The Vampira Show
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| The Vampira Show | |
|---|---|
| Format | Horror, Comedy |
| Directed by | Hap Weyman |
| Starring | Maila Nurmi |
| Country of origin |  United States |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 50 |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) | Hunt Stromberg, Jr. |
| Camera setup | RCA TK-30A |
| Running time | 90 Minutes |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | KABC-TV (ABC affiliate) |
| Original run | April 30, 1954 – April 2, 1955 |
| External links | |
| IMDb profile | |
The Vampira Show is a 1950s Emmy-nominated television show hosted by Vampira. The series aired on the Los Angeles ABC television affiliate KABC-TV from April 30, 1954 through April 2, 1955. The series was produced and created by Hunt Stromberg, Jr. and featured the Vampira character created by Maila Nurmi.
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[edit] Synopsis
The costume of Nurmi's Vampira character was inspired by the spooky The New Yorker cartoons of Charles Addams, later adapted for the TV series The Addams Family in 1964. As Nurmi told Boxoffice in a 1994 interview, she had dressed as Addams' at-the-time nameless ghoul-woman to attend Lester Horton's annual Hollywood costume ball the Bal Caribe in 1953. Nurmi's ghoul woman beat out over 2,000 attendees to win the evening's prize for best costume, and drew Stromberg's attention. When Stromberg approached Nurmi about doing the character for television, Nurmi then re-imagined the character and costume as a buxom and glamorous single vampire instead of the mother of a family, and she named her creation Vampira. Nurmi told Boxoffice that her intention was to invent a unique creation of her own that was "campier and sexier" than the mute and flat-chested Addams character, in part to avoid plagiarizing Addams' intellectual property.
Vampira's personality was based on elements of several silent film actresses including Theda Bara and Gloria Swanson as well as the Evil Queen from Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Nurmi also appropriated the long cigarette holder and extra-long fingernails from the Dragon Lady character in the Terry and the Pirates comics. The new costume was inspired by the artwork of John Willie featured in the fetish magazine Bizarre. As Vampira, Nurmi would sit on a Victorian double-ended sofa decorated with skulls and introduce the movie of the night, sometimes pausing to play with her pet spider Rolo, talk with off-camera ghosts, torment her advertiser, Fletcher Jones in amusing commercials, or drink a Vampira Cocktail at her poison bar. The show's theme music was from the Adagio movement in Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta by Bela Bartok and excerpts from Uranus from The Planets by Gustav Holst. Nurmi's salary for the show was $75 per week.
The show's concept of having a themed host introduce films was fresh at the time and had never been done before. In later years, stations all over the world would duplicate its format with similar hosts. The Vampira Show was seen in the Los Angeles area only but was featured in articles and photo spreads in Newsweek, TV Guide and Life within weeks of its first broadcast. The show and its bizarre hostess were an instant success and led to Nurmi's appearance on numerous 1950s television shows including The Red Skelton Show and Ed Sullivan's Toast of the Town. [1]
[edit] Cancellation
Despite its popularity, the series was canceled in 1955 when Nurmi refused to sell her rights to the character to ABC. Nurmi revived the series for a short time in 1956 on KHJ-TV with a different set and production crew. Ten years after The Vampira Show's first broadcast, ABC aired The Addams Family. The character of Morticia Addams (portrayed by Carolyn Jones), was modeled on Nurmi's Vampira character.
After the series demise, Nurmi appeared in the 1956 film Plan 9 From Outer Space, dressed as Vampira but out of character; Nurmi told Boxoffice that Wood's dialogue was so awful she sought and received permission to perform her entire role in a mute and spellbound manner she referred to as "Maila in an Alpha state." Nurmi also performed as Vampira in a Las Vegas stage show titled Come as You Are with Liberace.
[edit] Revival and changes
In 1981, KHJ-TV hired Maila Nurmi to recreate The Vampira Show. When Nurmi quit, the character's name was changed to Elvira. By 1982, Elvira's Movie Macabre was syndicated in over 80 markets across the United States. Nurmi, whose only income was Social Security, sued but lost her case when she was unable to pay for continuing legal expenses. In a 1987 interview with Skip Lowe, Nurmi stated there were over 150 similarities between Elvira and Vampira, including her closing remark "Unpleasant dreams, darlings". The Elvira character has since appeared in over 500 television shows, two feature films, released five music albums and numerous other merchandise including action figures, perfume, beer, videotapes, posters, clothing, costumes, pinball machines, computer games, comic books and trading cards. In a 2006 interview for Vampira: The Movie, Cassandra Peterson, the actress who plays Elvira, said of the lawsuit, "It was a no-win situation for everybody".[citation needed]
In 1994, director Tim Burton cast actress Lisa Marie as Vampira for the film Ed Wood. The film also featured a short recreation of The Vampira Show. The show was also recreated for the 1995 documentary About Sex, Death and Taxes and The Haunted World of Edward D. Wood, Jr..
[edit] Syndication & DVDs
The original Vampira Show has never aired in syndication due to it being originally broadcast live and never filmed or videotaped for future airings. No footage of the show is known to exist, however in the 1990s a kinescope advertising the station's ability to draw clients to advertisers featuring Nurmi in character was found in a private collection. The clips used in the kinescope were re-shot segments using a previous episode's script. Several scripts from various episodes still exist in private collections as well. Pirated copies of the kinescope film were widely distributed with a bootlegged DVD of the 1995 Finnish documentary about Maila Nurmi, About Sex, Death and Taxes, most notably by Kevin Sean Michaels, director of Vampira: The Movie, through eBay auctions[2][3]. The kinescope was also used in the 2006 film Vampira: The Movie.
In 2007, the kinescope film of Nurmi in character was restored by Rerunmedia, whose restorations include the Ed Sullivan Show and Dark Shadows. The restoration utilized the groundbreaking LiveFeed Video Imaging process developed exclusively for the restoration of kinescopes. The restoration was funded by The Clint Hickman Collection and Coffin Case.
A reconstructed episode of The Vampira Show was released from the Vampira's Attic web site in October of 2007. The release imitated a complete episode by using existing footage of the show combined with vintage commercials and a full-length feature film.
Though the show was unseen outside of the Los Angeles area, The Vampira Show has become a cult classic, spawning fan clubs the world over.[4]
