Maila Elizabeth Syrjäniemi aka Maila Nurmi aka Vampira (11th Dec 1922 - Jan 10th 2008). Im a few days late in commemorating the sixth Anniversary of the passing of the legendary macabre Finnish actress and model, Maila Nurmi, best known for her rôle in Edward D. Wood Jrs classic Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959) and her own ABC TV series The Vampira Show (1954-5) and Vampira Returns (1956). Mailas family emigrated to the U.S when she was two and she became a successful blonde pin-up model in her teens and a small-time movie actress in her twenties. At a Hollywood masquerade ball in 1953, she won first prize dressed as a Charles Addams cartoon character and was subsequently offered, by Hunt Stromberg Jr, her own television show introducing late night Horror movies, performing skits and interviewing guests. Vampira was born, the first such host on TV. With her stunning beauty, darkly camp persona and strikingly macabre image - based on the Addams cartoon with hints of Theda Bara and Carole Borland - lethal-looking manicured talons, sleek, black hair (or extraordinary shaven proto-Punk/Skinhead girl look!), artfully-pointed breasts and seventeen-inch waist(!), Maila was a sensation, reputedly enjoying affairs with James Dean and Marlon Brando and even a fling with Elvis Presley. When her show was cancelled after three years, Maila carried on acting and modelling and living out the rôle of Vampira. Appearing in Ed Woods Plan 9 From Outer Space did little for her finances or career at the time and a year later she was reduced to selling linoleum flooring and working as a cleaner in movie star homes. She later opened an antiques and curiosities store, Vampiras Attic to supplement rare acting jobs and sold handmade clothes and jewellery. By the time Charles Addamss cartoons were made into a highly successful TV series, The Addams Family in 1964, quickly followed by the strikingly similar The Munsters, Maila was well into her forties and all but forgotten until Ed Wood and Plan 9... and, by association, herself, began to develop a cult following which grew through the 70s. In 1981, TV producers sought her out to work as a consultant on a revival of The Vampira Show but she withdrew from the project when its producers refused to cast Lola Falana as Vampira. The show was eventually made with radio personality and model Cassandra Peterson, with the hosts screen name changed to Elvira, which Peterson uses with huge success to this day. Maila loathed Elvira and later attempted unsuccessfully to sue her for appropriating her image and persona. In the 80s and 90s, Maila appeared in numerous documentaries on Ed Wood and Cult Film in general, revealing herself to be a genuinely bizarre eccentric. She appeared in a Punk musical and cut two singles with the band Satans Cheerleaders. She also continued to take acting rôles and appear as herself in low budget movies, while carefully licensing her image for a very select range of merchandise and, from the 90s onwards, she made a modest living selling memorabilia and pieces of her own art from a website. Maila died on or around January 10th, 2008, but was not found for several days when she was discovered decomposing on her couch with her dead cat and live dog, which was subsequently adopted. Maila Nurmi may be a largely obscure figure Today, and sadly never enjoyed the massive success of the far less fascinating Elvira, but her influence and visual style have endured and grown, from Carry On Screaming to Vampirella to Punk legends Soo Catwoman and Siouxsie Sioux to the Cramps to Kathy Acker to Lydia Lunch to Goth to Diamanda Galás to Poppy Z. Brite to Tim Burton to Maleficent. Like her equally fabulous cult contemporaries Tura Satana and Bettie Page, she retains an extraordinarily mesmerising dark beauty and a potent sensuality suffused with a certain deliciously eccentric mix of High Camp, humour, volupté and uncompromising defiance, as seductively deadly and dangerously serpentlike as any great Femme Fatale or Vamp rightfully should! Sleep only the light, diurnal sleep of the undead, lovely Vampira!
Posted on: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 15:41:27 +0000
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