Beautiful exotic actress and model Maila Elizabeth Syrjäniemi was known proffessionaly as Maila Nurmi and to her legions of fans as Vampira, died peacefully in her sleep from cardiac arrest on January 10th, 2008. The star of Plan 9 From Outerspace and similar “Z” grade motion pictures, Nurmi adapted the character Morticia from the Charles Addams cartoon to create TV horror-host Vampira, a glamorous ghoul with a plunging neckline and 13″ waist. Vampira would introduce sludge movies, crack jokes and toast you with her bottle of sulphuric acid.
Nurmi began the horror-show host phenomena in the year 1954-1955 and based her dress and cool morbid attitude on Addams’ Morticia character as seen in New Yorker cartoons mixed in with her own twisted beatnik sensibility. Vampira was the original horror host, an icon of goth style and offbeat beauty. She earned $75.00 a week for her role, and was cancelled one year later due to public outrage and the fact she refused to sell the character she created to KABC. Not one of the shows exist, except for several on-set stills and the opening sequence. The Vampira show remains a legend. After its first few weeks of airing the star of KABC TV was featured in national magazines Life and Newsweek. Fan clubs sprang up around the world.
In 1959, Nurmi was “discovered” by Ed Wood Jr., the transvestite genius director of wonderfully bad movies. She stole the show in Plan Nine From Outerspace, playing a grave robbing ghoul alongside wrestler Tor Johnson and Bela Lugosi who died a week into the filming.
In her later years, Nurmi opened a Los Angeles antique store called Vampira’s Attic and worked on the Kevin Sean Michaels documentary, Vampira: The Movie, released in 2006.
“A scar on the hand the hand might be quite continental, But demons are a ghoul’s best friend.” — Maila Nurmi
Malia’s story was published by Feral House in 2021, as Glamour Ghoul: The Passions and Pain of the Real Vampira, Maila Nurmi, written by her neice Sandra Niemi. In Glamour Ghoul, Niemi had access to private diaries, notes, ephemera and family stories. Glamour Ghoul brings new insights to her relationships with Orson Welles, James Dean, and Marlon Brando. “Oh yes, I dated Orson Welles, said Nurmi. “We had many encounters on both coasts. I remember the first time he saw me in a boudoir, in a negligee, he said in that wondrous voice of his, ‘Magnificent Carcass.’ ‘MAGNIFICENT CARCASS?’ I thought to myself. Whatever, I didn’t see that one coming. But that’s really all I want to say about Orson. I don’t want to go into how he gave me the Clap.”
Hear one of the last live interviews with Nurmi where she talks about the creation of Vampira on You Tube. Learn more about this independent, unique and doomed actress at SCREEN SIRENS. Rust in pieces lovely ghoul –and as Vampira would say at the end of each show, “Bad dreams, darling!”
Every clip of Vampira from Plan 9 From Outerspace:
“Screaming relaxes me so…” Perhaps the only surviving clip from the opening of The Vampira Show.