The Crazy Real-Life Story Of The Woman Who Created Vampira

Following her failed bid at movie stardom, Maila Nurmi spent a decade on Hollywood's fringes. Supporting herself as a pinup model, Nurmi molded herself into a sexy "girl next door" type for West Coast cheesecake magazines. By 1953, she was married to screenwriter Dean Riesner and working in a cloakroom on the Sunset Strip.

According to a 1983 career retrospective Nurmi wrote for Fangoria, the creation of Vampira was part of a convoluted plan to raise funds for a career change. "I wanted to become an evangelist and needed $20,000 to sponsor myself. . .," Nurmi wrote. Inspired by Charles Addams' popular Homebodies cartoons in The New Yorker, Nurmi believed that she could make a splash at choreographer Lester Horton's annual costume ball, the Bal Caribe, dressed as the strip's gaunt unnamed matriarch — maybe enough of a splash to get a producer to help her launch a live-action TV version of the Addams cartoon.

Although Nurmi didn't attract the attention of any Addams' associates, she nevertheless was the hit of the Bal Caribe. In a tight and tattered, homemade black dress and a rented wig, Nurmi took first prize in the masquerade's costume competition. "My flat-chested, barefooted Victorian vampire-matron was an unqualified success," Nurmi wrote.

Unbeknownst to Nurmi, she had caught the eye of KABC -TV program director Hunt Stromberg, Jr. Convinced he had found a way to liven up his station's late-night movie roster, he launched a months-long search to find the mysterious woman in black.

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