The Official Vampira - Maila Nurmi Page

Welcome to The Official Memorial Page for Maila Nurmi/Vampira. We who cared for her the last few years of her life created this page to not only remember the woman and icon who created Vampira but also to keep people updated about the future memorial services for Maila. We are currently raising fund so that she will be interred in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Please see the specifics of how you can help directly on the left of the page.
Maila was a huge animal lover and was always very active with supporting animal rescue groups. We are currently setting up a memorial fund with Best Friends Animal Society in Utah that will house and care for animals too feral to be placed elsewhere. This fund will support the care for these animals so they may live out the rest of their lives in the comfort of the Sanctuary.
In the next few days and weeks this page will update with banners/codes, blogs from those who knew her and information about how you can give back to the beauty who gave us all so very much.
Thank you for all of your adoration, loyalty and support.
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Born Maila Syrjäniemi, the niece of the Finnish athlete Paavo Nurmi, who began setting long-distance running world records in 1921, the year of her birth. She moved to the United States with her family when she was two years old and grew up in Ashtabula, Ohio. Arriving in Los Angeles at age 17, she modeled for Alberto Vargas, Bernard of Hollywood, and Man Ray, gaining a foothold in the film industry with an uncredited role in Victor Saville's 1947 film, If Winter Comes. Like many struggling actresses in the 1950s, Nurmi (along with Julie Newmar, Tina Louise, et al.) posed for pin-up photos in dozens of men's magazines such as Famous Models, Gala and Glamorous Models.
The idea for the Vampira character was born in 1953 when Nurmi attended choreographer Lester Horton's annual Bal Caribe Masquerade in a costume inspired by a character in The New Yorker cartoons of Charles Addams. Her appearance with pale white skin and tight black dress caught the attention of television producer Hunt Stromberg, Jr., who wanted to hire her to host horror movies on the Los Angeles television station KABC-TV, but Stromberg had no idea how to contact her. He finally got her phone number from Rudi Gernreich, later famed as the designer of the topless swimsuit. The name Vampira was the invention of Nurmi's husband, Dean Riesner (1918-2002), screenwriter of Dirty Harry, Charley Varrick, Play Misty For Me and numerous other movies and TV episodes.
On Friday night, April 30, 1954, KABC-TV aired a preview, Dig Me Later, Vampira, at 11:00 p.m. The Vampira Show premiered on the following night, May 1, 1954. For the first four weeks, the show aired at midnight, moving to 11:00 p.m. on May 29. As Vampira, Nurmi introduced films while wandering through a hallway of mist and cobwebs. Her horror-related comedy antics included talking to her pet spider Rollo, and encouraging viewers to write for epitaphs instead of autographs. When the series was canceled in 1955, she retained rights to the character of Vampira and took the show to KHJ-TV 9. A single kinescope of Nurmi in character advertising the station's ability to draw customers for advertisers and several episode scripts are held by private collectors.
Nurmi made television history as the first horror movie hostess. In the years that followed, Universal Studios released a syndicated package of 52 horror classics under the program title Shock Theater. Independent stations in major cities all over the U.S. began showing these films, adding their own ghoulish host or hostess (including Vampira II and other lookalikes) to attract more viewers. This trend flourished over the next few decades, culminating in the 1980s with Cassandra Peterson's sexy Elvira, Mistress of the Dark character.
Nominated for an Emmy Award as "Most Outstanding Female Personality" in 1954, she returned to films with 1955's Too Much, Too Soon, followed by The Big Operator and The Beat Generation. Her most notable film appearance was in Ed Wood's camp classic, Plan 9 from Outer Space, as a Vampira-like zombie (filmed in 1956, released in 1959). In 1960, she appeared in I Passed for White and Sex Kittens Go to College, followed by the 1962 film, The Magic Sword.