34 Facts About Maila Nurmi

Maila Elizabeth Syrjaniemi, known professionally as Maila Nurmi, was a Finnish-American actress who created the campy 1950s character Vampira.

Maila Nurmi was raised in Astoria, Oregon, where she worked in tuna and salmon canneries.

Maila Nurmi relocated to Los Angeles in 1940, with hopes of becoming an actress.

Maila Nurmi is billed as Vampira, despite not playing the character, in the 1959 films The Beat Generation, where she plays a beatnik poet, and crime film The Big Operator.

Maila Nurmi was portrayed by Lisa Marie in Tim Burton's 1994 biopic, Ed Wood.

Maila Nurmi was born to Onni Niemi, a Finnish immigrant, and Sophia Peterson, an American of Finnish descent.

Maila Nurmi's place of birth was at one time disputed: according to biographer W Scott Poole in Vampira: Dark Goddess of Horror, she was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

Maila Nurmi's father worked as a lecturer and editor; her mother worked as a part-time journalist and translator to support the family.

Maila Nurmi relocated to Los Angeles, California in 1940, and later to New York City, to pursue acting.

Maila Nurmi modeled for Alberto Vargas, Bernard of Hollywood, and Man Ray, and gained a foothold in the film industry with an uncredited role in Victor Saville's 1947 film, If Winter Comes.

Maila Nurmi was fired in 1944 by Mae West from the cast of West's Broadway play, Catherine Was Great, because West feared she was being upstaged.

Maila Nurmi worked as a showgirl for the Earl Carroll Theatre and as a high-kicking chorus line dancer at the Florentine Gardens along with stripper Lili St Cyr.

The idea for the Vampira character was born in 1953, when Maila Nurmi attended choreographer Lester Horton's annual Bal Caribe Masquerade in a costume inspired by as-yet-unnamed Morticia Addams in The New Yorker cartoons of Charles Addams.

Maila Nurmi finally got her phone number from Rudi Gernreich, later the designer of the topless swimsuit.

Maila Nurmi's characterization was influenced by the Dragon Lady from the comic strip Terry and the Pirates and the evil queen from Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

Maila Nurmi then introduced that evening's film while reclining barefoot on a skull-encrusted Victorian couch.

Maila Nurmi's horror-related comedy antics included ghoulish puns, such as encouraging viewers to write for epitaphs instead of autographs, and talking to her pet spider Rollo.

When her KABC series was cancelled in 1955, Maila Nurmi retained rights to the Vampira character and took the show to a competing Los Angeles television station, KHJ-TV.

Several episode scripts and a single promotional kinescope of Maila Nurmi recreating some of her macabre comedy segments are held by private collectors.

Maila Nurmi made television history as the first horror movie hostess.

Maila Nurmi's best known film appearance was in Ed Wood's camp classic, Plan 9 from Outer Space, as a Vampira-like zombie.

Maila Nurmi made items for several celebrities, including Grace Slick of the music group Jefferson Airplane, and the Zappa family.

In 1981, Maila Nurmi was asked by KHJ-TV to revive her Vampira character for television.

Maila Nurmi worked closely with the producers of the new show and was to get an executive producer credit, but eventually left the project over creative differences.

In 2001, Maila Nurmi opened an official website and began selling autographed memorabilia and original art on eBay.

Unlike Elvira, Maila Nurmi authorized very few merchandising contracts for her Vampira character, though the name and likeness have been used unofficially by various companies since the 1950s.

Maila Nurmi claimed she had a child with Orson Welles; since Welles was married to Rita Hayworth, the child was given up for adoption on the day he was born in March 1944.

Maila Nurmi escaped and called the police, with help from a local shop owner.

Maila Nurmi first saw James Dean at the "Sabrina" premiere and was personally introduced to him the following day by fellow East of Eden actor Jonathan Haze.

Maila Nurmi said: 'I had studied The Golden Bough and the Marquis de Sade, and I was interested in finding out if this girl was obsessed by a satanic force.

In 1949, Maila Nurmi married her first husband, Dean Riesner, a former child actor in silent films and later the screenwriter of Dirty Harry, Charley Varrick, Play Misty for Me, and numerous other movies and TV episodes.

Maila Nurmi married her second husband, younger actor John Brinkley, on March 10,1958.

Maila Nurmi married actor Fabrizio Mioni on June 20,1961, in Orange County, California.

Maila Nurmi died of natural causes on January 10,2008, at her garage apartment in Hollywood, aged 85.