Maila Nurmi, TV’s Vampira, dead at 85

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This article was published 15/01/2008 (6758 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

LOS ANGELES – Maila Nurmi, whose “Vampira” TV persona pioneered the spooky-yet-sexy Goth aesthetic, has died, coroner’s officials said.

She was 85. Nurmi died Thursday afternoon at her Hollywood home, Los Angeles County coroner’s Lt. Fred Corral said. The cause of death has not been determined, Corral said. Nurmi created her Vampira character – reminiscent of Charles Addams’ spooky New Yorker cartoons – to host horror movie broadcasts on KABC TV in Los Angeles in’54.

With darkly mascaraed eyes and blood-red lipstick, Nurmi appeared each week in her revealing black dress and slinky fishnets to introduce such films as “Revenge of the Zombies” and “Devil Bat’s Daughter.”

“The Vampira Show” was cancelled after about a year but Nurmi remained a cult figure among B-movie buffs and is thought to have inspired the vampish Morticia Addams on “The Addams Family,” which premiered about 10 years later.

But Nurmi’s cultural resonance did not translate into long-term wealth. In’89, she lost a $10-million lawsuit that contended Cassandra Peterson’s late-night horror hostess Elvira pirated her character.

“There is no Elvira. There’s only a pirated Vampira,” she was quoted saying in a story at the time.

“Cassandra Peterson slavishly copied my product and made a fortune. America has been duped.”

Among Nurmi’s scattered film appearances following her TV career was a cameo in Ed Wood’s’59 cult classic, “Plan 9 From Outer Space.” Nurmi was played by Lisa Marie in “Ed Wood,” Tim Burton’s’94 tribute to the B-movie director.

Nurmi was born Maila Elizabeth Syrjaniemi in Finland on Dec. 11,’22 and emigrated with her family to Ohio, said Heather Saenz, a friend.

In her late teens she went to New York City, where she fell in with a clique of actors and artists and moved with them to Hollywood to seek a film career, Saenz said. She worked as a chorus girl and model before appearing as Vampira, Saenz said.

Nurmi supported herself late in life by selling handmade jewelry, Saenz said.

Saenz and her husband, Bryan Moore, met Nurmi in 2005 when they recruited her to serve as grand marshal in a procession of hearses sponsored by Los Angeles’ Petersen Automotive Museum.

Moore said he plans to transport Nurmi’s coffin in a vintage’51 hearse that appeared in a scene of “Ed Wood.”

“So that’s going to be Vampira’s last ride,” he said.