In the mid-50s, TV executives discovered that you could license cheap horror/suspense movies, air them late at night, tie the whole show together with a hokey character providing lead-ins, and get pretty big ratings. So began the trend of Horror Hosts, like Shock Theater with Roland “The Cool Ghoul” or Sir Graves Ghastly or Svengoolie. However, the inarguable progenitor of it all was Maila Nurmi in The Vampira Show.

The Vampira Show ran from 1954-55, and featured Nurmi as a Morticia Addams-like character in a tight, low-cut black dress. Throughout the night’s entertainment, she would make jibes about the low-budget horror movie while reclining barefoot on a dark couch decorated with skulls. Between segments, she would play with her pet spider, talk with “ghosts” around the set, and torment her producer. This was enough to draw big viewing numbers in LA, and eventually media outlets across the country were talking about Vampira. While her show was based in Los Angeles, she would appear on a number of other shows and even a handful of movies, including Ed Wood’s legendary Plan 9 From Outer Space. However, when Nurmi refused to sell the rights to the character to ABC, they cancelled the show.

Cut forward to 1981, and executives were looking to cash in on the resurgence of horror movies. They reached out to Maila Nurmi to re-create The Vampira Show for a modern audience. However, Nurmi was well aware that the primary appeal was that she wore a tight, low-cut, black dress, and she didn’t think audiences would be as interested in watching her do it all over 27 years later. So she referred the producers to Lola Falana, a younger actress whom she had mentored. Executives looked into Lola Falana, found out she’s black, and turned her down. Incensed, Nurmi refused to give them the rights to Vampira.

And so it came to pass that LA TV executives went about ‘creating’ Elvira, shamelessly ripping off everything that had worked on the original Vampira Show to create Elvira’s Movie Macabre. In later interviews, Nurmi openly accused Cassandra Peterson of emulating Vampira through the Elvira character. Though as time went on, Evira became more of an 80’s goth chick and less of a vampire.

Lola Falana would appear a handful of times on TV and in movies before calling it quits in 1997.