By SANDRA NIEMI (Feral House; 2021)
This isn’t the first book about Maila Nurmi (1922-2008), a.k.a. Vampira, but it is very likely the best. Written by Nurmi’s niece Sandra Niemi, GLAMOUR GHOUL functions as both a straightforward biography and a personal memoir, and works equally well as both.
Its chief biographical source is a cache of elegantly written recollections by Nurmi, uncovered by the author while cleaning out her aunt’s home. The recollections are extensively quoted, and supplemented by autobiographical recountings by Niemi. In this sense this book is not unlike other recent biographies (such as the Lance Henriksen centered NOT BAD FOR A HUMAN), but surpasses them simply because Niemi is a damn fine writer who provides an account that even in its latter portions, which become increasingly autobiographical on the part of the author, is never less than riveting.
Its chief biographical source is a cache of elegantly written recollections by Nurmi, uncovered by the author while cleaning out her aunt’s home.
Covered is Maila Nurmi’s upbringing in Astoria, OR, where she spent her teenage years working in a fishing cannery (as did Niemi). Desiring a career in show business, she relocated to Hollywood, where she experienced much sexual harassment and a passionate love affair that produced a son. The father? None other than Orson Welles, who didn’t stick around much after the impregnation, forcing the impoverished Nurmi to give the child up for adoption.
Further Hollywood highlights included an on again-off again relationship with Marlon Brando and friendships with James Dean and Anthony Perkins. The latter two, alas, both ended in tragedy, with Dean dying tragically in a car crash and Perkins growing increasingly cold and unpleasant.
The major highlight was Nurmi’s brief tenure as Vampira, the world’s first TV horror hostess. This occurred on the LA station KABC, which had a robust library of old movies to show. That the program didn’t last as long as it might have was due to Nurmi’s surly and mistrustful nature, and also the fact that her bosses were assholes (proving that not much has changed from then to now). This had a profound effect on her career, which before the 1950s were through went south and never returned.
Vampira in Plan 9 from Outer Space
Nurmi’s best-known media appearance was in Ed Wood’s PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE (1957), the alleged worst movie ever made—and that represented a highlight in a career where chronic unemployment, crazed fans, fleeting lovers and persistent poverty were the norm.
Nurmi’s best-known media appearance was in Ed Wood’s PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE (1957), the alleged worst movie ever made…
There was also Elvira, a.k.a. Cassandra Peterson, the closest thing this book has to an overriding villain; Nurmi portrays Peterson as a talentless bimbo who blithely copied Vampira’s act, with Niemi summing up her chapter on Elvira with the observation that “Cassandra Peterson went on to make millions of dollars as Elvira, while Maila Nurmi didn’t even have a phone.” (For Peterson’s own take see her 2021 memoir). Things, however, perked up somewhat in Nurmi’s final years, when Vampira underwent a cult rediscovery and became an alt-culture icon.
“Cassandra Peterson went on to make millions of dollars as Elvira, while Maila Nurmi didn’t even have a phone.”
Also described is a 1989 visit the author paid her aunt, the details of which aren’t quite as dramatic as Niemi seems to believe (with the highlight being Nurmi’s brutal reprimanding of her niece’s 12 year old daughter). Still, this portion of the book, misconceived though it may be, provides a glimpse of the in-person Maila Nurmi, who comes off as an alternately charming and irascible raconteur (also on display in the documentary VAMPIRA AND ME).
This saga concludes on a most unexpected, but welcome, note: the finding of Nurmi’s long lost son. That Nurmi didn’t live to learn of her child’s identity (which I won’t reveal here) was a tragedy, but at least we the readers are granted that knowledge, which makes for an eminently satisfying close-out to a life you won’t mistake for any other.