man said that he yearned, he had planned
to have a hope to have vampire in his production.
I thought he was to grab a hold of my
heels and pull me back down into the you know,
Nicholson dimes Meyer from which I had clawed my way up, and.
Speaker 3 (54:20):
I was insensed.
Speaker 1 (54:22):
I thought I wouldn't work for that idiot. How dare
he to aspire to me?
Speaker 5 (54:26):
Right?
Speaker 4 (54:27):
And she was successfully selling her art and memorabilia to
fans across the world.
Speaker 1 (54:32):
Things went very well until I think around the turn
of the century she got evicted from her house. She
lived in a converted garage. She eventually, in two thousand
and five moved right off Sunset Boulevard and she was
much happier there, and that's where she passed away, off
Serrano of Sunset in Los Angeles.
Speaker 4 (54:55):
Mila Ermie passed away of natural causes on January tenth,
two eight, at the age of eighty five. This is
when her niece Sandra collected her writings and started to
catalog Mala's life. I asked Sandra what she admired most
about her aunt.
Speaker 1 (55:13):
The fact that she never sold out. That has impressed
people a lot. Here she had this character that she
created and she was offered lots of money to sell
her rights. KBC wanted to syndicate the show. Mala said, no, no, no,
(55:34):
I would rather be poverty stricken than lose control of
my character Vampira and her honesty. Mila was brutally honest
and like I said, never sold out, never gave up.
She lived for over sixty years, most of those years
(55:55):
as a disabled woman and a single woman, and she
served Hollywood, which is a cutthroat town. Let me tell you,
I've learned that those things really impressed me about my love.
Speaker 4 (56:10):
Finally, Sandra set out to find her long lost cousin
the child of vampire and Orson Wells, and eventually she did.
In twenty twenty one. He was identified a seventy six
year old David Putter.
Speaker 1 (56:25):
Through DNA ancestry dot com and they matched my daughter
and David as first cousin once removed or something. So
he called her on the phone and I had been
at the grocery store and I walked in and my
daughter had this smug look on her face and she says,
(56:47):
I know who mylassen is. I know his name, I
know where he lives, and I have his phone number.
I said, come on, get out of here. You know
that's not even funny. She said, no, I'm serious. I
know his name. And I looked at her and I said,
(57:09):
give it to me now. So she did, and I
was on the phone within one minute. I mean I
was calling, that's how anxious I was. And I got
him on the first call. He asked me, you know
who my mother is? And I said, oh my god.
Because I had not sold my book yet, it was
(57:32):
not quite finished. I had another chapter and a half,
maybe the finish, and then I was going to be done.
And I said, you're talking to the only person in
the world that can tell you everything you'd ever want
to know about your mother. I'm writing a book about
her life. Really, I said, yes, your mother is Mila Normie,
(57:55):
aka Vampire. And he was silent, and he says, oh
my god, I've waited seventy five years to know who
my mother was and I find out she's a vampire.
Just cracked up. I was so happy. I have not
met him in person yet, but he's sending for my
(58:16):
daughter and I to come visit him in Vermont from Oregon,
and he apparently has his mother's eyes, and so I'm
very anxious to meet David in person. He'll be the
closest thing I'll ever have to a brother. David's adopted
mother died when he was only three, so he's never
(58:38):
known a mother. And I've sent him a vampire a
statue which he proudly displays in his home. And he
feels his mother around him. Now he knows who she is.
He talks to her and calls her mom. It just
touches my heart. He thinks that Mila's there around That
(59:01):
makes my heart happy. Who can come.
Speaker 5 (59:09):
In here is to go home.
Speaker 1 (59:11):
I can have a.
Speaker 3 (59:12):
Nice little.
Speaker 1 (59:16):
Step on the cat's tale.
Speaker 3 (59:19):
I don't being a cat, but we don't have a
cat a gy tale.
Speaker 2 (59:27):
This episode of Ephemeral was written and produced by Trevor Young,
with producers Max and Alex Williams. Sandra Nimi is author
of Glamour Cool, The Passions and Pain of the Real
Vampire Myla Nurmi. Big thanks to Farrell House Publishing for
coordinating the interview. And we want to hear from you.
(59:47):
Are you a vampire fan? Who are your favorite characters
from the horror Universe. Let us know on social media.
We're at Ephemeral show and For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Speaker 4 (01:00:06):
Happy Halloween,
Ephemeral is a production of iHeart three D audio for
full exposure. Listen with that phones.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
It's that magical time of year, full of monsters, ghouls,
and all manner of horror movies. In the nineteen fifties,
a new idea in horror hit the airwaves, repurposing vintage
scary films for a TV audience. The host of this
endeavor was also something the public had never seen before,
(00:35):
iconic for her piercing screams, morbid humor, and suggestive costume.
Her name was Myla Nermi, better known by the character
she created, Vampira, not to be confused with Elvira, but
more on that later. Today, producer Trevor Young takes us
through the haunting life and legacy of one of horror's
(00:58):
most influential character, Vampire.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
What I need is a vampire of cocktails to settle
my nose. It'll not only settle them, it will petrifize
a vampire cockpail. You like it, it hates you.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
She was sexy, but she was untouchable. She had a
sense of humor, a bizarre sense of humor.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
I've had several letters asking whether olives or carries should
be used in making my cocktail. Well, actually neither is necessary,
since they'd only disintegrate upon being put into the cocktail. However,
if you want to use some gun, if you can
drop in an eyeball once you happen to have an
extra one around the house.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
This was the nineteen fifties, this was during the Eisenhower administration,
and no one had ever seen a person like my
And she was on television and here she was talking
about how sad it was that her sister had died
and they had to bury her alive, and that she
(02:12):
had Yellow Cross insurance that you could buy because if
you were an unsuccessful suicide, you would have insurance to
try again. My name is Sandra Niemi, and I am
the author of the book Glamour Ghoul, which is a
biography of my aunt Mila Normie aka Vampire.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
Sandra. So she never really knew her aunt Mala all
that well, but knew about her from TV. Decades later,
in the nineteen eighties, Sandra decided to track her aunt
Mila down, who by this point was in her mid
to late sixties.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
I was always obsessed with her, and I think that
was because I was an only child and I always
wanted a family, a bigger family. And I had this
aunt Mila in Hollywood that I knew was beautiful and
I thought as a child, kind of a celebrity. And
(03:15):
I enlisted the help of the Red Cross to try
to find Myla, and they couldn't find her. Well. At
that time, she was going by an alias, and that
alias was Helen Heaven, so that's why they couldn't find
Mila nor Me. I remained obsessed. I have to know her.
I wanted to talk to her. And then one day
a state would have it. I got a Star magazine
(03:38):
and there was Mila nor Me suing Alvirah for ten
million dollars, and I went, she's a live. Mila's alive.
And I immediately sat down and wrote a letter to
her attorneys who were mentioned in this article, and I said,
(03:59):
please for this letter, and they did, and Mila responded
right away, and we had a long letter writing campaign,
and it wasn't that long before I said, you know,
I'm going to come to Los Angeles and off my
daughter and I went to Hollywood to see Mila. I
(04:20):
spent a week with Mila. I got to know her.
We continued writing and then at Christmas time of ninety two,
she quit writing, and that hurt my feelings. I thought
I had her her feelings or she was mad at
me for whatever reason. I didn't know. And I even
(04:43):
called the police to get a welfare check because I
thought maybe she died, but they said no, she's fine,
and so I just left her alone. Then I found
out in the newspaper that she died in two thousand
and eight. January tenth went to Los Angeles and got
granted to go into her apartment and started picking up
(05:07):
all of her writings.
Speaker 4 (05:10):
Inside Myla's apartment, Sandra found an astoundingly detailed record of
her aunt's life.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
It was full of papers and magazines and folders, and
I thought, oh, well, this is how I can know
who she really was. This is exciting to me. And
I had a friend with me helping me, and I
told her anything that you find with Mila's handwriting, keep
(05:39):
it well, put it in plastic bags and pictures and
you know, photos and things like that. When we came
out of there, I had three black garbage bags full
of writing, and sometimes there was a cohesiveness to it.
There were pages and pages and pages on notebook paper
(06:00):
that she had written on both sides, and sometimes it
was just a little note, like a scrap of paper,
or written in the margin of a calendar. I found
a half page glued to the back of a picture
that was hanging on the wall. I found wadded up
(06:21):
pieces of notebook paper in pockets of old clothes, and
I just gathered everything up. I also found a real
Turreal tape, and when we played it, she had recorded
it in nineteen sixty six. But anyway, I have two diaries,
(06:42):
a nineteen forty forty one forty two diary and a
nineteen fifty six diary. And boy, am I glad I
got the nineteen fifty six diary because that was a
very busy year for Vampire.
Speaker 4 (06:58):
And since then Sandra has spent years sifting through that ephemera,
dedicating herself to chronicling the story of Myela Nurmi aka Vampire.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
She was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and then her father
got a job in Pittsburgh, Massachusetts, so they moved there.
And in nineteen twenty six, her father, who was an
editor of a Finnish newspaper in America, there was a
civil war going in Finland and he wanted to be
(07:31):
right there to see what was going on so he
could report it. And he decided to take his wife's
inheritance and go to Finland for maybe a year, he said,
And he left his wife and his two small children,
and he came back a year later, and my grandmother
had completely changed. She was no longer this submissive housewife.
(07:57):
She was defiant, and she had learned to alcohol. Then
the family moved to Ashbuela, Ohio, and they were there
for maybe ten years. Mila had friends, and then in
the winter of nineteen thirty four he was sent to Duluth,
and it was in the heart of the depression, and
(08:17):
they almost starved to death when they lost his job.
He was only doing a few hours on the radio
a week, and it wasn't enough to sustain them. They
didn't even have electricity, They had very little food. Finally,
an angel came through and said they wanted him back
in Ashabula, So back they went and thrived. Mila accompanied
(08:44):
her father on lecture tours. He was much in demand,
he said himself. He was the man of ten thousand speeches,
and he lectured against the evils of alcohol, of course,
and he lectured for a president. He was paid to
stump for Herbert Hoover, and later on he became a
(09:07):
huge ponent of FDR. But Mala went with him and
sometimes she spoke too, but she listened to all of
his sermonizing. She knew his fire and brimstone approach. Mala
told her father that she wanted to be an artist,
and my grandfather thought artists meant someone who painted or
(09:32):
drew pictures. He didn't know the meaning of what she meant.
She wanted to be an artiste, you know, to be
free and to be friends with people like her and
nothing to do with domesticity at all, no way. She
wanted freedom to express herself, to be created.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
Eventually, the family settled in a story at Oregon, but
apparently Mala quickly got bored and yearned for a more
exciting life.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
She was going to go to New York, and the
parents put the kibosh on that and only agreed to
allow her to go to Los Angeles, where her mother's
brother and wife lived. And that's how she got to Hollywood,
and that's where Mila started looking for work, first as
a radio moonologist. She was interested, very very much interested
(10:27):
in being the first female or some wells because she
was enamor with Orson when she heard him speak on
the radio.
Speaker 5 (10:36):
Strange.
Speaker 6 (10:37):
It now seems to sit in my peaceful study, Princeton
writing down.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
This last chapter of the record. Begun at a deserted
farm and.
Speaker 6 (10:45):
Grover's new Strange to watch children playing in the streets.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
The sound of his voice and the words that he chose,
and he was her God. That was who she wanted
to be. But she didn't have much luck getting a
job in that area.
Speaker 7 (11:03):
You know.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
She tried a few things. She worked in a department
store and was a model perhaps and print ads because
she had this beautiful face.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
It was also around this time that Mala started developing
her unique fashion sense, and it was largely inspired by
a certain Disney movie.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
This is no Alder.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
It's a magic wishing apple, wishing apple, one Mike and
all your dreams come true.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Real, yeah, girl. She went to see snow White and
she was watching it and there was snow White and
coming and happy and this good little girl and washing
the dishes of the dwarfs and doing their laundry and
singing while doing it, and oh my god, Mila was
(11:59):
sickened by that. But then when the Evil Queen came
on the stage, all powerful and sexy and beautiful and
demanding and in control. That's when Mila's brain exploded, and
that's when she said, that's who I want to be.
I don't want to be evil, but I want to
(12:20):
be everything. She is the evil Queen, and she never
forgot that. She adapted part of the evil Queen persona
into vampire.
Speaker 4 (12:32):
Like many people starting off in Hollywood, Mila had a
number of tough breaks and terrible experiences. Early on.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
She went to I can't remember the person's name, but
they were advertising for a radio monologist, exactly what Mila did,
and so she applied. Now, mind you, she's only nineteen
years old from Astoria, Ore again and goes into this
shabby little studio type thing and the guy is there
(13:00):
by himself, and he tricks her into signing a piece
of paper and he takes her in the bag to
take her picture, and then he asked her to become
nude from the waist up, and all she had to
cover herself was some see through scarves. And Mila was horrified.
She knew she was locked in and to that office,
to that back part of that office, she couldn't escape,
(13:23):
and it was upstairs. No one would hear her scream,
so she complied, and he took pictures of her with
these scarves. She couldn't wait to get dressed, and as
she flew out of the office after he unlocked it,
he said, the proofs will be ready on Wednesday or whatever,
(13:45):
and she just stormed out, running away from the man.
And of course it was just a sham because the
proofs never showed up, and even when she went back
to the office, the guy was gone and locked up.
He was charlatan. And then she tried to I can't
remember who mister Clark, I think his name was. She
(14:07):
went to interview for a job there, and he made
a pass at her. He started moving his hands up
her skirt and she wrestled him and ended up breaking
his glasses and ran out of his office. And then
she said to herself, Hollywood is just filthy. Those were
(14:28):
her words that she wrote.
Speaker 4 (14:30):
But one day she met someone who had changed her
life forever.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
She went with a friend of hers because it was
the friend's birthday, ended up at Musso and Franks. They
had grabbed a serviceman outside to be their escort into
the bar because Mila wasn't twenty one yet. But they
went in with the soldier and they sat down. Of course,
they got served, and then Mala heard this voice in
(14:56):
the back of her and she couldn't believe her ears
was Orson Wells in person, her God, and she couldn't
help herself, and she ran over to his table and
started babbling whatever it is that she did. Then realized
that she had interrupted him in his dinner companions and
(15:18):
apologized and went back to her table, which was now gone.
Her friend and the soldier boy had decided to googigan out,
so now she was alone. So she just sat there
wondering what to do. And here comes Orson Wells over
to her cable by himself and invites her over to
(15:40):
his table. So she goes over there and it's time
to go, and he calls the cab and gives her
a kiss. She lived in a hotel then, I think
the Commodore hotel. He got out of the cab and
he said, I want to see where you live, and
he walked her to the door. He didn't kiss her again.
(16:01):
He left shortly thereafter. A bouquet of flowers arrived at
the desk they began a romance. At the time, it
was during the war, and Orson was always into magic,
and he was putting up a type of carnival off
LaBrea in Los Angeles, where there were all kinds of
(16:23):
tints and games, and he had his celebrity friends come
and do tricks like sawing a woman in half and
eating snakes and all of this sort of carnival kind
of stuff. Well, Orson had quit sending flowers or coming
after Mila and had been quite a while, and Mila
(16:45):
was getting a little alarmed. What has happened? Has he
ditched me? Is he not interested in me anymore? What's
going on? She went to the little house on Hacienda
that she had been seeing Orson at, and a man
showed up in a bath robe and it wasn't Orson,
and he said he didn't know him, mister Wells, And
(17:06):
so Mila left. She thought, well, maybe he's moved. I
don't know that man. Then she went to the carnival
to look for Orson. There were pictures of all these
celebrities that were going to be appearing, and she looked
up one of these pictures and it was the man
in the bath robe and his name was Joseph Cotton.
(17:27):
He was a famous actor in those days and also
a very close friend of Orson else. So then Mylea
put tuned two together. H these two men have rented
this house to entertain their girlfriends, whoever they may be,
(17:48):
and so I'm just one of his girlfriends. God only
knows how many more girlfriends he's gone. Then, while Myla
was stewing in her apartment and not working, she realized
that she was pregnant and it was Orson Wells's child.
(18:09):
And very shortly, like the same day or the next day,
she was listening to the radio and they announced that
Arson Wells had married Rita Haywarth that morning at city Hall.
So Mala's world was plunged into complete blackness, if you
can imagine.
Speaker 4 (18:31):
The sun was put up for adoption, and up until
only very recently, no one knew who the secret child was.
But after she gave birth, Mala decided to shake off
her grief and focus on her career, and that's when
she got her first big break. After an initial string
(18:57):
of disasters in Los Angeles, Mala moved to New York
City and there she nailed a role in a stage
play called Catherine was great with May West.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
She got a part as a handmaiden, and Catherine was great,
but she irritated May West because she overacted, and May said,
as an asside to the director, doesn't have to be
so big, because Mala was supposed to scream and fall
(19:28):
to the floor and faint as she was informed her
husband died and Mala went overboard, and May didn't like it.
She didn't want to be upstaged, and eventually May fired
Mila after several months on Broadway.
Speaker 4 (19:44):
While she was in New York, Mila made another celebrity friend,
Marlon Brando.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
And yet before this evening is over your mind and
give me the brush, you might forget your manners. You
might refuse to stay. He was in his first Broadway
plate and it was called I Remember Mama. So they
were both on Broadway at the same time. And one
(20:11):
of the other handmaidens that was in Catherine was Great
was dating Marlon Brando, and she was bitching and complaining
about what a cad he was. He was there one
time for her and then he was missing, and she
just couldn't take it anymore. So Mila listened and listened, thought,
you know, give me this guy's address. I'm going to
(20:31):
go over here and take care of him. He's just
not going to treat you like that. So she did.
She went over there about two thirty three o'clock one morning,
knocked on the door, and this guy answered, and it
was Marlon, and she started reading him the Riot Act
and he invited her into his apartment, and she didn't
leave until noon the next day. And her friend from
(20:52):
the play never spoke to her again, because obviously Myla
enjoyed herself with Marlon Brando. They started well. She never
came right out and said it was a romance, but
I'm pretty sure it was because she said I have
to keep my female side under control, because obviously she
(21:14):
found him very attractive. And they dated. I have a
photo as an eight by ten and Marlon is in
costume for a movie. It looks like a revolutionary four
type uniform and Mala's dressed at the nines like she's
going out for dinner. I have it and it's very
very important to me.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
Then Mala got cast in a horror slash burlesque Broadway
show called Spook Scandals.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
And it only played for one night, but that one
night turned out to be pretty great for my love,
because she was inundated with offers from Hollywood by famous
directors and producers, and she had her pick of who
to choose to go to Hollywood and be interviewed by,
(22:04):
and she chose Howard Hawks. He was the man who
discovered Lauren Bacall, and he was very, very famous. Everybody
knew Howard Haws. He was a big deal. And she
went home. She had a contract with Howard Hawks, and
she waited for I don't know how long, maybe it
(22:25):
was a couple of days, and the phone never rang. Well.
Mila was incensed, and she went back to Howard Cox
and sat in his office and took out the contract
from her purse and ripped it up into pieces and
threw it on his desk and said to him, and
she wrote this down, please kindly dispose the piece in
(22:48):
your nearest wastebasket. And out the door she went, thus
killing any opportunities she would ever have to be an actress.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
Since she was blacklisted from traditional acting roles, Mila decided
she would work on doing her own thing, something entirely
unique and fringe from Hollywood, and in October of nineteen
fifty three, she unveiled a new persona at the bow
Karribe Masquerade Ball.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
Apparently this val Cared was an annual event right before Halloween.
It was a costume ball and it was held at
the Moulin Rouge. So he told Mila about it, and
he said, you have to come and just put on
a costume. Income it's so much fun and they'll be prizes.
And Mila thought, wow, maybe I should do that because
(23:39):
I'm wanting to get discovered. I want to be on television.
Because she knew the door to movies was shut, so
she decided to go as Charles Adams unnamed character at
the time from his cartoon strip The Adams Family.
Speaker 5 (23:57):
So I went there and I practiced my mctory Marian
Kourtchy because I expected to win. But I had lavender makeup,
you know, partty with a little lavender looking as I
had risen from the grave turned a little blue, you know.
Therefooted like that. The lady was flat chested.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
She bought some rayon from a fabric store, and she
rented a wig from Max Factor and Indian Wig, so
it was a long black wig, and then she applied
her own makeup. She went barefoot and The dress was
low in the back, eye in the front. She did
not sins her waist, She just wore it. The dress
(24:35):
loose and raggedy. The sleeves were tattered and the hamline
was tattered. And she put on tomb like makeup. She said,
very very white, with a little bit of purple lavender.
They went to the ball and Mila won the costume prize,
which was a transistor radio. But she had caught the
(24:57):
eye of Hunt Stromberg program manag ABC Channel two, Los Angeles,
and he looked for her for five months, from October
to March. He finally talked to this guy, the one
who had encouraged her the beginning to go to the
Bowl thrib and he says, oh, she's easy to find.
Speaker 5 (25:19):
So they found me and they told me to come in,
and I came in. He said, come in costume. And
I came in during the Eyes of March wearing a
great Valenciaga cape coat and the winds winds of the
Eyes of March were flapping it and people were coming
out of a little bummelow saying, oh, there's Hunts vampire there.
I had no hair. You just didn't see ladies with
(25:40):
crew cuts in those days. But I had all sorts
of things women didn't see in those days, you know.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
And Mila was interviewed by hunt Stromberg. He told her
what he wanted. He wanted her to be the horror host.
And she said, well, who else are you going to have?
From Adam's family. It was a cartoon that was published
in the New Yorker in those days. And he said, oh, well,
you know, we can't afford anybody else. We just want you.
And Mala said, well, I can't possibly do it then,
(26:06):
because you would be ripping off Charles Adams. This particular
character is his character. And he says, well, then I
don't know what we're going to do. And she says, well,
can I come up with something a little different? And
he says, I'll give you four days. So Mila went
home and she took her costume from October and turned
(26:29):
it backwards.
Speaker 5 (26:31):
So then I saw a book by John Willie Bondage
and Discipline. I said, ah, that's it. I had been
a pinup model. I've been doing cheesecake right at that time.
So I took the cheesecake and the Bondage and Discipline,
and I sinched to waste.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Her waist she sensed to in those days, nineteen inches,
and I.
Speaker 5 (26:52):
Put in the fish net hose, I slipped the dress.
I changed Mortitio's statement. I gave her Hollywood makeup, and remembering.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Too that there was a.
Speaker 5 (27:04):
Bit of Greta Garbo in here in, something a little Dostoevsky,
and something just a wee bit spooky like Norma Desmond.
Were just turned me on big and Suset Boulevard. I've
made up my mind we'll bury him in the garden.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Any city laws against that, I wouldn't know. I don't
care anyway.
Speaker 5 (27:20):
I want the coffin to be white, and I wanted
specially lined with second. Now when you see it, it
looks like I'm imitating Norma Desmond, which I was, but
I didn't know it, you know, a subliminal.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
She wore bust pads because she wanted the bust in
the hips to be remarkably larger than this teeny tiny ways.
She wanted to look like she was not even human,
like she came in parts. Then she glued on some
false fingernails that were three inches long and painted the nails.
(27:53):
She made them out of margarine tubs, and she got
herself a black wig that she from a store downtown.
She walked in to an interview with hunt Stromberg four
days later, dressed as what we know now as Vampira.
(28:14):
Hunt Stromberg goes forward. Of course, this was exactly who
he wanted, and a star was born.
Speaker 4 (28:23):
And so Milo was signed to bring her character to
live TV on The Vampire Show.
Speaker 5 (28:34):
Me Reading that show.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
It premiered on April thirty, nineteen fifty four, and then
the next night it was on at its regular time midnight.
Made first nineteen fifty four. She didn't have the beginning
where she walked down the corridor with miasthma of dry eyes.
She didn't have that yet. That came a few weeks Slater.
(29:00):
But she would just introduce herself. Hellow, I am vampire.
And she had this tiny, tiny waist and this low
cut blouse and the tattered sleeves and hemline and like
she said, my tall tall shoes, black hair, bizarre makeup
with boomerang eyebrows that arch sway up, and an overly
(29:24):
pronounced spread lip where she didn't see it because it
wasn't colored television, but you could tell it was a
different color of lip. And started talking about death and
how beautiful death was, and diatines and electric chairs.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
You know, I've often been asked why I don't like
My attic is electricity.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Everybody knows electricity.
Speaker 8 (29:49):
Is the chairs.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
And you can imagine what the audience thought in this
Eisenhower era, like what is this? Who is that woman
that had never seen anything like her?
Speaker 4 (30:06):
The idea was that Vampire would host a new horror
movie each night. She'd introduce the movie, come back for
ad breaks, and close it out when it was finished,
all while making clever quote unquote jokes.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
Our little fairy tale to night. It's called the thirteenth Guest.
The thirteen makes it timely, topical and terrifying. It's about
a humorous.
Speaker 5 (30:32):
Fellow who dies telling a joke, something of a dead
pan comedian. Yes, put me.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
Down in the room and we.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
Come in. And right from the get go, she was
insanely popular. People were writing to the station wanting to
know more, more information, and within a couple of weeks
they had to bump up the time start from twelve
(31:09):
to eleven so more people would be awake. And then
Life Magazine called Life Magazine. If you made Life Magazine
in those days, you were a star. You had made it,
And Life Magazine sent a photographer here down to Los
Angeles to film Myla, and that's when the hallway Candelabra
(31:34):
dry Ice entrance mark is beginning. They did that for
Life Magazine. I think she had a four page spread.
It wasn't just one page, it was four pages. It
might have even been five. He took pictures of her
in the back of I can't remember what make car
it was, but it was a convertible and was an old,
(31:57):
tiny Victorian age car, and Myla would sit in the
back with a parasol over her head to keep the
sun out, but the parasol was all shredded up. And
then she would scream at green lights and want the
convertible to go through the red lights. So she was
(32:19):
photographed doing that, people staring at her, like in broad daylight,
like who is that woman dressed like that screaming. She
was a hit. She was a huge hit. It was
nineteen fifty four, somebody talking about death AND's beautiful suicides
and eyeballs and frog brains and beteens and oh my word,
(32:42):
what else is she going to come up with?
Speaker 4 (32:45):
Sandra says that Mila felt more comfortable as vampire than
she did as.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
Herself, especially at the beginning. I think that was her
alter ego because sometimes she would just put on vampire makeup.
She had short blonde hair, and she would just leave
her short blonde hair and put on her Mala clothes
and go down to Googie's with a vampire face. I
(33:11):
think there's a quote in the book something about hiding
behind the makeup. She could be more aloof, she could
feel more powerful, she could be more distant if she
had her vampire face. Some vampire gave her permission to
be how she wanted to be. It was that little
bit of the evil queen persona. She liked it. Mala
(33:37):
claimed that she herself was very, very shy. She said
that several times. I don't see that. I don't see
Mala as being shy, but she claims that she was.
Maybe she was when she was younger. I don't know.
But she enjoyed being vampira. She enjoyed every moment of it.
(33:57):
She loved her. She's I love vampire irishoes my child.
I brought her up and I fed her and I
took care of her. And now when Mila was older,
she would say, now it's time for her to take
care of me.
Speaker 4 (34:14):
As Vampire became more popular, Mila was invited to join
Bella Lagosi on the Red Skeleton Show.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
I think there's somebody cold as it's my sister, the Vampire.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (34:32):
The Vampire Show was eventually canceled in nineteen fifty five,
but Mala briefly took the show over to KHJATV, where
she retained rights to the Vampire character. Meanwhile, Mala started
hanging out among the Hollywood elite.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
Schwabs was the celebrity hangout drugstore. Everybody went to Schwabs.
That's where they got their medicine, their pills and their
narcotics and everything else that they needed to function and
is oftentimes standing lonely, and so Mila hung out there too.
But then a new coffee shop was built next door.
(35:10):
In fact, they shared a common wall Schwabs and Googies.
Googie's was a coffee shop. You walked in and to
the left there was a horseshoe type counter, probably with
a Fike case in the middle. So the people like
Mila started hanging out in Googies. It was the place
(35:33):
to be in Hollywood if you were just starting out
in the movies. If you hope to be an actor
or an actress, if you were a rebel, if you
were a free spirit, if you were young, you went
to Googie's. The old school stayed at Schwabz, and Mila
often said that there almost was a battle between the
(35:54):
Schwabieros and the googie Items, and every once in a
while they'd back and forth. Maryland and Rowe would come
from Schwabz and come over and hang out at Googie's
once in a while, and so would Shaja Kabor, and
a few of the others would drop in to say hi.
But mostly it was the young rebel type people.
Speaker 4 (36:15):
One of those rebels was perhaps the most famous rebel
of all time, James Dean.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
You're tearing me abar what you say? One thing, he
said another and everybody changes back again. She didn't know
who he was. So Mala's sitting there with another guy,
and a motorcycle drives up, and that was James Dean,
and into goog Ese he comes, and she said, she
(36:44):
jumped up out of her boot and banged her crazy bones.
And the guy with Jack and her said he thought
Mala had a stroke because she was just mess prized,
just staring with a peculiar look on her face that
didn't change, and he said, what what myla and Malasen?
Is that guy right there, right there, right there that
(37:06):
came in the door, who is that? I must meet him?
And the guy turned around and looked. He said, oh,
that's James Deen. I was just in a movie with him.
I want to meet him. I've got to meet him
right now. They were introduced over by the cigarette machine. Anyway,
that very same day he asked her to go on
(37:27):
his motorcycle up to his apartment. They became thick and
fast friends after that very platonic relationship because I think
from the get go this is nothing, Mila wrote. Jimmy
became the son she had to give up for adoption,
and Mila became Jimmy's surrogate mother. She was always giving
(37:50):
him advice because she was eight years older than he
was a lot of years, but she was more mature
and wise, and she was always giving it, don't do that,
don't do that, do it this way, do it, you know,
and usually he just ignored her, but he listened and
they were good friends. And then here's the bizarre part.
(38:14):
Jimmy was an unknown when they met. He had just
completed East of Eden, which was his very first movie.
He only ate three. In East of Eden, his character
name was Cal spelled with the C, and Mila had
given her adopted son a name so she could talk
(38:35):
to him even though he wasn't there, and she named
him Cal with the key. So I wonder what Mala
thought when she went, Oh, he's Cal Prass and I
have a col. So this is the Great Universe telling
me you're not alone. Your surrogate son is here. That's
my thoughts.
Speaker 4 (38:56):
Mala and James Dean developed a passionate friendship lasted for years,
but it was also a friendship that would end in
disaster for both of them. On September thirtieth, nineteen fifty five,
(39:17):
James Dean died in a tragic car accident, and it
blew apart Mila's world.
Speaker 1 (39:23):
I don't think Mila ever loved anyone in this world
as much as she loved James Dean. She never got
over his death ever. She loved him like a mother would.
She couldn't believe that twenty four years in his life
was snuffed out. She had to leave town because there
(39:45):
were too many memories of Jimmy here. She was going
to go to New York. Marlon heard she was going
to go to New York, and he offered to give
her some money to get to New York, and she
wouldn't take it. She had a couple hundred bucks, and
so off she went to New York and about herself
an apartment. And as soon as she got back to
Los Angeles, here was Whisper magazine on the newsstand. And
(40:10):
Whisper Magazine was the lesser cousin of Confidential magazine. It
was the gossip magazine of all the stars. And on
the cover was a picture of Vampire and Jamesteen, and
the headlines screamed something about that Vampire had caused the
(40:30):
death of James Den because she put a curse on him,
and Mala contemplated suicide. That was it. That was the
straw that broke the camel's back, the person that she
loved more than anything in the world, she was accused
of killing him.
Speaker 4 (40:51):
With her show canceled and her best friend killed, Mala
fell out of work in Hollywood. However, in nineteen fifty six,
she got an offer from director Ed Wood to play
a part in one of his movies.
Speaker 6 (41:04):
Can Your Heartstand The Shocking Facts about Grave Robbers from
Out a Space.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
She didn't leave a lot of information behind about Edward movie,
but I know that she had met Edwood at a
birthday party for Bela Lagosi's son. He had said something
to her, well, you're going to have to be in
one of my movies sometimes, and Mila said to herself,
(41:35):
not a check, are you kidding me? She thought he
was pathetic. One way to kill your career is star
with ned Wood movie. So then he sent one of
his people over to Mala's apartment to ask her to
be in his movie. Mila had lost her job as
(41:57):
a vampire due to creative differences. Let's say Jimmy was
dead and she said, na I don't think so, and
he says two hundred dollars, And boy did that look
good for my law because she was almost like a
cat food, like she said, and she had all these
cats to be so well, maybe just leave the script here,
(42:20):
but I don't know.
Speaker 4 (42:22):
At first, Mila decided to leave Edwarod hanging and instead
took a few other gigs.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
A few months later, Liberaci came calling.
Speaker 7 (42:32):
The Las Vegas Hilton takes great pleasure in presenting the
Liberacci Show and starring.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
Liberaci because Bella Lagosi was supposed to be co starring
with Liberacci in Las Vegas, but Bella became very very
ill and couldn't d opt out, so he suggested my law.
So Liberacci took him out upon it, and he asked
Mila to be his co star in Las Vegas for
(43:00):
two weeks, and she jumped at the chance because Liberacci
was the highest paid celebrity at the time. That's where
she went, and that's where she met Elvis. Mila would
keep running into these people. I'll tell you. Elvis was
starring at exactly the same type across the street at
(43:20):
the Old Frontier, and Mila was across the street at
the Riviera. So they formed a romance.
Speaker 4 (43:29):
But when she got home, Mala found waiting at her
doorstep the script for Edward's new movie, then called Grave
Robbers from outer Space.
Speaker 6 (43:38):
Reading is my friend. We are all interested in the future,
for that is where you and I are going to
spend the rest of our lives. And remember, my friend,
future events such as these will affect.
Speaker 1 (43:51):
You in the future. Mila never touched it. It just
sat there, and then finally Edward's friend came back and said,
we're going to start filming here in November. You know,
are you on? And she says, well, I've looked at
the script now, and the script is so inane. I
(44:12):
can't say any of it. I can't bring myself to
say a word. It's so stupid. And this guy apparently said, well,
we don't care. We only want your name anyway, and
so that's why she didn't speak the word during the
entire movie.
Speaker 4 (44:36):
Vampire's role in the eventually titled Plan nine from Outer
Space was entirely silent, but her presence was a huge
part of the film.
Speaker 8 (44:45):
I was initially offered some lines, but the fact is
that the character, although I was built as vampire, the
character wasn't Vampire as I had conceived her. Empire as
I had conceived her was giddy, outrageous, and this was
a different kind of a She was in a trance,
and I just thought it would better if she was
in a trance, and I asked her please do it mutely.
Speaker 4 (45:06):
Still, Mila was embarrassed to have done it.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
She didn't think anyone would see it. She was hoping
that nobody would see it or a recognize her or
think about it. And I don't think she saw the
movie in its entirety until like nineteen eighty four, but
she was shocked surprised that it had become a cult favorite.
(45:31):
And it was also voted the worst movie of all time.
And I used to like to think about Citizen Kane
orson Well's the best movie of all time, Planned nine
the worst movie of all time, and they had a baby.
Speaker 4 (45:45):
For better or worse. Plan nine is considered one of
Vampire's most famous and iconic roles. When the movie had
a cult resurgence in the nineteen eighties, Vampira also had
a new boost in popularity. Then Tim Burton made a
nineteen ninety four biopic called ed Wood, where actor Lisa
Marie portrayed Vampire in the film, pardon me, miss Vampire.
Speaker 1 (46:08):
Yes you don't know me, but I'm Edwood.
Speaker 7 (46:10):
I'm a film producer and I'm currently in production on
a science fiction piece with Bella Legosi and Swedish wrestler
Tord Johnson.
Speaker 4 (46:16):
I don't understand. Do you want my autograph?
Speaker 1 (46:19):
No?
Speaker 4 (46:19):
I think my film is perfect for you.
Speaker 2 (46:21):
You want me to show it on my TV program? Well,
I have nothing to do with that. You should call
the station Managret Channel seven.
Speaker 7 (46:27):
No no, no, no, no no. I don't want you
to show the movie. I want you to be in it.
Speaker 4 (46:32):
Look I'm with some friends and we're about to eat.
Speaker 7 (46:35):
Please it would just take one second. Come on over
a meet the backers. There is a really nice dentist
from Oxnark.
Speaker 2 (46:41):
Look, buddy, I've got real offers from real studios. I
don't need to blow some dentists for a part.
Speaker 4 (46:46):
Forget it.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
She went out to lunch with Lisa Marie and she
liked her because she was fellow Sagittarian. They both had,
you know, November December birthdays. The one thing she didn't
like that Lisa Marie did is she says, when I
posed as Vampira, I crooked my elbows and put my
hands on my abdomen so you could see my tiny waists.
(47:10):
That was very, very important to the character. And Lisa
Marie would put her hands on her hips. That is
not the way it's done. And I told her before
she did it how to pose herself. Mala was very
particular about her character and that's one thing she did
not like. I didn't think it was that true to Vampira.
(47:32):
I thought it showed Mala as Mala. She had long
blonde hair. Mala had short blonde hair always and sort
of a gloomy guss. Mila really was a funny person.
She cracked jokes. She his very personable. In the movie,
she was just sort of angry. That's how I looked
(47:55):
at it, So I didn't think it was accurate.
Speaker 4 (47:58):
Mala didn't do much acting or make too many vampire
appearances after Plan nine. She instead ran an antique store
called Vampire's Attic, on top of a few other odd jobs.
But when she got a second wind of fame from
the ed Wood hype in the eighties and nineties, she
reveled in the spotlight.
Speaker 1 (48:16):
I think it did have an effect on her. I
think she loved it because then on top of being
in demand, she was able to sell her artwork on
eBay and support herself. That made her very excited, and
so she did a lot of drawings and paintings, and
(48:38):
I don't think she ever did any pros. She did
some sketching that were very good. She did a pencil
sketching of Arland Brando. She did Jimmy very well, and
then paintings. I have one of her paintings. A fan
of hers sent it to me and I'd treasure it.
And she was able to sell photographs, and she went
(48:59):
to conventions, horror conventions, and she was able to sell
her photos for twenty dollars a piece autographs, so that
put money in her coffers and she desperately needed it.
Speaker 8 (49:15):
Fifteen silent minutes, which has given me an entire new career.
Thank you, mister Wood.
Speaker 1 (49:20):
You're listening.
Speaker 4 (49:22):
With such renewed interest in Vampira. KHJTV decided they wanted
to resurrect the Vampire show, so in nineteen eighty one,
they asked Mila to return to TV, but it didn't
quite go as planned.
Speaker 1 (49:36):
They had done a lot of talking to Mila. They
wanted to revive the Vampire's show, and Mala finally said, okay,
but I'm not going to appear on camera. I'm too old.
And they finally talked her into making appearances as Vampire's mother,
and she said, well, vampire doesn't have a mother. She
just evolved. And eventually she says, okay, I'll appear on
(49:59):
camera briefly once in a while and mostly in voice only.
But you will hire a vampire of my choice, and
they agreed to it, and they had a contest to
select a vampire. Mila wasn't too keen on that because
she wanted Lola Falana to be vampire, which wasn't going
(50:23):
to happen because Lola Falana was a big deal in
Las Vegas at the time. They requested if she had
anything from the original show, and she said, yeah, she
had some scripts and she had pictures of the set.
She would bring those over to Cage Jay so that
they could peruse them so they would know how to
(50:43):
set up this new show and how to make the
set look like her set original set that was such
a success for poison bar or marble coffee table, rolled
the spider, the death's head pouch, the color of the
sofa red. And she didn't hear from them anymore, and
she tried to contact them and tried to contact them nothing.
(51:07):
So she finally went to the studio and says, hey,
but gifts, well, such and so's on vacation and such
and so's sick and blah blah blah. And then she
finally what she found out was if you come back here,
we've selected a Vampiro and we'd like for you to
meet her. Mala thought, now, wait a minute, you told
(51:28):
me I was going to be able to pick the
new vampire. But she thought, well, the least I can
do is go and take a look at her. So
she went to back to the station and Cassandra Peterson
had not arrived yet, and she eventually showed up late,
and she was wearing a red wig and some kind
(51:49):
of a full black skirt, and Mala thought, oh brother,
what is this. And one of the bosses of Katee
Say said to her, this is the new Vampira, and
we gave her the rights. It's between you two girls.
You fight it out. And Mila lost her stuff right
(52:09):
in and air. You did what you gave her, the rights,
My rights, she said, some exploitive deleted Let's just say
out the door she went, and that was the end
of that. They started production the first day, calling it
(52:29):
the Vampire Show, and Mila had a CS and de
SIS letter sent to them, you stop right now or
I'm going to sue your butt saw and they changed
the name to Alvira, Mistress of the Dark. But she
was a ripoff, Mila. Milah said, the only thing that
was different between them was the big boobs and the
(52:51):
top nod on her head. Other than that, they were
the same.
Speaker 4 (52:56):
Elvirus first show called el Virus Movie macob ran from
nineteen eighty one to nineteen eighty six.
Speaker 1 (53:03):
Hello Darling, Yes, sire is Lilo may that gell with
a shape that drives me el viras Mistress of the Dark.
Speaker 4 (53:13):
It was a huge success, and the entire time Mila
was attempting to sue Elvira khjatv for taking the rights
to her character. She never won that lawsuit.
Speaker 1 (53:25):
It impacted her the rest of her life. She says,
she's going to the bank with my money and she's
buying fancy, million dollar homes. I don't even have electricity.
I can't afford to feed my dog. And you can't
blame her. You can't blame Mila for feeling that way.
I would too. That was supposed to be her show.
(53:47):
She was supposed to be making the money. There was
no al Vira at the beginning. There was only Vampira.
I'm bitter about it too.
Speaker 4 (53:56):
Still, Mala had acquired enough fame from the nineteen ninety
four Edward biopic that she was doing pretty well. She
started to appear in a number of documentaries about wood.
Speaker 5 (54:06):
And this man said that he yearned, he had planned
to have a hope to have vampire in his production.
I thought he was to grab a hold of my
heels and pull me back down into the you know,
Nicholson dimes Meyer from which I had clawed my way up, and.
Speaker 3 (54:20):
I was insensed.
Speaker 1 (54:22):
I thought I wouldn't work for that idiot. How dare
he to aspire to me?
Speaker 5 (54:26):
Right?
Speaker 4 (54:27):
And she was successfully selling her art and memorabilia to
fans across the world.
Speaker 1 (54:32):
Things went very well until I think around the turn
of the century she got evicted from her house. She
lived in a converted garage. She eventually, in two thousand
and five moved right off Sunset Boulevard and she was
much happier there, and that's where she passed away, off
Serrano of Sunset in Los Angeles.
Speaker 4 (54:55):
Mila Ermie passed away of natural causes on January tenth,
two eight, at the age of eighty five. This is
when her niece Sandra collected her writings and started to
catalog Mala's life. I asked Sandra what she admired most
about her aunt.
Speaker 1 (55:13):
The fact that she never sold out. That has impressed
people a lot. Here she had this character that she
created and she was offered lots of money to sell
her rights. KBC wanted to syndicate the show. Mala said, no, no, no,
(55:34):
I would rather be poverty stricken than lose control of
my character Vampira and her honesty. Mila was brutally honest
and like I said, never sold out, never gave up.
She lived for over sixty years, most of those years
(55:55):
as a disabled woman and a single woman, and she
served Hollywood, which is a cutthroat town. Let me tell you,
I've learned that those things really impressed me about my love.
Speaker 4 (56:10):
Finally, Sandra set out to find her long lost cousin
the child of vampire and Orson Wells, and eventually she did.
In twenty twenty one. He was identified a seventy six
year old David Putter.
Speaker 1 (56:25):
Through DNA ancestry dot com and they matched my daughter
and David as first cousin once removed or something. So
he called her on the phone and I had been
at the grocery store and I walked in and my
daughter had this smug look on her face and she says,
(56:47):
I know who mylassen is. I know his name, I
know where he lives, and I have his phone number.
I said, come on, get out of here. You know
that's not even funny. She said, no, I'm serious. I
know his name. And I looked at her and I said,
(57:09):
give it to me now. So she did, and I
was on the phone within one minute. I mean I
was calling, that's how anxious I was. And I got
him on the first call. He asked me, you know
who my mother is? And I said, oh my god.
Because I had not sold my book yet, it was
(57:32):
not quite finished. I had another chapter and a half,
maybe the finish, and then I was going to be done.
And I said, you're talking to the only person in
the world that can tell you everything you'd ever want
to know about your mother. I'm writing a book about
her life. Really, I said, yes, your mother is Mila Normie,
(57:55):
aka Vampire. And he was silent, and he says, oh
my god, I've waited seventy five years to know who
my mother was and I find out she's a vampire.
Just cracked up. I was so happy. I have not
met him in person yet, but he's sending for my
(58:16):
daughter and I to come visit him in Vermont from Oregon,
and he apparently has his mother's eyes, and so I'm
very anxious to meet David in person. He'll be the
closest thing I'll ever have to a brother. David's adopted
mother died when he was only three, so he's never
(58:38):
known a mother. And I've sent him a vampire a
statue which he proudly displays in his home. And he
feels his mother around him. Now he knows who she is.
He talks to her and calls her mom. It just
touches my heart. He thinks that Mila's there around That
(59:01):
makes my heart happy. Who can come.
Speaker 5 (59:09):
In here is to go home.
Speaker 1 (59:11):
I can have a.
Speaker 3 (59:12):
Nice little.
Speaker 1 (59:16):
Step on the cat's tale.
Speaker 3 (59:19):
I don't being a cat, but we don't have a
cat a gy tale.
Speaker 2 (59:27):
This episode of Ephemeral was written and produced by Trevor Young,
with producers Max and Alex Williams. Sandra Nimi is author
of Glamour Cool, The Passions and Pain of the Real
Vampire Myla Nurmi. Big thanks to Farrell House Publishing for
coordinating the interview. And we want to hear from you.
(59:47):
Are you a vampire fan? Who are your favorite characters
from the horror Universe. Let us know on social media.
We're at Ephemeral show and For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Speaker 4 (01:00:06):
Happy Halloween,
Ephemeral News
Host
Alex Williams
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