{"id":1698,"date":"2008-01-12T17:46:00","date_gmt":"2008-01-12T21:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=1698"},"modified":"2021-03-15T11:09:13","modified_gmt":"2021-03-15T15:09:13","slug":"rip-maila-vampira-nurmi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=1698","title":{"rendered":"RIP: Maila "Vampira" Nurmi"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>Maila Nurmi<\/span>, better known as Vampira<\/span>, passed away yesterday<\/span> at the age of 86<\/span>. Although few would recognize Ms. Nurmi’s name<\/span>, almost everyone knows her “Vampira”<\/span> character. <\/span><\/div>\n
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Maila Nurmi<\/span> <\/span>was born in Finland<\/span>, but moved to the US<\/span> with her family while still in her teens. <\/span>Maila<\/span> dreamed of stardom on the silver screen and headed for Hollywood<\/span>.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span>Although romantically linked to Marlon Brando, Orson Welles<\/span> and even James Dean<\/span>, it was a masquerade ball in 1954<\/span> that led to her pop culture iconic status<\/span>. Maila<\/span> attended dressed as Mortica Addams<\/span> [from Charles Addams New Yorker cartoons<\/span> which later became the basis for the popular Addams Family<\/span> tv series]. Maila <\/span>won the contest by beating out nearly 2,000<\/span> other contestants. <\/span><\/div>\n
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Maila<\/span><\/span> made such an impact that several months later she was offered the role as host of KABC’s late Saturday night horror movies<\/span><\/a>. With a few costume modifications and new name, Vampira<\/span> was born! <\/span>Maila<\/span><\/span> and the show were an instant hit and provided the framework for all of the horror hosts that would follow. Vampira<\/span> was profiled in Life<\/span> and Newsweek<\/span> [within a month of each other] and Maila<\/span> began guesting on nationally syndicated shows. She was even nominated as the “Most Outstanding Female Personality of 1954”<\/span> by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences<\/span>.<\/span>Judging by her impact on popular culture, you’d probably think that Vampira’s horror host role<\/span> lasted years, immediately led to movies, comics<\/span>, and more — but you’d be wrong. Despite the show being a smash hit,.it lasted just over a year. Some say that Maila<\/span> was difficult to work with, while others say that the FCC<\/span> and network blackballed her due to her on-air comments and double entendres.<\/p>\n

Maila<\/span> did make appearances in a few movies after her tv show was cancelled; most notably Ed Wood’s<\/span> infamous “Plan 9 From Outer Space.”<\/span> Maila<\/span> left show business in the early 60’s<\/span>, but her spirit lived on through the antics of dozens of other horror hosts<\/span> such as Zacherley, Sammy Terry<\/span>, and even Elvira<\/span> [who was later unsuccessfully sued by Maila<\/span>]. With the growth of the goth movement, the “popularity” of “Plan 9”<\/span> and Tim Burton’s “Ed Wood”<\/span> film, Maila<\/span> enjoyed renewed popularity in her later years.<\/p>\n

It appears that Maila<\/span> died leaving behind no family members. Our thoughts and prayers go out to her friends and many fans.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Maila Nurmi, better known as Vampira, passed away yesterday at the age of 86. Although few would recognize Ms. Nurmi’s<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":912,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[17,53,57,50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-celebs","category-horror","category-rip","category-tv"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/912"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1698"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25879,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1698\/revisions\/25879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}